il: 111 ill m ] (Sfornell Unioerslty iOibratjj JOtijaca, Ntm Ijork BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF HENRY W. SAGE 1891 JC423 .S6°r" Un,V8r8 " y L ' brary T ^1llffinllliywiMifii!!ii S of wes,ern democracy 3 1924 030 448 975 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030448975 THE POWERS AND AIMS OF WESTERN DEMOCRACY THE POWERS AND AIMS OF WESTERN DEMOCRACY BY WILLIAM MILLIGAN SLOANE, L.H.D., LL.D. MEMBER 01> THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND LETTERS NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1919 1. h 45=1510 CoPYBIQHT, 1919, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS Published September, 1919 PREFACE The following pages were in type before the recent Treaty of Versailles was completed and signed. In consequence of this there are of necessity occasional verbal ineptitudes not fitting the moment of publica- tion, and for these the author asks friendly consider- ation. But what he began to write before the period of the Great War and has completed within it, is his deliberate opinion: that democracy is in its essence conservative, that the drift toward socialism is an attack on its very life, that the democratic nation is the best form of human association so far devised, and that neither democracy nor nationality insures enduring peace. It is a tremendous gain that the concept both of lasting peace and a republic of man- kind is at last considered a working hypothesis, even if fulfilment be postponed. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION PAGE The Passing Age in Politics 3 I. THE DEVELOPMENT OF DEMOCRACY IN THOUGHT AND ACTION I. Democracy: Its Natural History . .* . . . . 21 Its etymology; a good meaning for a bad word — As an ideal; as a fact: boss rule? many oppressed by few? — As a sovereignty; so splintered as internal that it becomes indistinguishable; external, based on forbearance of others — Extrava- gant and inefficient? Genesis of the state; two doctrines: social and individual — Biologists individualistic; psychologists social — Biology and anthropology neu- tral; psychology and linguistics social — History also social; the primitive family state; man a political animal — Abnormal expansion of family; gens, clan, tribe, city, state — Monogamic family the climax; psychologic evolution the bond — False keys to history. The state an organism of organisms-r-Every stage of de- velopment a stage of advance by individuals to liberty — The struggle for in- dividuality is a struggle for larger participation in politics — Our democracy based on the concept of taxation as a gift and on the contract theory: both fallacies — Liberty impossible without the state. II. Democracy in History 36 Beginnings in Egypt and Chaldea exhibit property as the cornerstone of personal liberty — The embryo of democracy among the freemen. Rise of tyranny — Con- tributions of the city-state to democracy. The principles first of universal, second of natural, right — The stoics and inherent rights. The jus gentium — One permanent gain, that laws drew validity from the popular will, i. e., of the free- men and military class — Futility of political theory in the ancient world — No liberty or freedom in reality; but potent concepts and dim visions of it — Chris- tianity introduces the right of choice as basic to spiritual life. Duty to God and neighbor — The world of status turned upside down — The teaching of Augustine — of Gratian and Aquinas — Marsilius of Fadua; popular sovereignty in church and state — The reformation and the right of private judgment — The influence of Calvin on democracy. III. Democracy in History: Puritanism .... 47 The Puritan revolution in England — The restoration and the revolution of 1688 — Puritan revival in the eighteenth century — The new tories in England and America — The whigs in England and America — The free-thinkers and Rousseau — Idea of the popular will; democracy and plutocracy— Beginning in moderate conserva- tism, America has reached moderate liberalism — The charters in American colonies — Religious and civil inequality — The lawyers and bills of rights — Limitation of popular sovereignty — French democracy and its influence — -The history of democracy that of an effort to express the popular will in action without harm to liberty. vii viii CONTENTS PAGE IV. Democracy in History: Its Institutions . . 57 Embiyonic popular will — personal choice in the vote, popular will in majority Embryonic organs of the popular will — Their difference in peace and war- money cost of expressing popular will — Democracy the most expensive form of government — Party government and professional politicians — The dark sides of non-representative democracies — Efforts toward direct democracy and the ex- pansion of the suffrage — Restraints on the abuse of popular sovereignty — Limita- tions in the exercise of suffrage — Constitutions and their function — Declaration of rights — Relations of minority and majority. V. Democracy in History: Its Devices .... 67 The representative system— Taxation — The tory concept of representation; delegation — Methods of choosing representatives — Representation of minorities and interests — Reaction of its organs on pure democracy — The American president as a representative — Men and systems in democracy — The 'three imperial de- mocracies — Essential democracy of Great Britain — Democratic elements in various states — Careers open to talents in the Orient — Church and empire in Europe — Influence of nationality. VI. Democracy: Its Formula and Terms . ... 77 Habit and force as sanctions of conduct; sovereignty more and more divided in the evolution of democracy — Freedom and liberty under various forms of de- mocracy — The politocrat as an adviser of ignorant voters — Democracy as a task- master in political education — Survival of misleading terms; individuals exert no sovereignty and retain no right except that to agitate and upturn; every system of democracy dependent on the majority of those who work it; bad men in minority may be reformed; measures helpless to produce equality, must be sup- plemented by men — Equality in possession of civil and political rights only, never in their exercise, where ability counts — The passion for inequality a menace to democracy — Possession of civil rights importunes political and finally social rights — Claims of the weak on the strong; state socialism a menace — Bureaucracy, civil service, office-holders a menace likewise — Politocrats and plutocrats, their danger- ous alliance — Democracy a chameleon in its hues. VII. Democracy: The Foes in Its Household . 92 Passion for expansion of domestic rights jeopardizes democracy — Overthrow of church authority by right of free thought — False emphasis on rights; duties for- gotten, rulers despised — Democratic state of mind tends to retard prompt ad- ministration — Resort to discipline and dictatorship in crises — Tyranny and oli- garchy in democracies: Sparta, Germany, United States — Indictments of American democracy; Brentano and Ostrogorsky — The democratic state of mind in Germany — External forces mould continental democracy — Social democracy in Germany misnamed; wants share in government — Democracy in Russia, the Orient, and Mediterranean lands — French democracy centralized and imperialistic. VIII. Democracy: Its Gains 109 Democracy has new ideal of "life" — Also of philanthropy and "liberty"— also of "pursuit of happiness" — Makes for purity and mildness, theoretical equality — Has transformed degree and extent of education — Dangers in quality of teach- ing and expansion of courses — Has set a new task for the universities — Has created wide-spread virtuous discontent — Has created a social conscience, with new views about duty, self-denial, and equality — Crude concepts of democratic morality require classification; demands sanction of force for all military service- injects elements of reality into dreamy Utopias — Adjusts secular morals to suc- cessive states of society; remodels political systems to suit — Discovers distinctions between liberty and license. CONTENTS k PAGE IX. Democracy and Efficiency — i 127 Democracy the medium of modern life — Degrees of feeling and realization — De- grees of efficiency — Democracy and bureaucracy — The social conscience — our democracy tenacious of continuity in peace — But also in war — Its efficiency in invention and its generosity to public servants — Its success in diplomacy — The modern concept of state systems— Our democracy not service; degree of self- knowledge — Versatility of its artistic genius— Commodity of city life — The "melting-pot" idea and its limitations — Reversion to colonialism — Freedom and servitude — Liberty and duty. X. Democracy and Efficiency — II 140 Humanitarian liberty of doubtful value — Abuse of the word "ideal" — Perversion of meaning in the word "natural "^-Limitations on the sense of "equality" — The new slavery— Our states as laboratories for the testing of novelties — New forms of town and city government— Democracy and petty revolutions — Democracy efficient in war — Battle with radicalism — Transformation in democracy at war — Leadership — Democracy and strategy — Government a deistic conception — De- mocracy and the divine right of the people — Inconsistencies of all governments — The abnegation of extremes. II. THE EVOLUTION OF THE MODERN NATION I. Democracy and the Nation 155 Changes in the meaning of terms — Divergent meanings of the word nation— Rus- sia under the Czars and the French republic — Nation and people — The question of size; Denmark — Geographical unity and natural boundaries — The question of religious confession — The community of custom — Economic unity — The ethical character of the nation — The use of dynasties in history — Race, religion, language, custom, and community of interest as unifying forces — Community of rights; Switzerland — The nation as a sovereign and a moral organism — The field of inquiry. II. The Method of Inquiry 168 The question of investigation — Distinctions between law and morals in history — Government as a science and as an art — Political speculation in the United States — The literature of the topic — Potency of political thinking — Interrelation of na- tions — Essential difference between political and natural science — Public and private law — History, pontics, and economics — Political ethics — The individual and the nation— Public and personal duty — History and philosophy as comple- ments^ — Development of personal capacity — Statesmen and history — The empiric and the ideologue. ' III. The Course of Political Theory 180 Personal elements in primitive nations — Confusion of temporal and spiritual power — Survivals of theocracy and of joint families — The city-state of Greece and Rome — Their historic development— Character and influence of political theory — The maxims of the stoic philosophy — The influence oi Christianity — Separation of church and state — National organization and religious ideals — The universal church hostile to the nation — Tendency to nationality — Theories of relation between spiritual and secular powers — Change from metaphysical to historical thought — The doctrine of sovereignty. x CONTENTS PAGE IV. The Nation in Theory and Fact 193 Relation of theory to fact — Supernatural authority in the nation — The state an institution ordained of God — National authority considered as an evil — The force theory — The social-contract theory — Reasons for its discredit — The derivation of the state from the family — Government and the state an immoral incident — The nation as a jural society — The nation as an economic society — The state as a moral organism — Speculation based on prehistoric investigation — The primitive society a family relationship — Local family worship a bond of union — Federation of tribes — The city-state. V. The Modern Nation 206 Liberty, the man, and the community — The ideal community directive, not coer- cive — Relation of man and his surroundings — Classes in the nation — Amelioration by private means and public effort — Dangers of political calvinisni and the jural state — The meaning of individuality — Meanings of the phrase "natural rights" — legal, moral, and natural rights — The social conscience: the nation an organism — Its duty to enlarge personal, and diminish social, rights — Limitations on coercive rights of the nation — International rights, coercive and directive. VI. The Oriental State and Nation 219 The ancient east unconsciously historical — Rudiments of both nation and state- Ancient Oriental monarchies defective in political ideas — The basis of authority conquest, its sanction theocratic — The common interest of common bondage- Equality among subjects: liberty unknown — The form and extent of sovereignty — Contrasts between forms of bondage due to physical geography — Self-indulgence and self-ignorance — Methods of despotism — Society artificial but unorganized — The city-state of the Orient. Carthage — The collective will in Greece and Rome — The Roman provinces and Roman empire — Relation of state and church in Byzantium — The growth of individuality. VII. The Mediaeval State 233 Charlemagne. The holy Roman empire — Feudalism in the state — The" thir- teenth century and nationality — The nation and the subject — Feudalism in the church very fluid— Feudalism in cities formal and incomplete — Feudalism as the oppressor of agricultural laborers — Revivals of the human spirit — Renewed com- mercial enterprise. Discovery and invention — New birth of the fine arts — En- largement of feudal units — The reformation — Completed sense of personal re- sponsibility — Forms .of the reformation — Influence ofj Calvin on politics — Eco- nomic results. VIII. The Modern State , . 247 Roman and Teutonic branches. Religious liberty — Absolutism and ecclesiastic- ism — Confusion of powers due to survivals — Dynastic politics opposed to national —Elements of a national state — Personal responsibility and the public good — Al- liance between burgesses and barons in England — The device of representation — The device of parties — The British people and a parliamentary king — Liberty and property. The American Revolution— Defects of the British system. Taxation — The Revolution of 1789 — Unity of government and nation— Sovereignty and constitutional government — The American constitution and democracy — Where sovereignty resides — Democracy dependent on enlightened citizenship. IX. The Nation and Its Home 261 Earth and man — Influence of the people on the land — Natural boundaries and surveyors' lines— The exercise of authority— Sovereignty dependent on territory —Reaction of the land on its inhabitants— The land and social institutions CONTENTS xi —Influence of natural resources — Forms of land tenure — Landlordism and small holdings — The metayer system in America — Collectivists and joint ownership- Nationalization of land: freehold ownerships-Relation of the state to land titles — The law of diminishing returns — Dwellers on the soil in relation to its full development. PAGE X. The Nation and the People 275 Heterogeneous elements in the modern nation — Enormous territory and enormous population — Desire for least government, universal suffrage, and state interfer- ence — Popular self-control by a people's other self — Abuse of state protection by politocrats — Restriction of immigration — Protection against degeneracy — Conges- tion of population — Character of immigration — Naturalization laws — Reform demanded, not revolution — Improvident marriages — The moral remedy for threatening dangers — The menace of extreme socialism and anarchy — The sphere of state interference in society— Legislation as an art different from the science of legislation — Religion and the modern nation — Remedial and directive legisla- tion. XI. The Nation and Social Classes 291 Social classes in the nineteenth century — French socialism — St. Simon, Fourier, Blanc — The burgesses in power — Malthus and Owen: Maurice and Kingsley — The new electorate and the laboring class — Marx, Engels, and Wolff — Prophets of the socialistic stage of government — Labor and wages — Cooperation in produc- tion and distribution — The basis of Marxism. The proletariat — Reforms ac- complished, but discontent growing — Reformers and revolutionaries demand state control — The appeal to force — Fallacies of socialistic reasoning — The social classes and their organization — The lowest class as a beneficiary of society — Impossibility of a purely economic state. XII. The Nation and the Individual 305 The free man the ultimate fact in social evolution — Christian socialists and social democrats — The so-called ideals of anarchy — The true ideals of Christianity — Danger in weakening personal responsibility — The menace of corporate associa- tions — The historical school of socialists — Directive powers of government — The socialized nation a probability — The social alliances of existing governments — Interrelationship of nations and peoples — Restoration of checks and balances de- manded — Taxation, extravagance, sectionalism — High cost of living in a federal democracy — Legislation controlled by median not average wants, the interaction of private and public virtue. III. THE STRUGGLE FOR PEACE I. The Idea and Philosophy of Peace 323 State federation and world peace — Hero and prophet worship — War and history — The peace idea in embryo — The Hebrew view — The secular conception— War as a condition; or a crime — The first true philosophy of peace. Kant — The war code of the Jews — The Greek attitude toward war — The stranger as an enemy and as a friend — The Christian doctrine of peaces — The second development of the peace idea — The inauguration and evolution of peace speculation — Cruce, or De la Croix — Outline of his plan — The theologians of the seventeenth century and war. II. Suggestions for Enduring Peace 337 The secular principle of right. Grotius — Locke as a peace supporter—The Quakers. Perm and Barclay — Bossuet, Fenelon and St. Pierre — The plan of St. xii CONTENTS Pierre and its influence — Rousseau's "extract" from St. Pierre as a new contri- bution — The school of Ange Gondard — Bentham's juristic plan — The Germans be- fore Kant. Lessing — The eighteenth century eager for enduring peace — Kant's peace philosophy of law — Kant's peace philosophy of history — His summary in theory and practice — His originality and advance — Futility of early nineteenth- century ideas — The betrayal of Kant in Germany begun by Fichte — Schelling and Hegel complete the process. PAGE III. America and the Peace: Our Concepts . . 357 War the actuality of history. Peace the exception and ideal — Stable peace obstructed by the stratification of men in civilization— Lasting peace possible only in the considerate treatment of the parties, whatever their culture — Differences of sanction behind municipal and international law: moral force stronger than physi- cal force — Precepts of wisdom behind all legislation; to be expanded in interna- tional relations— Our participation in actual war because these were outraged — The public law of Europe transformed by the appearance of America as a world- power — The old international law in seven stages — Wheaton's definition the most valid— Sovereignty, independence, equality: a grammar of politics, whose rules are proved by exceptions — The nineteenth century concept of peace. Kant's Utopia — Some elements of the Utopia realized. Social justice — Expansion of the concept hostile to imperialism, to secret diplomacy and to a double state system of alliances — War of the present time to secure hereafter consent of the governed in both external and internal matters. The power emphasized into a novelty — Is peace possible on the basis of levelling? — Homogeneity in politics dangerous even if possible. All life the interplay between divergencies — The condition of stability in peace that each people should have comfortable institutions—One type of intervention discredited, another on trial. IV. Further Concepts of the Peace 375 Popular participation in making war and peace so far very slight — Legal ability and technicality in control of international relation. Change demanded — The ideal of publicity in diplomacy and arbitration. The new intervention — Demand for direct popular control in public law. Dairy expedients for daily needs — Conspicuous example of the United States in harmonizing municipal with public law— A still greater novelty is intervention by war to maintain ideals, not for ma- terial gain— The intervention of all existing states in each other's affairs as an ad- vance toward perpetual peace: St. Pierre, Rousseau, Bentham, Kant, Wheaton — The mobilization of democratic states for peace a corollary of their mobilization for war. Questions — Failure of old expedients to answer them. The economic interpretation as a key — Fallacies to be exposed — Duty to posterity. Conserva- tion of natural resources— The integration of democracy— Antagonized by na- tionalism — Neutralization of American as well as of other interests. The imperial domain and the Panama Canal. V. Origins of the War: Primary Negotia- tions— I 393 The unstable equilibrium of international relations — Religious rivalries in the centre and east of Europe — Use of them by Abdul Hamid — First phase of German ascendancy — Transformation of policies in prosperity — The state of the German mind— Divided judgments but unity of purpose. Realpolitik— Turkey aban- doned by Great Britain adopts Germany — Pan-Germany and imperial expansion — Delcass6 and King Edward. The secrecy, of the entente— Outcome of the dip- lomatic revolution — Respective responsibilities of the belligerents — The chief cause of the war— The contributing causes. Belgium and Servia — Great Servia aspirations. Italian policy. CONTENTS xiii PAGE VI. History and Geography in the Nineteenth Century 413 The general association of nations as an influence by sea, and by land— failures of the Berlin congress of 1878. Change of British policy — Peace congresses and the map of Europe — Enumeration of peace congresses since 1815 — Their conserva- tive attitude — The recent conference and the map — First primary consideration Belgium and Alsace — The settlement of a new "public right" — "Reparation, resti- tution, guarantees " — The question of colonies — The economic question — The Bal- kan question — The enforcement of the conclusions reached by conference — Mini- mum terms of peace — Public opinion and terms of peace. VII. The Conflict of Ideals With Possible Attainment 433 An armed truce the first step toward peace — Whalt must be deferred. Institu- tional reforms — Regeneration of nationality, culture, and democracy — Poland, Bohemia, and Jugo-Slavia — Unreconciled race-stocks— Question of Asiatic and African nationalities — Is there a "right" of nationality? Language question — The struggle of "cultures" — Unsettled conceptions of democracy — The socialistic state now and hereafter — Proposed revolution in living conditions — Our imme- diate concern in the peace is time to settle internal affairs — Peace with honor or dishonor. Facts of alliance stronger than denial of alliance — The case of the Ukraine illustrates our possible obligations — Peace with honor impossible with- out time to arbitrate all these poignant, persistent demands. Limitations of the doctrine of interference essential: Wild Europe must probably try all the phases of historic experience: emancipation, dictatorship, constitutional monarchy and representative government — The sum of the whole matter is that the doctrine of perpetual peace is at last a working hypothesis and that the gains of struggle, however meagre, must be registered in the public law. VIII. Peace as the Test of Our Democracy , . 454 The efficiency of American democracy; military, financial, economic, and moral — Supreme test the fulfilment of peace terms; firm, definite, and enduring peace — Correction of those false and distorted conceptions of nationality which under- lay all other causes of the war — Our union the conspicuous example of coordinating national [municipal] law with international law: has afforded the first example of declaring war in support of the latter — Have we also created a public opinion which expresses itself internationally? — The doctrine of non-intervention to be sub- stantially modified but not nullified — Among questions regarded at first as second- ary, those of the Atlantic and Pacific have become primary — Our eastern shore compelled to look eastward: the importing and immigrant shore — The Pacific states should study and state the Pacific problem: the exporting and world- market shore — Our eastern and middle states fairly clear as to trans-Atlantic policy: The Pacific states superbly patriotic, but also disposed to look eastward — Their specific task to create a definite public opinion as to Pacific problems— Our deplorable lack in the comprehension of the Far East. No schools of commerce or diplomacy to study its peoples, tongues, and point of view — The homogeneity of the Pacific population should lighten the task of concentrating public opinion — The naval strategy of the Pacific. Instances of ignorance and indifference — Geography and physiography of the Pacific not studied as are those of the Atlantic — Ocean highways determinative factors in peace as well as in war: interdepend- ence of nations based on the knowledge and use of them— Enduring peace depend- ent on the fairness and justice of settlements: and the Pacific question second to no other in importance — There should be no sensitiveness as to what one region of the United States thinks of another. Each must perform its own task and im- pose on the others principles of right thinking and just dealing as to the whole. Index 471 INTRODUCTION THE PASSING AGE IN POLITICS Among the forerunners of the present Utopian and socialistic age, the self-styled Christian socialists of the nineteenth century, a favorite truism was: As men think so they believe and as they believe so they behave. At no time would it be, or have been, impossible for the multitude to overthrow its govern- ment and dismiss its rulers by sheer physical force. But the multitude did no real thinking, and for long the idea of such an upheaval did not occur to the ignorant masses, the dumb, driven, cattle; cowed, and content. " Ah ! Ignorance ! soft, salutary power ! Prostrate with filial reverence I adore," wrote Gray, the cosmic poet. In other words of his: " Thought would destroy their paradise, Where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise." To think hard, define your meaning, and lay down a maxim of conduct is a process which hurts, and few indulge in it. Fewer still act or are willing to act on the maxim, when formulated. Yet there always have been and will be a few, very few perhaps, but still some, thinkers. In the Orient thought for ages was the bulwark of contentment, the mainstay of con- servatism. In the Occident it has been quite other- wise; for political thinking has bred discontent, then unrest, then political revolution of some sort. In 3 4 THE PASSING AGE IN POLITICS the truest sense the history of western thought is the history of politics, the successive stages of human organization for the preservation and safety of life and property; for freedom of thought, speech, and action; as far as compatible with the general will and well-being. Without recurring to far antiquity we recall that the free-thinkers of the eighteenth century caused the great war which raged from 1789 to 1815. There ensued a brief reaction, but it was liberty of thought and speech which underlay also the movements of 1832, 1848, and 1861. With the emancipation of colored bondsmen in America the world prepared to emancipate all bondsmen: black, red, brown, yellow, and white. For half a century it had no other serious occupation. This is advisedly said, because, while there has been tremendous earnestness in commerce and trade; in the expansion of education and in the cultivation of the fine arts, what was broadly called humani- tarianism has been the one concern of the reformer class, a mighty host of determined persons in every walk of life, giving lavishly, some of their time; many, both of their time and money. The ameliora- tion of living conditions in regard to wages, health, housing, education, and direct control in politics, is the substance of what justly styles itself progressive, in domestic affairs ; in foreign relations, the one over- mastering passion of humanitarians, ill-advised but progressive too, is to impose on every people, what- ever the stage of its civilization, the institutions, laws, and forms of government, which, with clearer enlight- enment, they have devised for themselves. With what results? The so-called republics of backward civilization exhibit their sorry plight to dismayed and overhasty worshippers of humanity: even Ger- many has had a lesson to teach, as to how far the institutions of people in one stage of civilization and THE PASSING AGE IN POLITICS 5 development may prove a disastrous misfit for those in another. In the crisis of revolution there is al- ways an importunate demand for foreign interven- tion from those who otherwise are the very staff and bread of life in politics, the steady middle class; while reckless criminals murder and steal under gov- ernmental forms. To use the word government for blood-stained anarchy and radical chaos is a prof- anation of terms. If human beasts are more numer- ous than men, there is no remedy in foreign inter- vention, no remedy except complete exhaustion and a political order based on fear. On the other hand, such is the brotherhood and intimate relation of na- tions with each other, there can no longer be a ques- tion of the right of intervention by orderly states for the preservation of their very existence. The world looked on with approval when we intervened in Cuba to root out the sources of the yellow fever scourge; it will approve more heartily when we intervene, according to our ability, in any foreign land for the removal of a moral scourge, the infectious source of every outrage in spiritual as well as physical life. Red radicalism is a minus quantity in politics, the negation of law and order; this is true simply because there is no social union of a permanent, orderly kind without the enforcement of the ten commandments, either by moral or legal sanction: duty to God and duty to man. Purely destructive socialism in all its forms, especially that of extreme Marxism, the mi- nority rule of the proletariat, creates desolation and knows no peace except that of the desert. The only humanity which can live at all under such conditions is brutish; its units are fiends fighting for food, shelter, and existence. At the other extreme, that of autocracy, as we call it, brute force is at least trans- muted into an outward appearance of order, under which large numbers, the overwhelming majority, 6 »THE PASSING AGE IN POLITICS lead lives approximately human. In the matter of oppression and despotism, the horrors of rapine, murder, and theft are distinctly worse, and indeed are sure to be, under red radicalism than under so- called autocracy. The word autocracy is convenient, but pure autocracy never was and never can be. One autocrat can, of course, reign over a large num- ber of fellow human beings, but only by their implied assent, if not by their formal consent. Oppression may be imagined, and it may be real; but no govern- ment is very oppressive when the reaction against it is so unimportant as not to be efficient in working some sort of change or reform. History and litera- ture have this in common, that to tell everything is to tell nothing: clarity demands exclusion of the unimportant, and clarity is truth, as Descartes said. Moreover, in a similar way to think definitely is to will; and where there is no adequate expression of the will in action there is no practical will, and no thought in concrete form. Autocracy exists just so long as the public will is either dormant or else ex- hausts itself in talk; and no longer. The nineteenth century and this have professed liberty, freedom, and democracy. The scant majority has had some thoughts and some will in a true sense, putting both liberty and equality into action, and attaining some measure of its thought and will. But such is man, and such are men, that apparently those who reach leadership really believe in none of these things toward which they lead. What, apparently, they do believe in, is their own leadership and the infallibility of their own unassisted judgment. Power intoxi- cates, and the fine talk of self-styled democratic leaders eventuates before we know it in an autocracy which, though temporary, is for its duration just as dangerous as the more permanent monarchical type. The influence of achievement and personality in THE PASSING AGE IN POLITICS 7 human affairs cannot be eliminated: the mass of men desire their thinking to be done for them and long for leadership, while the leader of the demos, the demagogue in the best sense of the word, delights in power and its exercise, not so much for results as for the joy of self-importance. Whether or not we have the correct designation for the world war of 1914-1918, when we style it the "Great War," remains to be seen. "Great" in moral purpose and physical measurements, beyond a doubt. But "great" in results? This is still un- certain, and it seems imperative that history should examine its goods, taking stock of what it must retain, and what it is equally bound to work off on the bargain counter or to discard. The pages which follow are an essay in this direction. The passing age has considered democracy as the panacea for political and social evil, as having taken a long stride forward, and as having partially at least solved the acuter problems of human association. We would do well to ask ourselves what has been the evolution of democracy; what is its meaning, and what are its limits. The peoples of modern and contemporary history have considered the nation as the complete organ of human society under every form of govern- ment : monarchy, autocratic and limited ; aristocracy or oligarchy; republicanism or democracy. Social- ism and anarchy have now arisen to condemn the nation as the sum of all iniquities, and democracy as empiricism. The genesis, form, character, and achievement of the nation are matters of vital im- portance to all who wish to think constructively about present and future, and not be stampeded by the wild fury of mere verbiage as glib, fluent agi- tators, bad and good, squander words to the obscura- tion of ideas. Professedly all civilized peoples long for peace. Peace is the goal toward which, as we 8 THE PASSING AGE IN POLITICS convince ourselves, we press forward by means of family, church, and state: by the democratic nation in its elaborate form, including and perfecting all these. Actually, however, men demand peace with very radical modifications: peace with plenty; peace with honor; peace with safety, or at least security, within and without national borders. About no questions are most of us quite as ignorant as about the facts and duration of peace in history, nor the conditions of peace, nor the enforcement of peace, nor the sacrifices necessary for both social and politi- cal peace. It may be well to consider the relations of all these matters. The radicals want no nation- ality, and no peace in the present sense of the word: the conservative democrats want a league of nations to formulate terms of peace, and create, if moral sanction fails, an international police force as a physi- cal sanction. Every member of the league must eventually make the supreme national sacrifice, namely, a portion of national sovereignty. To se- cure peace in this way both democracy and the na- tion, as it now is, must be ready for immense sacrifice both in theory and in practice: of theoretical sover- eignty and practical equality. One of the terrible results of the war has been the try-out of anarchistic and socialistic doctrine in actual practice, with all its shocking and futile de- struction of life and property. It is not at all un- likely that posterity will discover the mad leaders of the mad to have been subsidized by other social classes, both in Russia and in Germany, for the pur- pose of evading obligations connected with the public debt and national reparation due for national out- rage. Stable government implies an organized na- tion, so far a person as to assume duties and meet obligations. A long period of squandering and waste may be pleaded in mitigation of penalties. Should THE PASSING AGE IN POLITICS 9 property owners under existing systems really use such a pretext for shirking, and strive to evade pay- ment of penalties incurred within and without by war; and should they have any measure of success in such a subterfuge, then the next phase of the na- tion must be entirely different from the present one: the new age will see a nation to which all moral quality is denied in international arrangements. Municipal law already takes cognizance of flabby personal and corporate morality by providing a sys- tem of collateral deposits and guarantees; interna- tional law will have to enlarge what it already does in a like way, that of occupations and seizure of na- tional assets. It may have to control every trans- action by collaterals and guarantees deposited in advance in ringing coin. The alternative would be non-existence for any nationality unable to do so; a nascent organism at best, crushed in embryo or outlawed if it survive for a time. If we strip the nation of all- moral quality, then each aspirant to nationality must be bonded in a great international clearing-house for the performance of its several obligations, bonded either in world currency or its equivalent, antecedent to its recognition as a nation by the other unmoral organisms called nations. The globe is too large, its inhabitants are too numerous and heterogeneous, to be comprised in a single or even several states. Many separate units of rule there must be, if, within each, the dwellers are to enjoy the liberty of living according to their own traditions, confession, institutions, and laws. And with contemporary notions about oppression, despotism, and autocracy there will have to be a far greater number of such units than ever before in modern history, so many, indeed, that the main- tenance of diplomatic relations and the enforcement of international legislation will preclude for a large io THE PASSING AGE IN POLITICS class of statesmen any other occupation than the conduct of international affairs. For two hundred years the civilized world found its account in reduc- ing for its own convenience the number of state sovereigns, until, with six or eight so-called great powers, and about twice as many more minor ones, the intercourse of governments did not revert to the inane absurdities which passed for peace politics among the scores and scores of petty sovereignties immediately consequent on the disintegration of the feudal system. At last the Congress of Vienna, con- firming most of Napoleon's work in this regard, totally destroyed a multitude of petty sovereignties, nearly three hundred. The Treaty of Versailles, the present public charter of the world, adds about thirty to the number lately existing, and does so in obedience to the noisy, stupid, clamor of semi-civilized tribes and clans for nationality. Should the poison of ir- redentism and pseudo-nationality be injected into American veins as into those of half-educated east- Europeans, the entire state-system of this continent, north and south of the isthmus, would disappear like a wraith. Peace among a limited number of sizable sovereignties is thinkable and possible, among scores and hundreds the thought of permanent peace is a hallucination. There is no period of world-history throughout which war was so prevalent as that during which the earth was all apportioned among insignificant communities. There is not much that is new under the sun in matters of politics: but there is no limit to the num- ber of doctrines and dogmas about society and property. For each of these day-dreams some light- headed idealist imagines a political device, generally a modification of a well-tried political structure: government of all by one; by the few; by the mass. Like everything doctrinaire the novelty of the vision THE PASSING AGE IN POLITICS n consists in the substitution for experience and con- servatism of theory and credulity. Folly wants a chance to discredit wisdom. It appears as if at in- tervals there must be periods, longer or shorter, of destructive chaos undoing the constructive work of several generations. The recurrence to reason brings back old and tried ways, with cautious leadership by intelligent men; and it must be confessed that meas- ured by almost any standard, there is in the event found to be some improvement. In the interim, however, during the period of revolution, such horror and outrage will have been perpetrated as make us demand whether the gain is worth the cost; whether there be no better way of advance. When for a long time every decency of life has been violated, and all joy in living has been quenched, reconstruc- tion is very difficult, and indeed often more painful than construction on a new foundation. But "Us Latins loves excitement," said a negro office-holder at Port au Prince to a visiting tourist in extenuation of his slatternly town, and the unedifying history of his country. All race stocks love excitement; add to this the detestation felt by every human being for dulness and boredom in his home; and then throw into the caldron of human weakness and depravity, impiety with its criminal zeal for idleness, theft, and murder; what a witch's brew! Yet just such a caldron was stewing and blobbing with no conceal- ment throughout a great part of Europe for more than a year, while the apostles of such criminal in- sanity were permitted in the name of free speech to lead astray the imbecile of all lands, and incite them to similar disorder and frenzy. To the present writer it seems imperative that readers and thinkers take into consideration, and that most carefully, the democratic nation as we have formed it, and kept it at work during peace and war. 12 THE PASSING AGE IN POLITICS How well is it fitted for its approaching struggle ? a strangle-hold, life-and-death struggle, with what is called socialism, a euphemism for the four horsemen of the Apocalypse going forth to destroy, at least in its logical development, the entire fabric of society as we and our forefathers have constructed it on the basis of church, state, and family. As generally employed the word socialism is useful to connote the middle term between humanitarianism and savagery. Those who profess socialism have always been di- vided into factions, each numerous and all of them diverse from each other in their belief and behavior. Among them is neither union nor harmony. The in- vestigating wayfarer has to pick his steps warily amidst their noisy contentions. The former ruling classes of central and eastern Europe made a dismal failure of government, and carried their respective monarchies over the brink of ruin: the various states have been demoralized as well as disorganized. In the crash of defeat and the overthrow of monarchy the ill-fed, ill-clad, and often shelterless masses, sore and sorry in their acute suffering, both physical and mental, followed the first guides who offered. These were, of course, the socialistic adventurers, with every- thing to gain and nothing to lose, who rushed madly to seize the reins of government, alike in Russia, in Germany, in Austria, and in Hungary. They be- haved exactly as, in every revolutionary crisis, in every land, in every age, the radical innovators and destroyers before them had done. And the same fate overtook them. Their unbridled excesses were their undoing, and the support even of the proletariat departed from them. The attempted exercise of power produced dissension, and three groups emerged, all socialists in their antagonism to capital, and de- votion to the co-operation of production, as they call it, but in varying degrees lukewarm or hostile THE PASSING AGE IN POLITICS 13 to democracy and majority rule. They are quite unable to agree and act together, and of course are totally at odds with the anarch-despots who .seize and hold authority by no .other means than force, having, despite smooth words, no other goal than the gratification of their own lusts and passions. Their profession is one thing, their conduct quite another. Idleness and want they create wilfully, because these are the ablest coadjutors for the foul selfishness of the few besotted leaders in the blood-red terrorism which does to death thousands upon thousands, not only of innocent bystanders, but of themselves. Most of the once industrious and well-to-do have found safety in flight, but in the fulness of time will return to create and perpetuate orderly government of some form. In order to find any meaning in the three or four leading tenets or symbols of socialism, it must be remembered that "progressive democracy" long since divorced itself from the least-government theory of our liberty-loving ancestors. To lay out and follow policies is not the American way. With no clear idea of its line our democracy has gone onward to foster and institute state-control of substantially all our public utilities, even those fostered and supported throughout infancy by private capital. What with extortionate taxes and the lavish appropriation of the taxpayer's money for education and charity, together with the accompanying inquiry into the private affairs of every citizen, male and female, on the plea of securing data for heavy taxation, the ad- vance of what called itself progressive, humanitarian democracy had permeated private life and "social- ized" every nation to a degree of which not even a faint conception could have been formed two gen- erations earlier. But socialism of the Marxian type added much to this enforced humanitarianism or 14 THE PASSING AGE IN POLITICS state socialism. Accepting the specious but utterly false interpretation of all history as the record ex- clusively of class struggle which Marx had foisted upon his readers, the socialists of his brand consider the nation to be a dangerous anachronism; because at every crisis patriotism seduces the proletariat from union with its fellows of other nations to wrest from the middle class, the burghers, what belongs to the workman: viz., the means of manufacture and dis- tribution, which is Capital. Since this fallacy is best considered in another connection, we note it here simply to show the radical difference between state socialism, which expends the money of the few for the benefit of the many, and pure socialism, which would appropriate all the money of everybody in order to level up disability and level down ability; to turn everybody into children of Gibeon, hewers of wood and drawers of water, into menials; whether endowed with the soul of a clodhopper or with the genius of a Shakespeare. Of socialists there are, as just remarked, many categories; almost as many as there are individual professors of the cult: for cult, in a semi-religious sense, socialism pretends to be; the one and only gospel of humanity. Yet there are three classes, vaguely to be distinguished. There are first those of a fairly mild type who claim to be and accordingly style themselves, the majority socialists. They con- sider themselves democrats of a somewhat radical sort, but still democrats, admitting that in the con- duct of affairs the majority must rule. So likewise do the minority, or independent, socialists, though on the question of majority rule they are far from emphatic, rather lukewarm, in fact. They verge toward fanaticism, and seem willing to seize power without much reference to the will of the majority. The third sort of socialists are avowedly ultra-radical; THE PASSING AGE IN POLITICS 15 preaching and practising the revolutionary over- throw of society by any means, with a view to turn- ing a minority into a majority by distrust, feart and shock. Incidentally the ample incomes of their oli- garchy are derived from the most dictatorial and illiberal party organization so far devised. By every member relatively high dues are paid into a fund controlled by demagogues so vociferous as to draw the attention of contributors away entirely from the management of the large sums thus accumulated. There seems to be no accounting either to the public or to the membership. When dues are not paid, delinquents are incontinently expelled from the or- ganization, a procedure which appears to be a modi- fied black-listing. The most important and baneful contribution of Russia and her Slavic congeners of eastern Europe to present-day socialistic anarchy consists of a chaotic despotism, widely known by their own designation: Bolshevism, the maximal form of a brutality, called in its minimal and less violent form: Menshevism. Both are avowed assertions of a minority despotism exercised by the proletariat of the towns. Their policy, as exhibited by practice, is to crush out all opposition by every wicked and vicious means, mur- der and robbery principally. For this butchery and violation of humanity the brute leaders have a series of euphemistic terms derived from politics. Differ- ing but slightly in doctrine, and only in degree as to practice, as far as we can understand, the distinction between them is plain only to those familiar with the Russian mind, and immaterial to us. What is interesting is their embittered strife with each other, the moderates, if we may so style them, making a poor show of resistance. The creed of the extremists is comprehensive and exaggerates the socialistic, or even anarchistic, doctrine to horrible absurdity. Its 16 THE PASSING AGE IN POLITICS points are seven in number: (i) Class warfare; (2) Nationalization of all land and abolition of all private property; (3) Destruction of all industries except those essential to physical well-being, with the con- sequent shortening of labor hours to three or four; (4) Internationalism, through removing all economic barriers and wiping out all state boundaries; (5) Dis- armament; (6) Government by councils of the pro- letariat [Soviets]; (7) Utter effacement of democracy so that the proletariat, whether in the majority or minority, may wield the supreme power. Naturally enough, constituent assemblies elected by popular vote are an abomination in the eyes of such unbal- anced monsters. Their hold on power for more than a year was the most frightful experiment in anarchy so far known to history. Judged by their works these wild-eyed, ignorant, noisy agitators desired only an orgy of self- indulgence in every luxurious vice, shameless revelry in the lowest forms of iniquity, and the enrichment of the leaders by looting banks and gutting private dwellings. Criminals without a single redeeming quality, these monsters of infamy professed to be the harbingers of a new order on earth, of a world regenerate and just. In it there would be no war, because there would be no military on land or sea; no competition for markets or materials because an irreducible minimum of production would abso- lutely preclude it; no colonies or imperialism because of world-wide local self-determination, and as a corollary no patriotism or sense of nationality. Hard and forbidding as is the task, every effort must be put forth to confute popular and spreading heresy. It seems essential that as large a number of voters as possible should know something of reality. They must, if they are to select wise leaders; in other words, if they are to think concretely and vote sen- THE PASSING AGE IN POLITICS 17 sibly. The past was very real, so is the present; and some guidance for the future must be found if we are to avoid the disaster incident to following political and social phantasms. High-minded states- men, leaders and helmsmen of the modern state, must in the last resort fall back on their own experi- ence, knowledge, and instincts, for the framing of new legislation; but they should read their own experi- ence in the light of past experience by others in order to discern the true meaning of present-day conditions. To trace democracy from its sources, and the history of the democratic nation from its beginnings, to know what peace means, and the conditions of peace, are the necessary preliminaries in any honest effort to reform existing political and social defects. An es- say in that direction, no matter how imperfect it may be, requires no apology. I THE DEVELOPMENT OF DEMOCRACY IN THOUGHT AND ACTION democracy: its natural history its etymology; a good meaning for a bad word — as an ideal; as a fact: boss rule? many oppressed by few? — as a sovereignty; so splintered as internal teat it becomes indistinguishable; external, based on forbearance of others — extravagant and inefficient? genesis of the state; two doctrines: social and individual — biologists individualistic; psychologists social — biology and anthropology neutral; psychology and lin- guistics social — history also social; the primitive family state; man a political animal — abnormal expansion of family; gens, clan, tribe, city, state — monogamic family the climax; psychologic evolution the bond — false keys to history. the state an organism of organisms — every stage of development a stage of advance by individuals to liberty — the struggle for individuality is a struggle for larger participation in politics — our democracy based on the concept of taxation as a gift and on the contract theory: both fallacies — liberty impossible without the state. No teacher has been able to escape the importunate and reiterated questioning of inquirers about the meaning of democracy. The war gave new passion to the discussion. No government without the con- sent of the governed: what does that mean? The world safe for democracy: what does that mean? No dealings with governments unsupported by their peoples: what does that mean? These are very pertinent questions, and it is the business of some- body to answer them. And to each of them there is a sane and sensible answer; a reply pregnant with meaning to every American. Not that there are definitions in categorical form. There are not. It is said that there are but three actual definitions in all the Bible; in this, the gospel of humanity re- sembles the gospel of grace. Both are states of mind adapting a principle to successive states of society. To approach a definition of democracy we must lo- 22 DEMOCRACY: cate its embryo in the distant past; after the genesis comes the evolution, step by step, until to-day the spirit of democracy is three-fold: we feel equality, we want fraternity, and we demand a possible liberty. Look up the word in the earliest English diction- ary, that of 1623, and then throughout the succession of some sixteen important English dictionaries pub- lished since that day. Is the evolution of meaning even measurably satisfactory? No, vagueness char- acterizes each and all of the definitions; the word on everybody's lips to-day has quite another significance from any which it has had before, a significance vaguer than them all. We are sorely put to it when we strive for a definition. Neither etymology nor history helps us. It is a Greek word, and among the Greeks was the opposite of politeia, or policy, which meant government by the majority for the benefit of all; whereas democratia, or democracy, meant the oppression of the minority by the majority. The rather vague notion of government as existing ^for the common good, underlay all forms of organized society: monarchy, aristocracy, and policy, while the abuse of power was stigmatized as tyranny, oli- garchy, or democracy. There could be a bad per- sonal king, a bad commission king, and a bad collec- tive king: kingship signifying sovereignty or supreme authority, however and wherever lodged. From these basic propositions present-day thought in no way dissents. We postulate sovereignty or supreme power as essential to order, legal or moral; and to the re- public or common weal. We do not in principle ad- mit its exercise either by one, or the few, or the major- ity; though in fact we permit it in all these ways. We lay down and emphasize its residing in the whole people, its exercise by the whole people, and for the good of the whole people. This is our cherished ideal and longed-for goal. No sane man believes that we ITS NATURAL HISTORY 23 have secured even a near approach to it, and pessi- mists assert that it is ever receding, getting further and further away. Indeed it seems to many thpught- ful men as if the so-called democracy of to-day were an oligarchy, the oppression of the many by the few "politocrats" as they have been called; the profes- sional political advisers of the ignorant voter; and therefore the dispensers of "jobs" or political pat- ronage. Their side partner is the money power, our scarcely veiled plutocracy. Outsiders with perspec- tive, British, French, and German, hold and publicly proclaim this opinion. Furthermore, it is speciously asserted that there is no longer any sovereignty whatever in a full sense. From habit and the sanction of traditional power we have some degree of internal order; but as re- gards other nations, states, and peoples, we have had in peace time nothing wherewith to enforce the sovereignty we assert, except a shadowy survival of those governmental organs known as an army and navy. To be sure, there is an appeal in the name of humanity to folkways and a moral law for the maintenance of our contentions as to the conduct of international relations in war and peace; but such a sanction of sovereignty has been found rather Utopian than practical, and amounted to a sharing of efficient sovereignty with other states, states which saw morality from a far different angle, and had provided for themselves the material means of en- forcing their concepts. A sovereignty based (at the best) upon forbear- ance and discussion will probably have to find an- other designation. The name in a purely pacific sense would be as completely transmuted and as radically transformed as has been the word "democ- racy." Hitherto, and at the present, in most of the world "here below," sovereignty has had and has a 24 DEMOCRACY: solid, concrete, material sense in the conduct of for- eign relations. It will return inevitably to that given sense, and that firm exercise: even in a democracy which refuses to be ready at the crisis, but intends to get ready somehow or another after the shame of unreadiness has been endured. Throughout history a menaced democracy has in every case installed for this instant urgency a dictator of some sort. He alone asserts by his delegated power a complete sovereignty. Perhaps the worst indictment of democracy as it works to-day is its blundering inefficiency and in- tolerable extravagance. We have long been misled, and still are to an amazing extent, by two fallacies: first, that democracy is the simplest form of govern- ment; and secondly, that it is the cheapest. The first of the two is the most glittering form of pro- tective coloration known to the student of history; no bird, for instance, is harder to find amid the green foliage than the gorgeous cardinal. Let us briefly consider, first, the simplicity: and then count the cost. There is no more dignified nor thoughtful body of literature than that which deals with the nature and genesis of nation and state. Consider- ing, however, the long centuries from the Greeks onward during which the ablest minds have grappled with the problem, and the gigantic efforts to secure from the past guidance for the present and the future, the results are not of inspiring helpfulness. The evolutionary thought of the present generation has only beclouded the question and landed us in a per- plexing dilemma. In the effort to prove that natural selection in any form of life sets up a process of modification which results in a new species, Darwin employed a dualistic hypothesis. The careful scrutiny (by his successors) of his effort to solve the problem of human origins ITS NATURAL HISTORY 25 indicates that the dualistic hypothesis is untenable, being a confusion of two concepts mutually exclusive, one of the other: namely, that man in his origins "may" or "may not" have been a social animal. Now there is some point at which the development of "the higher mental qualities such as sympathy and love for his fellows" is so complete as entirely to separate man from his animal origins, and so create the human family, whatever its form, as the condi- tion antecedent to historic man: to his physical conception, his birth and his protracted period of nurture. If aboriginal man "lived in small com- munities, each (male) with a single wife, or if power- ful with several, whom he jealously guarded against other men" he would steadily have become less so- cial and more individualistic. Ferocity, jealousy, and strength (the qualities Darwin instances as those of the gorilla) all make for the reverse of what is intel- lectual and social. To be a social being, man, when cut loose from the animal pack, must have been a small and physically weak, but mentally shrewd organizer of collective power, in order to create his environment and perpetuate his species. Among naturalists there seems to exist a feeling that the two concepts can be reconciled; and, quite possibly, for men in whose thought the concept of time barely exists, there is a debatable ground. But historians, particularly those who think of politics as a science, unanimously reject the possibility of an origin for man, compounded of two antitheses, the social and the individual. So likewise do many naturalists ; and the majority of more recent biologists base their thinking on the individualistic hypothesis; but among them also no general decision has been reached. The most recent and erudite are all for the intellectual, social origin, as also are the psychol- ogists, who reach the conclusion that the immediate 26 DEMOCRACY: progenitors of the "homo sapiens" lived in com- munities, that communal life is a condition precedent to the genesis of the human species, that indeed, as Aristotle stated it, man is a political animal. The evidence from language is possibly the strongest of all, because, as anatomists all agree, certain organs: wind-pipe, lungs, lips, palate, and nose, one and all were evolved for specific physiological purposes. Speech, therefore, the single and only prerogative of man as man, the gift which leads to the exercise of reason, is due to an appropriation for its purpose of already existing organs, and arose initially from social necessity. For the historian, familiar with devolution through- out his record, written and unwritten, it is of poign- ant interest to note that natural science in its latest phase begins to put determinative emphasis on the same concept. Why did not apes become men? asks our foremost authority.* His answer is, be- cause in the struggle for life the ape lost its thumb; men alone kept the human thumb in its original perfection. Likewise man alone has retained the primitive dentition, and is alone omnivorous; beasts have lost that dentition in a long devolution, and require specialized diet. Their habitat is limited. But wherever there is protoplasm, snakes, lizards, insect larvae, ants, roots, there primitive man finds a living. Again, the human eye, foot, and hand are primitive things which man alone has retained, though all have developed according to the necessi- ties of a person standing erect. The only possession of mankind which has undergone continuous evolu- tion is the brain and nervous system, stupendously developed in comparison with that of all other mam- mals and vertebrates. "Man is a mixture of charac- fSee Professor Klaatsch of Breslau in the volume Die Abstam- mungslehre, p. 340. ITS NATURAL HISTORY 27 ters hoary in age with others slowly perfected, and of others newly acquired." "Without the astound- ing combination of a complete prehensile hand with the forward look of the eyes the evolutionary road to humanity would be barred." "It must have been a remarkable chain of favorable conditions which finally split off the Primates from the Primatoids." Such are the phrases of the biologist. No one can question that such exceptional environments and selections are a bulwark to the social theory. That certain anthropoids became anthropoi — the "homo sapiens" of science — when. the higher life was breathed into their nostrils, is really the subject of comparative mythology. In any scheme of the universe man is a social political being with origins and a develop- ment all his own— the great exception. Again, students of man as an animal, the anthro- pologists, are divided in opinion as between the two hypotheses, although, like Darwin, they make no effort to blend them. Their procedure on the whole has been along individualistic lines, and while they realize that savagery and barbarism, so far from being the primitive status of man, are the results of a long and appalling devolution, yet there is com- pulsion upon them all to re-state their fullest knowl- edge in accordance with the social hypothesis. By many, however, this is done grudgingly, because there is no link between the "animal pack" and "human society," however primitive, except the very dubious interpretation of totemism as a "savage theory of parentage." Totemism prevailed, and has been studied within a very limited area, in northern America and in Australia. The evidence afforded is not in any case sufficient. Dispassionately considered, the results of biology and anthropology favor neither of the two genetic theories, while those of psychology and 28 DEMOCRACY: linguistics distinctly indicate a high probability for the value of the social hypothesis. We dare not say that evolutionary thought and natural science have shed any clear light on political origins; the further question is: which of the two best fits the interpretation of historical facts? The human na- ture known to history was complete in its present form at the dawn of history, and has not perceptibly changed with changing environment throughout the ten thousand years of its course. It is a physiological fact that man comes into being and enters on his career through the common life of male and female adults; it is not disputed that the long period of nurture essential to the infant, a hun- dred times longer than that essential to the animal, cements community life and prolongs it in some form or another. This communal life is, therefore, mani- festly the primitive form of the primitive state, which, as Aristotle said, is the creation of nature, an entity prior to the family and the individual, since the whole is of necessity prior to the part. If there be a science of politics, this is a basic proposition. It is this entity or organism which procreates the indi- vidual, and binds it to its "nidus" for a period of years, both granting and establishing what we call its rights. The rights of the individual are doubt- less inherent in its own humanity, but the degree of their exercise is a grant from the community, even in its most inchoate form. Such rights, of course, are primitive and embry- onic: the rights to life, to shelter, and to nurture. Steadily onward from the beginning of childhood the community protects the rights, while simultane- ously it enforces the duties of the individual; that is, its own collective right to obedience and assist- ance. At maturity, duty, in return for rights, reaches its maximum, and we feel that rights likewise are ITS NATURAL HISTORY 29 complete. Thereupon the social group manumits the individual as the completest product of the com- munity, segregated to renew the process, to found a new community and perpetuate the race by natural generation, by nurture, and by training in rights bestowed, and in duties enforced. This is no fanci- ful theory, not even a scientific hypothesis, but a fact of daily observation to us as it has been to man- kind since the beginning. Those thinkers who have found the origin of the state in the family have been astray only in the limitations they had set on the meaning of the words: state and family; both must be used in the broadest sense. We have had historic examples of the family in the abnormal expansion of clan and tribe, each endeavoring further to expand itself into the state; but with a signal and dismal failure. China, for example, was and remains a swollen patriarchy, spreading a paternal authority and care suitable for tens of units over tens of millions. The ancient world of Greece and Italy created the marvellous city- state, the development of which, however, at a cer- tain point was suddenly arrested. Beyond it, was no organic growth. The attempted empire of Athens was a short and sorry experiment, that of Rome was a scandalous tyranny of imposing dimension, but un- stable equilibrium, maintained by force. Far up beyond the animal pack, the totem group, the poly- andric horde, the polygamous family, the city-state or "polis," lies the highest of all human achieve- ments, the most sacred of all human institutions, the palladium of the higher life, to wit the monogamic family. This is the very obverse of all its antecedents. So far in the history of thought no sane biologist, reasoning in terms of evolution, has claimed that any process of nature can be explained in terms of pre- ceding ones. There is no nexus binding life with 30 DEMOCRACY: physics and chemistry, although both have been studied as ancillary and essential; how can the com- munity between organic function and consciousness be established, although the one is unthinkable with- out the other? Accordingly as far as the environ- ment of a state, the "permanent and universal frame" of human existence is admitted as essential to the monogamous family life of civilization, we are forced to conclude either that there are chasms be- tween the levels of social life, or else that the unity of the whole, nebulous but real, must be found in the continuous human "psyche" or soul, in psy- chological evolution. To discover this requires an elect mind which ruthlessly distinguishes between being and seeming; appearance and fact. Scientists are perpetually an- nouncing the discovery of a key to history — the key of natural generation and selection, the common origin expressed in birth, blood, language, in the na- tion; or the key of conquest and military force; or the key of religious catholicity, that of the common faith and recognized supernatural authority; or the key of national boundaries and physical geography; or the key of analogy between a single man and mankind. Such errors are nothing but a false em- phasis. Every heresy is a truth distorted by uneven pressure. The truth about the state appears to be that it existed from the beginning of man in every form of association from the primitive and animal throughout the evolution of humanity to the most complicated form of organization. The state is indeed an organism, but not at all in the sense of that term as employed by natural science. Com- posed of persons, each a complete individual, it is like a business trust, an organism of organisms. In the humanities organism is on one side more com- plex than in natural science, as man is the climax of ITS NATURAL HISTORY 31 mammalian life; but on the other it is vastly more simple, as its parts are more unitary and individual, as its behavior is determined by fewer laws and rules. Modified for the occasion, as these imposed conditions are by the ethical choice of the conscious, responsible parts, there can be no question of a re- morseless, immutable, natural so-called law, which is not law at all but uniformity. Human laws are common resolves for the common good, and the or- ganism they control has little or no resemblance to the organism of natural law. Yet there is natural law in the spiritual world, exactly as the combination lock of history requires for its opening every one of the keys above enumer- ated, each of which corresponds to some one tumbler in the combination. There are features of common origin, belief, advantage, institutions, environment, and so on in every human aggregation from the Punaluan horde to the most advanced state. But the proportions are vastly different. Kinship and low instinct control in one; an intelligent general will in the other. But at this hour of our high-water mark in national government, as emphasizing a com- mon gbod and the common will of the nation, we find the machinery clogged and gritty because of over- emphasis on blood and kinship, because of greed and mercantilism, of superstition and intolerance, of class-consciousness and ignorant prejudice. Are the states of Europe any the less advanced states be- cause in war they exhibit a demoniac possession of self-interest, of hate, of reckless inhumanity? Yet these later qualities were those overwhelmingly in evidence throughout all primitive consociation* in the period when the socius, the bond, the tie, was a fetter, and could be ruptured only by guile or by defiant strength ; never by the common consent. It is the latest and most wonderful achievement of 3 2 DEMOCRACY: civilization that a man may move freely about, go almost wherever he chooses, and settle wherever he pleases, and yet secure a citizenship. Once every stranger was an ienemy; now at least he is not so in theory and in privilege; although dark suspicion and class exclusiveness still eclipse for him the full light of the social sun. War is a reversion to primitive barbarity, to hate and murder; we talk of "civilized" war, meaning not the mitigation of its horrors by general arrangement as we fondly thought, but only that civilization has temporarily reverted to savagery, employing in it all the gains of civilization for the purposes of barbarism. The science of man and nature seems from all these considerations to be harmonious in positing the social hypothesis. The community was the con- dition antecedent to the production of even the earliest man ; to man in every degree of development the state is what water is to the fish. To the bota- nist there is no weed, to the entomologist no vermin, to the historian no unclean community. Every human group is a human organism, unique in its creation of the general habit styled an institution, of government, and finally of the individual man. All are derivatives of the state which creates and re- jects species, of itself, by readjustment of structure. By discarding the useless it creates its own series, each one of which produces a type that interacts as an environment upon the vanishing and coming in- dividual. N^he struggle for individuality is just the opposite of what it is generally supposed to be. It is the effort at larger participation in the general life, for an ascent to the higher or highest life by the use of institutions primarily advantageous not to one but to all. To be restrained from self-realization or happiness is not slavery but liberty, which is the enjoyment of order; not the license of self-will. ITS NATURAL HISTORY 33 Rights are not innate nor inherent, but transmitted, a gift of society sternly coupled with duties. A per- fect man is unthinkable without a perfect state. , No legal right can be asserted without its pre-existence as a moral right; which is merely what we can secure without the sanction of force by the sanction of general approval. Perpetual agitation is the price of freedom, because through it base personal instincts are restrained by publicity; a fancied individual right is proven to be a wrong to others; and so from the general unsavory ingredients of the vat emerges, through steaming and boiling and brewing, the pure political and social product which we call liberty, the easy performance of hard duty for the sake of that degree of order without which there can be no individuality. It was the social order of our stock which enabled the elder Pitt to assert in 1765 that while, according to the Declaratory Act, parliament, the state, was supreme and sovereign, legislation and taxation were utterly different from each other, the latter being a free gift from the individual to the community, and compulsory only by the consent given personally or through a representative. The American colonists accepted the Declaratory Act without a murmur when the Stamp Act was repealed. This doctrine of taxation, together with the contract theory of govern- ment as valid only by the consent of the governed, were the two bulwarks of liberty. Both are now treated with contempt by purely legal minds, but they do not contravene in any degree the positions we have stated. The individual being the product of the state, must be at every moment in contact with it, and so of necessity react upon it in all its functions. Otherwise stagnation and the weak ac- ceptance of authority as expounded by functionaries would result, and progress be arrested. Legality \ 34 DEMOCRACY: is the foe of equity, and without equity there can be no advance. At every instant fearless vigilance and resistance to authority, or custom, or tradition are essential to both the patriot and the statesman. Such a line of conduct has all the appearance of the individual antagonizing the very state which indi- viduals by contract or otherwise have set up for their common benefit; the reality is that the state, which furnishes to the individual the medium of his life, requires an ever diminishing or increasing tension in exact proportion to the wants of each unit as he advances or recedes in personal capacity. Appear- ance and reality are antipodal. With an advanced state the person may exercise the right of choice and take the consequences ; with a retarded or jeopardized state, the whole must wrest the necessities of its life from persons, however unwilling. It was to serve the state that the Americans of the eighteenth cen- tury treated the Loyalists so harshly, even to a de- gree of injustice and faithlessness which our morality cannot condone. The state organism, when exist- ence is endangered, ruthlessly asserts a morality which can never be that of the individual organism. Here ends the first division of our discussion. We proceed to the next from the rock of conviction that liberty is conceivable only within the organized state under folkways or institutions which eventuate in government, and in laws both moral and positive. Democracy was not the first word in civilization; that word was, as it continues to be, property. But there was at the beginning, an embyro of democracy which at each stage of evolution shows new develop- ment. Exactly as property began in communism and emancipates itself continuously therefrom, so democracy in the sense of individual self-restraint, personal rights and imperative duties detaches itself more and more from the family state, the city-state, ITS NATURAL HISTORY 35 the tyranny state, the feudal state, and the mon- archical state. Its system and method of govern- ment have yet to be found; and in this experiment the world of to-day is occupied. Europe tried con- stitutional monarchy, representative government, and oligarchical republicanism; we have tried the presi- dential republic, and evolved a system which to a large minority, perhaps a small majority, seems out- worn. In many disappointments we have learned that democracy is a most complex and perplexing system of government, probably the final word in an effort to give not only every adult, but every minor, a share in sovereignty; in an agony, so to speak, of human perfectibility on earth, it hopes to secure the equalizing of individuals, not only in rights and duties, but in social perfections of discipline, man- ners, and property. We were not thus procreated nor born into human life, but we pursue the high ideal. The rainbow of hope is set in the heavens, and we seek its foot to climb from thence along the shining arch. "In reality," Pushkin is reported to have said, "inequality is the law of nature." So far apparent equality has been "in reality" the in- dividual will subtly controlling the many. II DEMOCRACY IN HISTORY BEGINNINGS IN EGYPT AND CHALDEA EXHIBIT PROPERTY AS THE COR- NERSTONE OF PERSONAL LIBERTY — THE EMBRYO OF DEMOCRACY AMONG THE FREEMEN. RISE OF TYRANNY — CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE CITY-STATE TO DEMOCRACY. THE PRINCIPLES FIRST OF UNIVERSAL, SECOND OF NATURAL, RIGHT — THE STOICS AND INHERENT RIGHTS. THE JUS GENTIUM — ONE PERMANENT GAIN, THAT LAWS DREW VALIDITY FROM THE POPULAR WILL, t. e. OF THE FREEMEN AND MILITARY CLASS — FUTILITY OF POLITICAL THEORY IN THE ANCIENT WORLD — NO LIB- ERTY OR FREEDOM IN REALITY; BUT POTENT CONCEPTS AND DIM VISIONS OF IT — CHRISTIANITY INTRODUCES THE RIGHT OF CHOICE AS BASIC TO SPIRITUAL LIFE. DUTY TO GOD AND NEIGHBOR — THE WORLD OF STATUS TURNED UPSIDE DOWN — THE TEACHING OF AUGUSTINE — OF GRATIAN AND AQUINAS — MARSILIUS OF PADUA; POPULAR SOVER- EIGNTY IN CHURCH AND STATE — THE REFORMATION AND THE RIGHT OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT — THE INFLUENCE OF CALVIN ON DEMOCRACY. The written history of the earliest civilizations, ac- cording to the discoveries of historical archaeology, begins about eight thousand years before our era. The only really historical civilizations of the earliest period are those in the river valley of the Nile, and in the double valley of the Tigris and Euphrates; these two were based on the divine origin of govern- ment, and to the commands of a divine vicegerent there could be no resistance. The records of the earliest historical past are largely religious, and the only sanction or penalty behind the law was divine authority, direct or representative. Under such a despotism what we call personal liberty was un- known, the concept was not even inchoate. Never- theless, there was a clear, sharp-cut respect for prop- erty, and as the enormous masses of cuneiform in- scriptions, the brick libraries of Chaldea, yield their secrets to expert scholars, we are almost stupefied by the written conveyances, mortgages, and legal guar- 36 DEMOCRACY IN HISTORY 37 antees which safeguarded real estate. They resem- ble our own so closely as to exhibit what little ad- vance in such respects our proud civilization has made. Now the s acredn ess of property jn any form is the fo undation stone*~oT^)ersonal liberty. We vaguely discernrtherefore, that belund the theocratic rule was some incipient feeling of equality permeating both the agricultural and mercantile elements in the population. It would be, of course, an equality of status, neither regarding nor proposing any ques- tion of personal consent or contract between men as men. To this there was only a single exception, the contract between king and people among the tur- bulent Jews. In the great imperial aggregations person and property, life and liberty, law and no law, were absolutely at the mercy of the arbitrary omnipotent ruler. If it would be an abuse of the word to speak of democracy in connection with the early empires, purely theocratic in principle, and largely military in fact — even in India and China — it is almost equally absurd to speak of the city-state, the other primitive political unit, as democratic, a temptation to which many impulsive writers yield. It was in the city- states, however, that the embryo of democracy was, or is, just discernible. There were many of them along the shores of the Levant, in Arabia, likewise in primitive Greece and Italy. In their fully developed, historic form we know them fairly well, and there is one monumental study of them which is convincing by its clearness.* The transition from Orient to Occident in the spheres of politics, society, science, and art was their doing. They had elective execu- tives, popular legislation and administration, and a definite conception of inherited rights with corre- sponding duties, sternly enforced by a collective, * Fustel de Coulanges: La Cite Antique. 38 DEMOCRACY IN HISTORY secular sovereignty. Each, however, had its local god, a god of terror exacting a crushing burden of property and life. To the latest hour of their exist- ence there was in and about them a large number of foreign clients and slaves, with no rights except granted privilege. They had no share in the govern- ment, and were as completely at the mercy of tyranny as the abject subjects of the great empires. There is no conception of democracy which could style such an exclusive political system democratic. Yet there was for the favored many, the freemen, a high degree of personal liberty. Their earliest or- ganization was both monarchical and theocratic. The city-states of the Shemites never destroyed, al- though they modified, the tripartite division of sover- eignty. But the city-states of Europe first destroyed the political headships of their kings, leaving to them only the priesthood. This left the sovereignty resident partly in the heads of families constituting a senate, and partly in all the freemen, hereditary or adopted, as the assembly. Of representation there was no trace: sovereignty not exercised in person was lost. The final levelling stage was to strip the elders of power and entrust every function of the state to the assembled citizens. With the growth of these city-states in wealth and power the aggregation of outsiders was enormous, while the administration of both external and internal affairs, during war and peace, became of course more and more complicated. Citizens were compelled to giye more and more time to public affairs; in the case of many no leisure for private affairs was left, and the "body politic" had itself paid from the public treasury. In many of the most important states the burden grew so in- tolerable, and the returns to the individuals so slen- der that from out the selective oligarchies of generals and professional politicians there emerged some one DEMOCRACY IN HISTORY 39 man, who either seized or had yielded to him with gladness, the reins of absolute power. This was considered an illegal but necessary expedient, „ and was styled not a monarchy, but a tyranny. The word did not connote oppression necessarily, for initially there were more good than bad tyrants; it was employed in our sense at a later date. The personal liberty of the favored classes knew no other restraint than their own happy submission to the bondage of government. Such citizens were, however, not democrats as we use the word. Many hold that after the stage of tyranny in the city-states there followed a final one, that of democ- racy. Doubtless, at the time, men used the word to indicate an illegal polity, exactly as tyranny had indicated an illegal monarchy. But that is no reason why we should continue to use our present word in an antiquated sense. Greece and Rome never knew our democracy. Their politics excluded from participation in government a more numerous population than was included; there was barely a suspicion of "consent" among citizens, and numbers were relatively so few that every male must be pres- ent to legislate or administer, or else be a cipher* There was no thought of sending a proxy for one or many to do the thinking, debating, and voting for others, an ingenious invention of necessity whenever and wherever territory and population exceed the bounds of a few miles and a few thousand people. Even a stentor, reinforced by a megaphone, can command the attention of but a few thousand listen- ers, and that in a hall of miraculous acoustics. The more freemen the fewer active politicians propor- tionately. What the city-states contributed to the history of democracy was the partial emancipation of thought, and a transformation . in the conception of law: the work of the free-thinkers, from the fifth 4 o DEMOCRACY IN HISTORY century before our era onward to the close of their epoch. It was Heraclitus (460 B. C.) who pro- claimed that in a universe of perpetual flux there was an underlying common reason, a divine or natural law. The Sophists went further and dis- tinguished between natural law, and positive, or the varying arbitrary commands of those in authority. The natural right under natural law was, therefore, only an embryo. To this natural law Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle refer as a commonplace, but not one of them emphasizes it. Aristotle commends Antigone in her determination to bury Polynices in defiance of royal command, on the ground of the un- written law of natural right; and in several other pas- sages he refers to universal perpetual principles of right. It was when the city-state system was crum- bling that the Stoics appeared and elaborated the principle of natural rights — a substitution for the particular laws of separate states — the doctrine of a general law of the world. The Roman system of government was the arbi- trary rule by a single city-state of all the rest: in Italy, Greece, and around the Mediterranean, with such adjacent lands as they could conquer, hold, and administer. Roman thinkers and jurisconsults were, for the most part, of the Stoic persuasion. Seneca taught brotherhood and equality among all men, including foreigners and slaves. This sweeping, revo- lutionary, and democratic doctrine caught the ear of many, and partially colored the stream of Roman jurisprudence. Cicero had already taken the Stoic view, and declared the jus naturale or jus natures as the inherent, not inherited, basis of personal right in man. Indeed he actually caught a glimpse of what we call conscience; the complement of such a revela- tion to man of God, Nature, or Reason, was the duty of further knowledge, until the sage, in full possession DEMOCRACY IN HISTORY 41 of natural law, converts it into positive law. At least in part. Were the two to be identical the positive law of Rome, the famous Twelve Tabbies, would need no adaptation to the peregrini, or for- eigners with whom Rome was in closest contact. As it was, the special praetor had to adjust the Roman conscience to theirs in successive edicts, finally cod- ified into a perpetual one. This was the jus gen- tium, akin to natural law; but, being a sort of digest from foreign law, it was a cause of friction, a neces- sary evil. It took long to fuse the two into a single theory: but it happened, and the separatist pride of Rome was so far diminished as to disregard in Roman codes the distinctions of race and local patriotism within the empire, as to accept laws very general in their application, and, so, as to ameliorate the con- ditions of slavery. There was but a single differ- ence between the school of Ulpian and that of Gaius. Both accepted natural law and rights completely: both held that men are born free, but the former claimed its validity for animals and the animal in- stinct in man, as well as for men no longer brutish. Inasmuch as the edicts of the prcetor peregrinus were the basis of equity, its principles came likewise in time to be based on the doctrine of natural law. Moral law is what society deems good for itself, and by agitation within a state moral becomes positive law, with the treble sanction of opinion, custom, and force: natural law is the universal law based on reason. The question now arises: How far the democratic state of mind was promoted by such doctrines and their application to politics ? The answer is that there was one single permanent result. The Twelve Tables declared that what the people ordain is in the last instance law. "This is the condition of a free peo- ple, and especially of this chief people, the lord and 42 DEMOCRACY IN HISTORY conqueror of all nations, to be able to give or take away by their votes whatever they see fit," said Cicero. Laws were announced in the name of the people, and their validity was based on the fact that the people had delegated their sovereign power to the executive. This was called the Lex Regia, which constituted the imperium. Here emerges def- initely what both Sophists and Aristotle had suggested, the contract between rulers and ruled, the consent of the governed. We remark, of course, that the "people" were still and ever throughout antiquity the ruling class of freemen and military chiefs. Almost without exception, what we call political theory has been throughout the ages the effort of the sage to secure an intellectual basis for existing facts: to support and strengthen a contemporary form of government. The one possible exception was the convulsion at the close of the eighteenth century, when theory preceded the upheaval, and an utterly futile attempt was made to create a set of conditions not founded in history and experience. X Throughout the ancient period theory lagged far behind fact, and exerted no decisive influence on personal liberty: the world was collectivist, and the state, however constituted and however explained, was omnipotent. Rulers and philosophers invented the idea of contract, which implied a non-existent personal liberty and a democratic sovereignty. But the continuity of social supremacy in a political form over the individual freedom of action among the people was unbroken. The one advance was in the familiarity of intel- lectual men with concepts which were prophetic echoes, Utopian unrealities. Of democracy as a working system there was no trace in civilized lands, outside of insignificant communities and the lowest stratum of society, considered by wealth, culture, and DEMOCRACY IN HISTORY 43 intellectual power. There was no truth of fact, possibly a truth of vision there was. Shelley's lines on Liberty and the Acropolis of Athens, which .run: "that hill which was thine earliest throne and latest oracle," continue to thrill but they no longer con- vince. That all men are brothers, that equal oppor- tunity is each man's due, and that there is no restraint on individual choice except duty to God and duty to neighbor, came — these principles came into the thought of the world in the fulness of time through two channels, the widening rill of individualism opened by the commingling of Teuton and Roman; and, above all, by the teachings of Christ. With the advent and spread of Christianity the ancient world of status was turned upside down. As long as men went to the letter, and absorbed the spirit of Bible teaching, before the fell influences of feudalism produced a hierarchical and political ecclesi- asticism, there could be and was no question as to the individual's right of choice, the freedom of his will in controlling his actions. Even when the church became encrusted with secular habit there still re- mained in it so much of democracy as to preserve a form of election and make its highest office accessi- ble to the lowest born. Taking the mediaeval thought as a whole,' discarding the surface variations, and the doctrines of sectaries, it emphasizes the right of private judgment, determined by natural law re- vealed through conscience as the supreme reason, eternal and immutable. Complementary to this teaching of Augustine is that of Gratian in his Decretum (of the Canon Law), and in particular of Aquinas. God creates and rules the universe under an eternal law, of which a por- tion known to finite man is natural law, the divine light; particular portions of this furnish by deduc- tion the human law. The complete divine law is 44 DEMOCRACY IN HISTORY revealed in the Scriptures. Virtue is obedience to natural law : regarding self-protection and self-preser- vation; regarding the perpetuation of the race and the nurture of offspring; and regarding the highest good as shown by reason ; man's religious, social, and disciplinary duties. Whatever government requires the contrary, is a tyranny. To the ruler is assigned the common welfare in secular matters: to the pope as God's infallible vicegerent the absolute authority in spiritual matters. There cannot be a bad pope as pope, but there can be a bad king, and since the common good is the criterion the subjects can claim a breach of contract and remove their ruler. By preference a monarchist, he nevertheless sets the king beneath the law, and inferentially points to popular sovereignty. In mediaeval doctrine there is precious little about personal liberty, but there are the seeds of democracy. The ideals of early mediaeval Catholicism were dualistic; a democratic, all-embrac- ing secular empire, an all-embracing religious abso- lutism. Of course such thought, when applied in action, revealed at once the incompatibility of limited secular authority, and unlimited ecclesiastical sovereignty If there were popular sovereignty in the state there must be in the church; Marsilius of Padua and his school (1325) seemed to go the whole way, they are startlingly modern. All men are equal, and obedience to laws made by the people through a majority is obedience to oneself; rulers have no choice but to obey the people. This is exactly as true in church as in state. Congregations shall choose their priests, the members of ecclesiastical councils shall also be elected by the people, the papal power rests upon popular consent. This plain statement was enor- mously influential for at least two centuries, although the secular power was just as reactionary as the DEMOCRACY IN HISTORY 45 ecclesiastical, and there were no results until the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries produced a society transformed by the Protestant Reformation through- out the north of Europe, and by scepticism all over the south. The revolt against ecclesiastical tyranny was, on one side, assertion of the right of private judgment in religion, and substituted for a church claiming infallibility an infallible book, containing the divine law. On its Lutheran side it retained a maximum of historical practice, distrusted the peasantry, and strengthened the princes. On its Calvinistic side it discarded all for which it could not quote a "Thus saith the Lord," and cautiously gave indirect rep- resentation to believers. The Anglican side was a commingling of the two — the Protestant or Lutheran, and the Reformed or Calvinistic. Conservatism marked Lutheranism, progress Calvinism, compro- mise Anglicanism. All, however, secured a measure of democracy in connection with religious liberty. The seed once sown produced the most abundant harvest in Puritanism, the pivotal idea of which is the immediate relation of every believer to God: no intervention of priest or authoritative church. For every evil the remedy is agitation, and if necessary revolution. Religious democracy is inseparable from secular. Every human relation, religious and sec- ular, is primarily the affair of the religious common- wealth, as indeed it was considered to be by Roman Catholicism and Mohammedanism. Calvin's sover- eign power is theocratic, and he was a stern upholder of constituted authority, recognizing no right of re- volt except in matters of conscience, when the objector must take the consequences. He knows nothing of popular sovereignty. His ideal is a republic with both aristocratic and democratic elements, of which the Bible is the law, and Christ the head. 46 DEMOCRACY IN HISTORY: Yet Calvin's teaching has had more influence upon the course of history than that of all other reformers, many times over. Among his followers were many men of many minds, but one division of them, the so-called Independents, tracked his fierce, Latin logic to its very extreme. A second Frenchman, Hotman, a lawyer, had stoutly maintained the existence of king- ship in all times and places, but that, the origin being popular suffrage, heredity was a parasite on king- ship, and was to be sloughed off; that what the people gave they could recall. But expediency led him to emphasize the value of heredity in the choice of Henry IV after the religious wars, exactly as the heredity of Mary was in 1688 an argument for the choice of her consort and herself as sovereigns in England. The French mind likewise exhibited itself when learned Jesuits emphasized popular sovereignty in the state to magnify divine right in the papacy, and it was another Frenchman, Bodin, who gave the definition of sovereignty as supreme power resident in the king, which has ever since been the point of departure for both legal and political thinking. Precision and clarity mark both French and Latin presentation of the elements which enter into democ- racy, but the fruits of their thinking were not liberty. Henry IV founded the absolutism of the Bourbons, and Calvin the absolutism of the Reformed churches, notably in Geneva and Scotland, and in the eastern shires of England. Ill DEMOCRACY IN HISTORY: PURITANISM THE PURITAN REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND— THE RESTORATION AND THE REV- OLUTION OF 1688 — PURITAN REVIVAL IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY— THE NEW TORIES IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA — THE WHIGS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA — THE FREE-THINKERS AND ROUSSEAU — IDEA OF THE POPULAR WILL; DEMOCRACY AND PLUTOCRACY — BEGINNING IN MOD- ERATE CONSERVATISM, AMERICA HAS REACHED MODERATE LIBERALISM — THE CHARTERS IN AMERICAN COLONIES — RELIGIOUS AND CIVIL IN- EQUALITY — THE LAWYERS AND BILLS OF RIGHTS — LIMITATION OF POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY — FRENCH DEMOCRACY AND ITS INFLUENCE — — THE HISTORY OF DEMOCRACY THAT OF AN EFFORT TO EXPRESS THE POPULAR WILL IN ACTION WITHOUT HARM TO LIBERTY. It was the Puritan revolution which started modern democracy on its way. When Cromwell's Ironsides made victory over the Stuarts secure, and gave to England a protector who was not only her own re- lentless sovereign man, but the most feared and respected of all the contemporary monarchs, the ideas of the Independents were triumphant through- out the British Isles, while the fruit of them was an international possession. It was an awe-inspiring fact that kings and princes had to make obeisance to Joseph's sheaf. The substance of independency, was that every member of every congregation shared in its administration, and that each congregation founded by all the members subscribing a covenant with God was an independent democracy. The effort to extend this system to the state was made wherever Calvinists were numerous, and met, of course, with varying success. The extreme inde- pendents, a handful organized by Robert Brown, proclaimed complete separation of church and state; among other Calvinists there was a confusion of 47 48 DEMOCRACY IN HISTORY: powers, secular magistrates intervening in ecclesias- tical matters, and vice versa. Cromwell's system did not fit the British people, as is well known. The revulsion of feeling under the restoration left only vestiges behind. Royalty and Episcopacy resumed sway in England; royalty and Presbyterianism, despite Archbishop Laud, per- sisted in Scotland, and the shameful tale of Irish op- pression was continued in a new chapter. Extreme Scottish Covenanters and English Puritans, who could not conform to the compromises essential to the reintegration of the kingdom, were persecuted into exile, and by them the American colonies became the seed-plot of political democracy. Many germs of it were left behind in Great Britain, but they re- mained dormant until after the peaceful revolution of 1688, which though extremely conservative on one side, nevertheless cleared the air and prepared the soil for a crop of thoughts, for a harvest of dis- cussions and experiments which resulted in the ascendancy of parliament. A succession of kings far more interested in continental than in British affairs, once again after an interval of nearly half a thousand years threw the interests of the kingdom into the hands of subjects, and created a system of party and parliamentary government, very aristo- cratic and very corrupt, which in spite of limitations and imperfections led the great and prosperous middle class to ponder the doctrines of natural law and rights, of sovereignty as resident in the people, and of government as based on the consent of the governed. The Puritan feeling for immediacy in the relations of ruler and ruled began to manifest itself in pam- phlets, in the pulpit, in the news-letters, and in parlia- mentary debates. The eighteenth century was a period of yeasty talk and coarse living, but social PURITANISM 49 conditions were favorable to freedom of speech and political stock-taking. In the motherland there was almost complete inertia and little result of a political theorizing tending in the main to prove that what- ever is is right. A pitiful minority still held to the divine right of kings, but the pulpits of the established church no longer rang with it. Religious tolerance had been accepted in theory, though the religious and social hierarchies of the three kingdoms relegated dissenters to social inferiority, and at times grew bold in the revived exercise of administrative powers, which had been slowly becoming obsolescent. The political writings of the Levellers, demanding a single representative house, meeting regularly, and elected by manhood suffrage, and enacting a body of ideal laws as to the rights of the citizen, had far outrun any popular demand, but they were still read by a few.* Milton's political works were con- stantly perused by a greater number; pondering the removal of tyrants, weighing his view of popular sovereignty, his love for individual liberty, and his hatred of all oppression. From him Sidney, Locke, and Harrington had derived their ideas and their inspiration, and steadily the ruling political party, the Whigs, was permeated' by them. While the growth of democracy in Great Britain and in France was the growth of sentiment rather than of practical measures, the case was quite differ- ent in America. It is said that when Cromwell read the programme of the Levellers he remarked that he would fear the disintegration of the realm were he to apply it. Tradition, custom, belief held western Europe too firmly for any high-minded practical statesman wilfully to create a chaos, out of which new order might, or might not, eventually be evolved. * For Cromwell's appreciation, see Gardiner: Cromwell's Place in His- tory, pp. 40, 41. 50 DEMOCRACY IN HISTORY: Among the American colonists were many who felt themselves essentially British, and whose aim was rather the expansion of Britain than the establish- ment of a new order. Their numbers were large and their influence very great, and by the middle of the eighteenth century they were considered by them- selves and others as American Tories. But a very large number, almost exclusively Cal- vinistic in faith, were Congregationalists and Presby- terians, and of quite another mind. These with rare exceptions were far from enthusiastic for the British Government, often openly hostile; not only because they or their forbears had fled to escape persecution or disabilities, but because the colonial system re- garded the colonists as the servants of the crown whose labors were to expand British manufactures and trade for the enrichment of the metropolis. Stringent regulation of commerce and manufactures bore heavily upon their enjoyment of the liberty they had crossed the seas to enjoy. Not that they were entirely generous in yielding that liberty to others, because they were just as narrow in their treatment of other denominations, and of other ad- joining or neighboring colonies, as the home country had been in its treatment of them. In political or- ganization they had followed their ecclesiastical model very closely; in political belief they were Whigs, with a difference, since they styled themselves Ameri- can Whigs, and even the Episcopalians chafed under the yoke of London in the Bishops Question, a ques- tion of religious liberty which eventually knitted them closely to the other denominations in the middle and southern colonies. There was also a considerable number of free- thinkers, disciples mainly of Rousseau, indifferent to his basic absurdities, but apostles in so far as his teaching aims to inculcate ideas of liberty and equality. PURITANISM 51 But his liberty and his equality were, under his forny^ of the contract theory, of short duration, for he pic- tured a meeting of men surrendering once and t for all their individual wills to a general will; a will which, once formed, was an absolute tyrant, with no limitation imposed thereafter by personal rights or natural law. In the intense passion for individual liberty which he displayed, and in the corresponding enthusiasm which he created, he did make a tre- mendous contribution to the general conviction which supported the declarations or bills of human rights. Might, he crie d, does not create_ right unless obedi- ence be change d into duty- You cannot enslave yourself and remain a man, for choice is the basis of morals. There is no virtue in compulsory good- ness. His ideal was pure democracy, to be sure, but Locke had taught that men are free and equal, Hobbes that absolute power was complete sover- eignty in the prince, however originating; and Rous- seau was an absolutist with sovereignty resident in a people exercising it in popular assemblies, meeting frequently, if not constantly. He neither explained how such a procedure could safeguard i ndividu al s rights , nor give them any play in a popular demo- cratic government. Yet it must be reiterated that his American devotees, like those in other lands, were saturated by him with the passion for a liberty which, like him, they mistook for democracy. No consistent believer in his social contra ct could draw from it a doctrine" of personal rights, or a system for safeguarding them. Rousseau's personal liberty was Tike the atom in the sand, a liberty of inertia. The freeman was free because he was theoretically free; free to meet and jostle, and under physical influences, create the law; but not free to overthrow a system which the now inert unit had either personally or by proxy helped to create. 52 DEMOCRACY IN HISTORY: To every student of history it is patent that the community- will, from its most rudimentary to its most elaborate expression, has been the foundation of power. Intermittent in its enforcement, there have existed governments which professed to ignore it, and have brought ruin and disaster to their sub- jects as a result. -^In a way the history of democracy is the history of its organs, of an evolution in the state whereby the expression of the popular will reached greater and greater perfection. It is easy to quibble and ask with a sneer: What is the popular will? It is impossible to answer adequately what is a catch question really. No man except the ex- pert in the pathological laboratory sees the blood cir- culate, but we all know that it does, and that indi- vidual life depends on the fact. We all know that in the body politic there is a similar interchange of relations which produces a resultant desire and will. What we call democracy is the state of mind which insists that this resultant want shall be supplied in legislation and administration. To this end the sole and only potency is majority or mass rule. It is a wise provision of Providence that to this process there are many and active opposers. Immemorially the common welfare has been obstructed by selfish cliques, more or less successful in appropriating the machinery of government for their own ends. What was, within a generation or two, as complete a democ- racy as any, that of Great Britain, is momentarily a plutocracy in large measure, and the alliances of professional machine politicians in our own republic with the interests, lay us open to the same charge. Yet the plutocracy has its uses; we could not pos- sibly have found means to assert our self-respect and arm for self-defense at any time in our history without its powerful aid. This short digression is merely to illustrate the final step, so far taken, in the evolution of demo- PURITANISM 53 cratic rule. In Europe had been discussed and elaborated the theories of natural law, of social con- tract, of popular sovereignty, of general suffrage, and of representation: and in small communities the as- sembled freemen made and administered their own laws ; in the larger there were even acts of succession, parliamentary supremacy, and from Magna Carta onward plain thinking and dealing about the rights and duties of man as man. But in all the older sys- tems, tradition, custom, privilege, and apathy pre- vented the triumph of anything approximating demo- cratic government. In the American colonies there were present both ultra-conservative and ultra- radical elements; the shock of conflict between them was continuous, but the majority was liberal with moderation, and the resultant was the forward move- ment which speedily reacted on the revolutionary movement both in America, in continental Europe, and finally in England. Progress of the safe and sane variety is always the outcome of struggle be- tween conflicting opinions and interests. In America the liberals were sobered by it, the conservatives stung into activity. We began in a moderate con- servatism, we have steadily advanced to a moderate liberalism. Religious dissent with its democratic temper made our earliest contributions to political dissent. As a result the colonies with grim assiduity secured char- ters which, after the Restoration, gave them local legislatures. In the charter and proprietary colonies the local laws were supreme, but in the crown colonies the "crown," in commission to parliament as it was, now and then intervened. The Declaratory Statute of George III asserted that the King, with the advice and consent of parliament, "had, hath, and of right ought to have, full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the colonies and people of America in all cases 54 DEMOCRACY IN HISTORY: whatsoever." To most Americans this language was hollow because the hateful stamp tax had just been repealed, and they were very busy, very prosperous, and indisposed to academic dispute, for the moment. Yet where, as Bancroft describes it, there was a liberal temper, no caste, no entail, no feudalism, the sense of equality in social and property conditions created, as it has since done throughout the younger States of the Union, a sense of equality unknown elsewhere in the world, social, economic, and political. Great strides had been made even in the direction of religious equality. Equal among themselves, Amer- icans felt no inferiority to the ruling class at home. For them it was an absurdity to talk of dependency. Subjects of the crown they were, but on an absolute parity with all its other subjects, enjoying identical rights and immunities. These they considered in- herited, however, not inherent, a birthright of Eng- lishmen. Not that prescription could supersede the law of nature or the divine law of God, by a con- junction of which the general welfare is secured. Already attacks had been made on the contract theory of government, "as metaphysical jargon and syste- matical nonsense"; but in the main, as it was con- sidered basic to the revolution of 1688 at home, there must be something in it as a basis for maintaining American rights against the insidious assertion of parliamentary supremacy. These rights were: to personal security, to personal liberty, and to private property, primarily. Secondarily, these must be buttressed by a constitution, a limited kingship, an impartial justice, by the right to petition, and to bear arms. To all eight, primary and secondary, the people have an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible divine right. The years from 1764 onward saw great numbers of learned and ingenious pamphlets written and published to support this position. PURITANISM 55 Such was the ferment that the step to the latest evolution in democratic government was easily taken. The colonies bred lawyers and publicists in somewhat inordinate proportion, and when colonial assemblies, legal or voluntary, came together the talk was all of rights. So when public documents emanated from such conventions or congresses they were primarily bills of rights, wherein such ideas were set forth with a clarity, gravity, cogency, and temperate expression which fixed the attention of the European world. The successive declarations are not identical, however, in asserting a basis of rights. The conservatives enumerated their grievances as Englishmen; but the true-blue democrats believed in and asserted what they called the primordial foundations of government, the law of nature and natural rights, from which spring popular sovereignty and the consent of the governed, under a contract which can be abrogated. This was the accepted doctrine at the close of the War of Independence. The classic expression of the American Constitution, not the federal pact, but what underlay all the State constitutions, is in the famous Virginia Bill of Rights, adopted 12 June, 1776. Its greatest novelty is the article contributed by James Madison : That all men are Equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dic- tates of conscience. One and all, the bills of rights limit the sovereignty of the people in favor of the liberty of the individual. The subsequent history of democracy is brief and simple, as history. Not only subsequent to, but con- sequent on, our bills of rights (not petitions but decla- rations) came the reaction in Europe, and a resonant, bloody reaction it was. What the British began and we developed, the French caught up, and with the fiery intensity of passion awakened by Rousseau endeavored to put in practice, without regard either 56 DEMOCRACY IN HISTORY: to the past experience of human nature or its ab- normal and warped texture at the moment. The results were awful license and uncontrolled tyranny, the seizure of the movement by military force at the hands of Napoleon, and the repression of its ex- cesses together with the spread of its truths through- out all Europe. Absolute kings were awe-stricken, and their frightened ministers managed to use fear in the maintenance of a long reaction. In 1830 came the July days when, in the name of liberty, the French plutocracy expelled a divine-right King, and seized the reins of power; in 1832 came the first English reform bill; the abortive days of 1848 fol- lowed on the continent, and finally the consolidating wars which squarely divided Europe into free and despotic governments, the latter, of course, tempered by democratic menace all the while. At first sight the history of democracy throughout the nineteenth century seems an inextricable snarl and tangle. But it is not really so. The clue can be found in the different efforts of different nations to express in institutions the national ideas concern- ing the discovery and liberation into action of the popular will. In other words, democracy must have organs wherewith first to examine and discover its precise will, what it really wants; and secondly, to compel its servants, the officers of the state, to obey that will. Merely to describe the democratic temper and machinery of each stat;e is interesting, but every cataloguing science is rather a. sport than a discipline, and the cataloguing science of politics is not even a sport, it is merely a pastime. Hence we must make some effort at analysis and generalization in order to see, not how the doctrine of democracy may further evolve, but whether we can advance further in its practical application. Every effort to advance the doctrine will otherwise be futile. IV DEMOCRACY IN HISTORY: ITS INSTITUTIONS EMBRYONIC POPULAR WILL — PERSONAL CHOICE IN THE VOTE, POPULAR WILL IN MAJORITY — EMBRYONIC ORGANS OF THE POPULAR WILL THEIR DIFFERENCE IN PEACE AND WAR — MONEY COST OF EXPRESSING POPULAR WILL — DEMOCRACY THE MOST EXPENSIVE FORM OF GOVERN- MENT — PARTY GOVERNMENT AND PROFESSIONAL POLITICIANS — THE DARK SIDES OF, NON-REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACIES — EFFORTS TOWARD DIRECT DEMOCRACY AND THE EXPANSION OF THE SUFFRAGE — RE- STRAINTS ON THE ABUSE OF POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY — LIMITATIONS IN THE EXERCISE OF SUFFRAGE — CONSTITUTIONS AND THEIR FUNCTION — DECLARATION OF RIGHTS — RELATIONS OF MINORITY AND MAJORITY. Men are not judged by their professions, but by their behavior and by their associations. This is true likewise of every human organization. Asso- ciated man, like personal man, has organs through which he acts. The natural man expresses himself, however, by natural organs, while the associated man creates the method whereby he turns will into action. In creating the method he also creates the organ. There may be inchoate democracy in family, tribe, or clan, but its will is enforced only in so far as it acts on an executive which it does not select, or resists an administration imposed by heredity or custom. It is only as the chief behaves from a choice thus influenced that he exercises popular sovereignty, puts an embryonic general will into action. In all the historical democracies the personal will was expressed by a vote of some sort, and the general will by the majority of such votes. To the latest day no other direct manifestation of the general will has been recognized, and majority rule even with minority representation is compulsory, no matter how slight the difference between majority and mi- 57 58 DEMOCRACY IN HISTORY: nority may be. This has gone so far that even a plurality is held in many cases to decide, unless the contrary has been stipulated; and repeated elections are held to turn a plurality into a majority when not two but several opinions divide the voters. The in- teraction of artificial organs on each other and upon the community which uses them profoundly affects the democracy because theory goes down before neces- sity. What ought to be is the ideal, what can be with the material in hand is the fact; they modify each other. It is claimed that democracy creates for itself organs which virtually eclipse the creator itself. A democratic monarchy is, after all, a monarchy, and a written democratic constitution may have so many aristocratic elements in it that its product will finally be really an aristocracy and not a democracy at all. If democracy engenders monarchy for a definite purpose and a limited period, the experience of suc- cess will diminish prejudice against monarchy, and the inertia of irresponsibility will tend to minimize the energy and zeal for return to normal conditions. A democracy always in danger, and frequently at war, loses its character of jealous timidity and sees little danger either in secret diplomacy or temporary mili- tarism. British monarchs reign by act of settlement but long use approves hereditary succession as the easy way, and curiously enough the least expensive way; and with the hereditary monarchy goes the trapping of feudal appanage. The manners of pure democracy are the manners of self-assertion; they are therefore boisterous and rude when men and women are earnest and deter- mined. In times of international peace the warfare of faction and party reaches the extreme of violence. The organs of democracy in war and in peace must be quite different, as they always are. The United States ITS INSTITUTIONS 59 at war is barely recognizable as a democracy; at peace it reaches the verge of anarchy on the part of demagogues. Parties announce the millennium in their manifestos; entrenched in power for a term, they violate every promise for party reasons of state : i, e., deeper to entrench themselves in power. Parties, if the word be correctly defined, are an organ of democracy created in the interest of efficiency. Like their parent, they have been of slow growth, but un- like their parent they are aristocratic and monarchi- cal, furnishing the element of leadership in an illegal way which democracy refuses to engender legally. ' An economical democracy is a contradiction in terms. The larger the number who share in gov- ernment the greater the cost. Take the single item of an election. As far as I know the one trust- worthy investigation into the cost was that made in 19 1 5 by a commission of public officials, aided by a foremost metropolitan journal. In spite of a wide-spread conviction to the contrary, it appeared that bribery and corruption were reduced to a very low ebb indeed. The result showed that in 1914 there were spent by candidates, by committees, and by the state, something more than three dollars each for every vote cast! Owing to laws enacted within recent years, and an elaborate machinery to enforce them so as to secure honest elections, it is probable that the average elsewhere in the country was no lower. So that in every general election the cost to the country as a whole would be about a hun- dred million. When the suffrage is extended to women throughout the union there will be an increase of about sixty per cent, so that for the single item of securing a legal record of the popular will we have the initial cost of something over a dollar a head for man, woman, and child. It was a laborious task, but some time ago I se- 60 DEMOCRACY IN HISTORY: cured a census statement of the combined expendi- tures of federal, state, and local governments, at a time of profound peace, when our military and naval establishments were negligible in size, though not in cost, and the total showed an average per capita ex- penditure as large as that of any European country; with both establishments terrific in size and effi- ciency. The organs of democracy are its frequent and numerous elections, its armies of officials, and their stupendous cost. Outside the state entirely, democ- racy exerts a moral pressure to which the philan- thropist yields gladly, and the most indurated pluto- crat timidly. Churches and eleemosynary institu- tions, schools, and colleges, public recreation and the uplift movement generally, all of them importunate beggars, secure from the private purses of men and women a sum each year for many years past, con- servatively estimated at three-quarters of a billion. Most of the academies and learned societies in Eu- ropean countries are subsidized by the public purse, throughout our country they rely on private gener- osity, and the exceptions which secure subsidies are so rare as to be negligible. Is this an indictment against democracy? Not at all. The estimate is an approximation well within the fact, but it shows a lavish expenditure for admirable ends. When personally we pay three-eighths of our gross receipts for the public service under legal and moral com- pulsion, as we do, we get full returns in ways of which we approve. But it comes high: that fact we must face. The organs of democracy are few, its instruments legion ; they react on its nature, but they make the democratic state of mind more determined than it is without them. Self-denial is the price of liberty; taking off your coat and bestowing the cloak also. Volumes have been written on party government ITS INSTITUTIONS 61 in America, and stern indictments have been drawn against it by competent grand juries. But what substitute is proposed? None which commends it- self, because in any other way we revert at once to oligarchy or tyranny. Government by democracy is very expensive, like most good things, but govern- ment by oligarchy or by tyranny is not only ruinous in price, it is ruinous in morale. I fancy no one doubts that there is truth in the charge that party leaders of both sides reach understandings which are branded as corrupt bargains, that they do this in order to perpetuate their power and divide between them the emoluments on which they live, and, too often alas ! by which they grow rich and accumulate ill-gotten wealth through collusion with the plutoc- racy. But democracy has no monopoly of corrupt politicians. Quite the contrary, men who knew the European world were well aware that every form of government lends itself to corruption on the grand scale, and that of all safeguards against it democratic publicity is the best so far discovered. Party government as we know it, and have known it, is only possible where power originates in voters, creating by the exercise of the ballot a body of public servants to make and administer the law. From the embryo to the present adult form it has busied itself in two ways, the expansion of the suffrage and the effort to secure direct, in place of representative, majority control. It matters little whether a demo- cratic state be very large or very small provided its nature be truly democratic, and there be no consider- able proportion of citizens with no share in the sover- eignty. But the constitution of a small democracy can be very simple, and the will of its majority can not only be easily discovered in a public meeting, it can be just as easily expressed and enforced. The methods and organs of such a state are neither numerous nor 62 DEMOCRACY IN HISTORY: complex, and its simplicity may lead to such temporary stagnation, such immobility in tenure of office and in institutions as to result in permanent stagnation. When men meet face to face, friends and neighbors, it is very difficult indeed to change officials or modify the authority they wield. Town meetings in New England or in the Swiss cantons are conservative almost to reaction. What the democratic voter de- mands is his chance to vote and talk, what he shirks is both the talking and the voting. It takes time and thought to help manage the public business, and with the possession of the right there is, paradoxically, the abstention from duty. This is one dark side of unrepresentative democra- cies. Another is that only those persons with a cer- tain leisure can perform their civic duties. The active citizen must attend and think. Of old as now, he did and does enjoy a political and intellectual educa- tion of very fine quality, his mind is sharpened by debate, his will strengthened by use and his admin- istrative cunning heightened in the management of large and perplexing affairs. An honest public ser- vant is a very honest man indeed. But such per- formance of hard duty is simply impossible to medi- ocrity, to the petty trader and the laborious artisan whose time is absorbed in the tasks which furnish for himself and family a subsistence scanty at best. The ancients were lovers of their kind, but they felt that slavery and serfage in some degree were the essen- tial basis of the economic structure in which freemen could give themselves to public duty without remun- eration, or at most with very little. Totally aside from this the direct democracies have always been hotbeds of combinations, of secret conspiracies, and of passionate excitement in crucial moments. They have sought a remedy in auguries or choice by lot; and their multiplication of paid officers has been no- ITS INSTITUTIONS 63 torious. Their worst disease was contempt for law and the overriding of its permanent values by a catch vote of the assembly. The demagogue of a popular direct democracy was, and is, a far more dangerous man than the talkative "politocrat" we designate by the name of demagogue in a representative govern- ment. There has been no constitution to control him, and with the demos behind him he is always, at the most critical moments of history, an irrespon- sible tyrant. No form of government has more sorely felt the need, the absolute necessity, of checks and brakes on its organs of unlimited debate, of the visible vote in the hands of intimidated voters, and of snap decisions taken in the heat of passion. Finally, when voters are comparatively few, what euphemistically we call gentlemen's agreements, are so easily made as to menace the very existence of constituted authority. Aside, therefore, from the organs of democracy we have been considering, and which react as a whole most unfavorably on the voter's sense of duty and responsibility, the history of democracy shows us the evolution of three institutions to secure safety and sanity in the exercise of popular sovereignty, viz.: representation, constitutions, and privileged suf- frage. If the lines so far traced are accurate, democ- racy began with a privileged suffrage, continued through long ages in the use of one, and expanded it only under the force of pressure from without; until to-day most free states have substantially universal manhood suffrage, and are preparing rather carefully for what some likewise already have, universal womanhood suffrage. The history of democracy might almost be written under two captions: the growth of multitudinous democracies, and the ex- pansion of the suffrage. We have elsewhere indi- cated what a slippery thing is a right, and how 64 DEMOCRACY IN HISTORY: elusive the definition of all our terms, but the right to suffrage is no longer considered a grant from the body politic, as it really is; it is held to be inherent in every adult free man or free woman. In that great body of law from which our own derives, the male subject or citizen was adult in civil rights at the purely arbitrary age of fourteen, the female at twelve; while in political rights both were adult when adolescence was complete, the arbitrary age of twenty- one. Yet the public defense has been throughout the ages entrusted to males from seventeen upward. There has never been a logical reasonableness in fixing the age limit for exercising the suffrage. Nor in any other respect. A vicious person behind prison bars cannot vote, nor an interned lunatic. But the unrestrained vicious and insane, can and do, numer- ous as they are. Civil ignominy, the loss of character : civil disability, the loss of mind, are no more a bar than poverty, the loss of fortune. In some States of this union there is a requirement that the voter can interpret the Constitution ; one is asked : Who is the President? and released to cast his ballot; another to explain the balances of the Constitution, and turned away because he cannot do so. Similar facts could be narrated regarding education and property qualifications. Probably we shall never be able to set definite limits, but the tendency is to exclude the fewest possible theoretically. Practically the more numerous the electorate, the less value is placed on the ballot, and the political boss tends to become the irresponsible ruler. Yet no reasonable patriot considers for one instant the impossible return to former conditions. We do discuss more stringent naturalization laws, we have a certain small property qualification for immigrants, and strictly scrutinize their mental and physical health lest they become a public charge, sometimes we hear murmurings about the age limit of the quali- ITS INSTITUTIONS 65 fied voter; but we have learned thoroughly the les- son that there is no such safety-valve against revolu- tionary explosion as the feeling of every man and woman that, however slight the influence of a single vote, yet his or hers is as great as that of anyone else. Constitutional agitation has totally supplanted active rebellion. Then, too; the mass submits to obedience, and even forcible restraint, as never before. Attention has been called to Jefferson's outspoken opinion that minor revolutionary out- bursts would necessarily be of frequent occurrence under democratic government. His forecast was not correct. No tyrant and no oligarchy can command such obedience as that which we feel is rendered to ourselves. What burdens of taxation we bear with- out a murmur! what restraint of personal liberty! what galling service we render! When it comes to efficiency of a certain kind democracy proves its superiority, exactly in proportion as the suffrage has been yielded to the immense majority. But the climax of value in an extended suffrage is found in the adoption of constitutions, and in the devotion paid to the stern restrictions they impose on action, to the continuity of national life which they guarantee. When considering the history of democratic thought and action it was manifest that a declaration of rights must be the preamble of every constitution in a free government, whether t written or unwritten. Some principles are sacred and universal, and the method of working democracy must be their bulwark against insidious injury. Haste and enthusiasm are detri- mental to sustained freedom: political porridge must be cooled before eaten. The purpose of a constitu- tion is to safeguard a democracy against precipitancy, and yet point out a way whereby needed change can cautiously be made in order to meet new conditions in society. The act must follow the will at a certain distance of time, because the will of a popular assem- 66 DEMOCRACY IN HISTORY bly is not likely to be what, after careful considera- tion, it seemed to be in the heat and passion of party strife. In a sense every constitution is a piece of popular legislation, because its contents, made by selected experts, are in some form or another sub- mitted to the people for final decision. That was a notable instance within a few years when the people of New York State declined to accept an elaborate draft for a new constitution because the party lead- ers denounced it as undemocratic. They preferred a confessedly defective popular charter which safe- guards not so much democracy as the politicians who are jealous for party power, and their own manipu- lations of it. The majority of voters can always block the action of a minority at the polls, the object of a constitution is that a minority can block the action of a majority until a change in the organic law, difficult to secure, restores power to the majority. Against such a sus- pensive veto irresponsible radicals inveigh bitterly. Robbery of private rights and of property is much easier when there is a single chamber, popular or rep- resentative, influenced by oratorical demagogues, than m a two-chambered legislature, and there is no such barricade athwart the rush of the mob as that peculiar law which we call a constitution, a law diffi- cult to make, and difficult to change. By it a minority may hope to secure time for agitation and discussion, and change itself into a majority. The constitution is the confession that the majority, however large, is not always right, and that even all the people are not right all the time. By it the professional dis- turber and revolutionary is checked while the apostle of liberty and justice secures a hearing. It is bar- barism to live wholly in the present: the highest faculties of civilized man are concerned with a stable future. V DEMOCRACY IN HISTORY: ITS DEVICES THE REPRESENTATIVE SYSTEM — TAXATION — THE TORY CONCEPT OF REP- RESENTATION; DELEGATION — METHODS OF CHOOSING REPRESENTA- TIVES — REPRESENTATION OF MINORITIES AND INTERESTS — REACTION OF ITS ORGANS ON PURE DEMOCRACY — THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT AS A REPRESENTATIVE — MEN AND SYSTEMS IN DEMOCRACY — THE THREE IMPERIAL DEMOCRACIES — ESSENTIAL DEMOCRACY OF GREAT BRITAIN — DEMOCRATIC ELEMENTS IN VARIOUS STATES — CAREERS OPEN TO TALENTS IN THE ORIENT — CHURCH AND EMPIRE IN EUROPE — INFLU- ENCE OF NATIONALITY. Together with unlimited suffrage and subordination to constitutions goes the representative system, with- out which a democracy great in numbers and large in territory cannot exist. Its origin was in the sum- moning by the crown of persons from the estates to parley with the king: as to making laws, as to their execution, especially as to money grants for the needs of government. Its history exhibits certain persons as always willing and able to obey and attend in parlia- ment; certain other persons as likely to attend; and the many as unable to attend, but glad to make themselves heard through one who would be on the ground. While representation is now a democratic device it was originally a right, the right of consent to taxation. Throughout Europe the so-called estates were nothing more nor less than natural divisions of the people. With the gradual extinction and final dis- appearance of feudalism in the fifteenth century, and of the clergy as a separate order, the crown and commons were confronted face to face, with no in- termediary; and while in law the crown represented the whole people, as our presidents claim to do, and 67 68 DEMOCRACY IN HISTORY: are admitted to do, indirectly at least, yet in all other respects popular sovereignty came to reside in the lower house, the House of Commons. With time the crown itself as a power of government has been put in commission to the Cabinet, which proposes, makes, and administers the laws in the name of the people. Corresponding to this curious devolution was a change, or series of changes, in the quality of representation. Taxation being basic to all government, the tax- payer's spokesman came to represent the people's share in all government. Under Edward III all members of Parliament still sat together as one body, it was solely a matter of convenience that the knights of the shire and the burgesses of the towns sat in a room apart, as the House of Commons; the great nobles constituting a House of Lords. In the main the attendance of the commons was unwilling, they wished neither to grant nor to pay money. The rep- resentatives had two shillings a day when on duty, and their constituents were glad when absence made payment unnecessary. Accordingly, those who sat came to feel that the interests of the whole realm were represented by each sitting member, no matter how he got his seat, and that was the initial concep- tion of modern representation, now denounced as Tory. It was our own conception in colonial days; although here as in England the eighteenth century fostered the Whig view that local interests required local representation. To-day we consider the rep- resentative as misnamed, he is a delegate to register the convictions of the narrow constituency for which he sits, and as he hopes for reelection he must so behave. If to these types of representation and dele- gation we add that of communities, as in some New England States, and in our federal Senate, and also the ambassadorial representation in the former Ger- ITS DEVICES 69 man Imperial Council, we have a fairly complete list of all its forms. A striking example of the reaction of the organ on the organism is found in the method of choosing representatives and delegates. The common good is both general and local: each locality may elect a representative, or else the whole mass of voters within the State territory may elect a general list, as of presidential electors. Theoretically, the general ticket is the best way, reminding every candidate of his grave responsibility to the whole community, of his superior duty. But he loses thereby the sense of immediate responsibility and degenerates into a pro- fessional office-holder. In France they try first one, then the other method, and the alternation has a cleansing influence on their politics. We are wedded to the local ticket in one house, because in the others we have the general, the popular election of senators. The trouble with the single member for each small district is that the minority of voters in the whole State may have a substantial majority in the legisla- ture; the advocates of home rule for the city of New York complain that while the State as a whole is Democratic, the legislature is so often Republican. It is also generally recognized that a sparse agricultural population should have proportionately a larger rep- resentation, because a dense urban population can more easily unite to exert quick pressure. Manifestly a small stable majority can easily be- come an intolerable tyrant, and minority representa- tion in some form has many advocates; so far the clumsy machinery devised to secure it has thwarted any general adoption of the principle. There was a time when a demand for the representation of inter- ests could get a respectful hearing in America* For many years, however, this has been impossible * Calhoun's Works, I. 70 DEMOCRACY IN HISTORY: because the interests, agricultural, industrial, and commercial have known how to secure it without recourse to constitutional guarantee. Exactly as the boss or "politocrat" is unknown to the law, and therefore dangerous, the captain of industry, like- wise unknown to the law, as such, so manipulates certain districts and their representatives as to secure the undue representation of interests. The^ most formidable reaction in every democratic state is that of these two classes in debauching the electorate. The agricultural trusts composed of farmers are the retort to the financial trust and the labor trust. What are these trusts but combinations of interests to control legislation and markets ? If absorption in locality be the bane of a system tending toward pure delegation, absorption in the various interests is quite as detrimental to the democratic ideal of government by all the people for the benefit of all the people. It seems a strange irony that universal suffrage, and constitutional representative government, the very organs which make great democratic states possible, should react in a threefold way to check the free play of pure democracy. Yet they do, and in consequence there is a wide-spread and most un- reasonable discontent. Human ingenuity has ex- hausted itself in the invention of devices to remedy what are considered a disease of the body politic. In these latest days the initiative, the referendum, the recall, and the nominating primary have been incorporated in our organic laws; we have enormous ballots which few read, and fewer understand, and of course the obvious retort to such absurdity, the short ballot for diminishing the number of elective officers and making politics a responsible profession for the few. Yet the enthusiasm initially felt for them all is rapidly dwindling, and is well nigh ex- tinct, because by their works they are known, and ITS DEVICES 71 their works are not uniformly good. It is a phe- nomenon of high import that in city government the voters in ever increasing numbers throw to the four winds the democratic devices of numerous officials, frequent elections, and rotation in office, because they want economy, honesty, and efficiency in the conduct of public business, and so entrust it to trained experts in the commission form of govern- ment. Even the highest federal office, that of President, threatens to become with the march of time a per- sonal possession for a second term. It is no longer much of an honor to be, or have been, a one-term President, unless some cataclysmic disturbance has totally demoralized the normal flow of political events. Such is the disturbance of business, such the enormous cost, such the needless bitterness induced by a general election that a multitude cries out for a legal extension of the term of office to eight years, or six, with a con- comitant easy recall in case of general discontent; many say six years and no recall, many others demand a constitutional amendment to strip the presidential office of its overweening importance, a menace, it is de- clared, to popular sovereignty and free institutions. There should be no ruling class, elective or otherwise, in a democracy, and to endure even a four-years' monarch is to nullify the general will for that period. A similar outcry is heard in Great Britain and in France. In the latter country it is the Protestants, Jews, and free-thinkers who perpetuate their power, because they only, perhaps 2,000,000 in all, take a vital interest in politics. At Westminster, government is conducted by co-opted officials, and by collusion be- tween the leaders on front benches of both parties, while huge secret funds are accumulated in the party chests by the sale of honors, and spent in secret to corrupt the electorate in one form or another. The 72 DEMOCRACY IN HISTORY: very organs which democracy has created to fulfil its destiny are represented as turning and gnawing at its vitals. Away with party government is the general cry in the mightiest democracies. Naturally we ask ourselves : Where lies the fault ? Is it in the organs or in the men who work them? And is our democracy really in danger ? Is the rem- edy for the evils of democracy more democracy, as an American ambassador declared at a public dinner in London a short time ago? To a very few the answer seems plain: the remedy is: better men and women voters; a higher moral tone, and better men in office. To another few the other answer seems plain : better methods, better organs, a better system. So we are more clearly seeing that the system reacts on the man much as man reacts on the system. A one-time treasurer of the United States assured me that Hamilton's organization of the Treasury had made dishonesty impossible, so wonderful was it, and that with the stupendous increase of its business peculation becomes more and more impossible, the system making the man. But granting the allege- ment, we must still recollect that it was an honest man who made the honest system. No historical truth is more disturbing than the fact that wicked men are so often the instruments of beneficent re- forms; but in contemplating that truth we per- petually neglect the more universal one : that human wickedness in high places is what makes the reform essential. We must have both good men and good systems; bad environment plays havoc with spine- less morality, and spineless morality corrupts good systems. Neither democracy nor its organs are necessarily untrustworthy because there are con- comitant evils. Optimism is a dangerous state of mind, but so is pessimism. The two political sys- tems of democracy and monarchy are still in a titanic ITS DEVICES 73 "struggle for ascendancy. There is in the supporters of the latter a wild hysteria. All is for the best in this best of all possible worlds, as Doctor Pangjoss says in "Candide." We on our side chorus forth the paean of democracy, but not in such phrase. We are painfully scrutinizing the spirit, the work, and the results of the system we are called on to defend. And we are demanding that the enemy do likewise. Thus far we have been outlining the history of de- mocracy in its great central current, and have been ob- serving the reaction on it of the organs it has created to secure the expression of the popular will in action. The present exhibits the largest and fullest measure of success, as attained by three western powers, all of which, it must be remarked, are either empires act- ually, or entertain partly realized ideals of empire. That such is the case furnishes the bill of indictment against them by hostile critics, and is a source of un- easiness to many British, French, and American men. The subject is too large for discussion here. It must suffice to say that France as a centralized democracy, retaining in the main monarchical forms of administra- tion, thinks in those terms regarding her colonies and world empire, having as yet organized no semi-autono- mous French colonial states as equals in a federal chain. As to Great Britain there is no such convinc- ing proof of her essential democracy as her imperial policy since she learned the bitter lesson of how not to treat British dependencies. Her great colonies are independent nations, linked to her by symbolic cobwebs, all of them democratic in their governments. Her minor colonies have a governor appointed by the crown, but otherwise they enjoy complete local self-government. India presents a very peculiar spec- tacle. Divided into many states, of some Great Britain is a protector, of some an ally, and in some she is supreme; throughout the vast peninsula jus- 74 DEMOCRACY IN HISTORY: tice as the natives understand it in the various com- munities is administered under her aegis: the laws of Manu, the law of the Koran, and the law of England. Some of the Indian peoples earnestly want complete emancipation, but the overwhelming majority are unconscious of foreign control, so entirely do they enjoy their own institutions. Much the same is true of Egypt. This and our dealings with Cuba, Hawaii, Porto Rico, and the Philippines, go to prove at least the tolerant spirit of the two purest democratic em- pires. Naturally the book of history is not closed, and the ultimate test of democracy will be its imperial policy, regarding non-contiguous colonial dominions. If modern democracy really begets the ultimate com- plete independence of its outlying sections, it will have stood the test. Otherwise the fate of Rome, of an imperfect democracy ruling other imperfect democ- racies, is sure to overtake it. What constitutes complete democracy? Opinions differ widely. All democrats believe democracy the initial principle of life, in which, so perfect is it from birth, there can be no development; but we all know equally well that from the beginning, the world around, its longings have been fulfilled most incom- pletely as far as the state in general and government in particular are concerned. We know no Oriental monarchy, past or present, where the sense of democ- racy is totally lacking. Indeed the wider the gulf between ruler and ruled the flatter the level of all subjects. They are equal in fate, brothers in oppres- sion, and free in their degree of obedience. By hyper- bole we may, therefore, talk of a democratic autoc- racy, of obedience as by consent of the governed, because the organized physical force of the many could always, as it frequently did, overthrow the power of the one. There were eight changes of power in the history of ancient Egypt alone, all consequent ITS DEVICES 75 on revolution. We have authentic records of men rising by sheer merit from the lowliest estate to the highest. The career open to the talents is the proudest boast of democracy, and its most strenuous effort is to make the assertion of talent in action easier and easier. At the present hour Japan and many states of India maintain the aristocratic temper; while China, and some even of the states in northern India have been throughout their history thoroughly demo- cratic. Wherever Islam subdued the peoples of Africa, Asia, and Europe to its sway it founded monarchies, but its religious teachings are so inherently demo- cratic, and the unity of religion and government so complete that the autocracies of Mohammedanism were and are so unstable that the history of the system is a history of democratic assertion, of radical political revolution. What no single Oriental state was able to devise was the machinery of democratic government. The democratic state of mind existed in them all, except a very few. Those which were contemporary with Greece and Rome, Persians and Parthians, boasted their primitive democratic origins. When, passing by the Greco-Roman period, we come to European mediaevalism and to feudalism, the Christian churches, especially the Roman, proud as was its feudalized hierarchy, were founded on the rock of equality before God, one soul being exactly as precious in His sight as another, and the career of service being determined not by privilege but by capacity. A mechanic's son might be pope. Paral- lel to the ecclesiastical power was the imperial. The emperors were elective, as were the popes. The checks upon imperial power were all in the interest of the peoples, and while the mediaeval dualism was more a shadow than a reality, yet it ruled men's hearts, if not their bodies; and down to the end was 76 DEMOCRACY IN HISTORY intended as a court of appeal for the oppressed against feudal monarchs ruling by fist-right. It was the rise of nationalities, the delimitation of national territories, the development of national speech, which produced a willingness, even an eagerness among the peoples for an irresponsible leadership which in per- petual warfare provided a rallying point; which, first elective, easily became hereditary; and, limited at first by the estates, used standing armies to become absolute, in name at least. In the king was personified the passion of patri- otism, the love of home and country. The church likewise was nationalized and formed with the sec- ular power a league so close that the way was only too easy for the abuse of power, and the destruction of personal liberty. The church, first feudalized and then nationalized, reacted on the papacy, turned it into an Italianate principality, and easily secured the sanction of its catholic power to enforce the na- tional decree. The double sword of ecclesiastical and secular authority was irresistible while faith survived in the human heart. The regimen was one of abject fear. It was against this citadel that modern democ- racy, always living, but dormant and embryonic, began in the eighteenth century to lay siege. While victory of activity and agitation has been a triumph over inertia, yet it is still incomplete, and to our generation is entrusted the taking of the next for- ward step: to oust the surviving powers of oppres- sion from their inner keeps, especially those which lurk within our own defenses. VI democracy: its formula and terms HABIT AND FORCE AS SANCTIONS OF CONDUCT; SOVEREIGNTY MOKE AND MORE DIVIDED IN THE EVOLUTION OF DEMOCRACY FREEDOM AND LIBERTY UNDER VARIOUS FORMS OF DEMOCRACY — THE POLITO- CRAT AS AN ADVISER OF IGNORANT VOTERS — DEMOCRACY AS A TASK- MASTER IN POLITICAL EDUCATION — SURVIVAL OF MISLEADING TERMS; INDIVIDUALS EXERT NO SOVEREIGNTY AND RETAIN NO RIGHT EXCEPT THAT TO AGITATE AND UPTURN — EVERY SYSTEM OF DEMOCRACY DE- PENDENT ON THE MAJORITY OF THOSE WHO WORK IT; BAD MEN IN MINORITY MAY BE REFORMED MEASURES HELPLESS TO PRODUCE EQUALITY, MUST BE SUPPLEMENTED BY MEN — EQUALITY IN POSSES- SION OF CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS ONLY, NEVER IN THEIR EXERCISE, WHERE ABILITY COUNTS THE PASSION FOR INEQUALITY A MENACE TO DEMOCRACY — POSSESSION OF CIVIL RIGHTS IMPORTUNES POLITICAL AND FINALLY SOCIAL RIGHTS CLAIMS OF THE WEAK ON THE STRONG; STATE SOCIALISM A MENACE — BUREAUCRACY, CIVIL SERVICE, OFFICE- HOLDERS A MENACE LIKEWISE POLITOCRATS AND PLUTOCRATS, THEIR DANGEROUS ALLIANCE — DEMOCRACY A CHAMELEON IN ITS HUES. Scientific inquiry into the origin and development of democracy as a political system results in the con- viction that there neither is nor has been an absolute best form of government for human association. Examining successive stages of social progress, each of these has at its zenith created for itself a form of government fitted to secure its gains and give the freest play to the aptitudes of its more powerful members. The strong have always asserted and had their liberty; the consciously weak have felt, them- selves oppressed. Not always, indeed rarely, have the physically strong or the physically weak been supreme. The sound mind in the sound body may be general but it is not universal ; the unsound body may entertain a sound mind. The power to create a political organism has, it seems, been collective; it has emanated from general kinship, or common faith, or social wealth, or mutual idealism; only now 77 78 DEMOCRACY: and then, however, and only for intervals, from col- lective force. The chains of habit in government, active and passive, have always been far stronger than those of the police power. Right in its broad sense of constructive behavior has always had a moral ascendancy over might. If the true and sane evolutionary thought of nat- ural science points in any direction it is to indicate the transmutation of the state from a simple to a complex organic character. There is always the same sovereignty, the one indispensable character- istic of the state; but at first its outline is discerned darkly; then, as resident in a person, or a com- mittee of persons, and lastly, with great difficulty, in a vast number of persons, either the entirety or the majority of the individuals composing the state. Real sovereignty cannot be inactive, but lives in its own reactions; hence arises a unit or group of units resisting its thrusts from within, while other sover- eign states condition its development from without. The former may go so far in modifying the state as to reconstruct it; the latter may compel its trans- formation, both social and economic, almost com- pletely. From all these evolutionary considerations, how- ever, we get knowledge that is only partial in quan- tity, and in quality also lacks various elements of value. Democracy has many forms, and the defini- tion of its ideals requires a further investigation, that of its organs, of their varieties, homologies, and metamorphoses; of its desires and aims, and of the numerous expedients invented to express the general will as the resultant of individual wills. The latest definition of democracy, the sense in which intelligent men used it until very lately, is "government working through public opinion." It has been claimed that we have a democratic monarchy in Great Britain, a ITS FORMULA AND TERMS 79 democratic aristocracy in France, a democratic federal state in America, and that we have a pure democracy in Switzerland. In the struggle for "liberty" and the history of "freedom," long and painful, we con- gratulate ourselves on having attained to a higher degree of both liberty and freedom through and in these systems, than ever before. We think of our civilization as ripe; of ignorance, superstition, lust, and luxury as under control; and of coercion for the general good as reduced to a minimum so small as scarcely further to be reduced. As to derivation, "freedom" and "liberty" are Saxon and Roman synonyms, respectively, but in use the former is collective, the latter personal. Freedom is a system, liberty the enjoyment of the system by the exercise of choice and the practice of duty. Lord Acton dreamed of liberty, as defying authority, even when expressed and enforced by the democratic de- vice of majority votes or majority custom, or by majority opinion. So far, at least, in social experi- ence the authority of the people as expressed by a majority and enforced by their government, stands in amused inertia, defying such defiance of its author- ity. Take the suffrage, for example. Society be- stows the right and imposes the stern duty of its exercise. No duty is more imperative, but the mechanical devices of party government render the preparation and casting of a ballot so difficult that certainly a fifth of us shirk our duty by absence; many more vote a ticket proposed for us, electing to office unknown and unfit men by the hundreds and thousands; or in small minority some of us spend painful hours in futile inquiry as to the fitness of candidates, in order that we may share in govern- ment with at least some slight glimmering of intelli- gence. Such imperfect and inadequate performance of this 80 DEMOCRACY: burdensome duty costs, as has been previously ex- plained, the taxpayer, the candidate, and the party committees at each election about three dollars per vote cast ! Aside from the huge and ever increasing salary list of our administrators, we already spend about eighty millions per annum for elections, and when all adult females get the suffrage, the tax- payer will apparently have to crouch under a load of one hundred and sixty millions for the casting and recording of votes every year. The noblest task, therefore, of the enfranchised individual becomes im- possible of performance, for the two reasons given, because he has a finite mind, and because he possesses limited financial means. Neither brain nor pocket can endure the strain of the present devices for run- ning a system of freedom and the exercise of good political habits. It is hypocritical to speak as if we measurably approach the high grade of democracy by any expedients now in use, expedients selected by majority vote, expedients maintained by the good- natured inertia of a majority. We know that the horde of major and minor political bosses are danger- ous parasites, that they constitute an illegal and im- moral oligarchy, cleverly styled "politocrats," as we have said, exercising a dangerous control by the sim- ple device of advising ignorant and bewildered voters. The numbers of such votes we shall probably see doubled, and another horde of female "politocrats" will batten on a further supply of political spoils. If this really were democracy in the sense of gov- ernment by public opinion, then in order to escape Utter discredit, the whole machinery, first of discov- ering and secondly of recording public opinion, will have to be simplified to the grasp of the average mind, and the number of salaried officials reduced by at least a half. In America the state so far is neither a fetish nor an idol; while we recognize its rights as ITS FORMULA AND TERMS 81 a political progenitor, we know well the limitations of the burdens it may impose. Those which lame the realization of our personality in mind, body,- or estate, we will sooner or later refuse to bear; and if it should prove that the direct democracy which is the momentarily dominating ideal stands athwart the path of self-realization or happiness, so much the worse for the system, when it proves unable to fulfil the promises it is vociferously making. Ma- terial efficiency is a doubtful blessing; but greedy, selfish, inefficiency is an undoubted curse. The peo- ple are honestly striving to trust themselves; and the noblest among them declare that they trust the mass in its entirety. The lowly must be exalted, political inexperience must be corrected in a costly school, public opinion must be taught to speak in clarion tones: these are axioms of democracy, and yet, the sordid few must not "work" the visionary multitude to the extent of spiritual and material bankruptcy, as they struggle to do in season and out of season; viz., the inner circle of seekers after power in some form: money, manners, station, control; the able, selfish, unprincipled men of brains. Could power be a means to an end and not an end in itself, the out- ward appearance of democracy might connote reality in some degree. But not one of us has remarked either in history or experience, the use of civil, politi- cal, or social power, by its possessor, to deprive him- self of it for the benefit of others. The eighteenth century bestowed upon posterity a sorry heritage of terms. Among these is the con- cept of public opinion as a force which is the result- ant in equal parts of every man's opinion. Its valid- ity results, we would fain believe, from the equal value of every man's contribution to it; such at least is the almost universal concept, because only in that sense can government by public opinion be self- 82 DEMOCRACY: government, another pretty and specious, but mean- ingless phrase. Governor and governed cannot be the same, any more than the machinist and his ma- chine can be identical. If I am lively and indefat- igable, devoting most of my time and energy to my task, I may manage to be a component element^ in setting up a power generally recognized as wielding the authority of the law. But that power once set up, limited it may be by bills of rights, or by division into executive, judiciary, and legislative, or by dura- tion in time — that power is sovereign, and my share in sovereignty is beyond my reach or control. There is no self-government politically, though theoretically the individual may share in moulding the form of government. Over against the state, the person has in the last analysis no other right than those legal and moral ones which society gives him, and which he has never surrendered to society, because he never possessed them; unless perhaps it be that single right which the one man has painfully acquired in the long evolution of the state, the right to agitate against authority, to associate others in the agitation, to turn a minority into a majority, and finally to over- throw existing conditions, in order to substitute others for them. The authority of democracy is just as absolute as that of monarchy, the citizen has just as much lib- erty and no more than the subject, unless popular opinion be just as much under the law as King John was after Magna Carta. And it is just as difficult, here and now, to make the law-giver the law-abider, as it was at Runnymede seven hundred years ago: to limit King Demos as to limit king anybody. Let us not befog our minds with the misty notion that because as sovereign Americans, we theoretically helped, or our ancestors did, to set up law and gov- ernment, we are free to tamper with the system in ITS FORMULA AND TERMS 83 any way. The only liberty we have is to disobey and take the consequences, a course which is almost always immoral; or to obey temporarily under pro- test and brave Mrs. Grundy, an act of the highest courage, and meantime to agitate for a change. Liberty then is not license, nor is democracy in any of its forms freedom; that is, as a matter of course. Another baneful heritage of the eighteenth cen- tury is the immovable conviction, which is, alas ! so general, that provided only the system of govern- ment be good, there can be good citizens or subjects who are inherently bad men. The remedy for every ill, according to this doctrine, lies in collective or- ganization, the compulsion of members in a great mass of individual equality; we can, of course, level down by bad system, it is said ; equally of course we must be able to level up by good system. Clap the malefactor in jail and protect society against him, while some political expedient, some law or organiza- tion be devised and operated to make malefactors hereafter impossible ! In all sobriety we do so reason and do so behave, in spite of the awful examples of the two Terrors, the red and the white, when France was putting this theory into practice. The truth is exactly the reverse, viz., that only good citizens, unselfish and tolerant in feeling, and practising self- denial in fact, can devise, set up, and operate good government, and that good government can at best only minimize wickedness. The best political system can be vitiated by a substantive body, a small mi- nority, of men banded and organized to use it for selfish aims. The best laws and the best adminis- tration are helpless unless a powerful body of the best citizens are equally active in their support. There is no perpetual motion in good government. The main- spring must not only be powerful, it requires daily winding. The system of freedom requires the same 84 DEMOCRACY: perpetual vigilance, as the enjoyment of personal liberty. The two are synchronous. "Measures, not men," is another antiquated shib- boleth closely related to the former, a device of ideal- ists and levellers to suggest that somehow every sort of mankind would be confirmed in the full enjoyment of the rights granted by the state, if only there were an automatic machinery of government, a self-oper- ating administration of universally accepted prin- ciples, universally applicable. In practice the gen- eral and overwhelming retort is "men, not measures," which is to say that in each case justice and equal right are better secured by the personal conscience and individual responsibility of trained administrators, than by the operation of a mysterious impersonal collective conscience. Both are heresies, either from the democratic or aristocratic standpoint. The lat- ter admits the superiority of a class, the former forces on society the bondage of the general for the sake of the personal, or vice versa. The "equality" of de- mocracy is non-existent without both men and meas- ures, for its corollary is "fraternity," the exercise of self-denial for the benefit of another, and for all; that is, the amalgamated measure and man ; the rule and its exception. Mankind has always been prone to worship the idol and the hero because of its instinct that from a single personality either favor or pity can be more easily secured than from a multiple personality. To worship one spirit, infinite, eternal, unchangeable, is possible only to the most superior minds, to the general he must be revealed in a per- sonality partially finite, so that finite man may to any extent, even the smallest, lay hold on infinity. The secular analogy in politics is the incarnation of political spirit in a personal administrator; humanly speaking, perfect in power and in sympathy. Clear and cogent thought must be analytical. ITS FORMULA AND TERMS 85 The rights granted by the state are universally classi- fied as civil and political; these we define and secure by the common action of all. There is some approach to the equal enjoyment of both by all. We all be- lieve what we wish to believe, and hence we speak of the democratic spirit as inspiring the institutions which secure at least much equality of opportunity, with entire theoretical equality in litigation and at the polls. This label of democracy is a half-truth only: the inequality of brains and wealth without which even the state in embryo is impossible, exhibits in the highly developed state divergences from equal rights, civil and political, as wide as that, let us say, between the potter and his clay. Power over- comes weakness, innate capacity conquers the learned mediocrity in which we so abound, and industry re- duces the ignorant sluggish mass to servitude — in spite of every effort we put forth to keep the dis- eased alive, to protect the stupid against the dangers of rapacity, to push the unwilling into virtue by sani- tation laws or factory acts, and safeguard the whole mass of those who cannot, against those who can, the canning or cunning: in spite of these untiring efforts the minority of sagacious or artful outwit the inert, easy-going majority at all points; seize the levers of power, and turn the very liberties of the unsuspicious majority against them, within the forms of a system of freedom at that. Nowhere is inequality more marked than in the world's most stupendous so-called democracy. By amusing the multitude with certain political toys, such as the minute sub- division of powers and functions; the long, compli- cated, bewildering ballot, and the clever use of dema- gogues in "accelerating" public opinion, the crafty few twist every device of liberty to their own uses, frequently noble, but generally base. Both civil and political democracy are, therefore, in some respects 86 DEMOCRACY: chimerical. Its bitterest and most dangerous en- emies, extreme taxation and the multiplication of impossible duties, grow daily into a more and more portentous menace. You may not often hear any sort of human being admit inferiority, except the sore-heads in their pride of self-depreciation. "Who are you?" "I'm as good as you, and better." "Ain't you stuck-up?" "You didn't come by it honest." We could multiply such phrases of everyday use without any limit but space. They imply self-assertion; but the assertion of superiority, not of equality. Leaving one side the common clay of idleness, indolence, pleasure-seeking, native dulness, petty intrigue, dishonesty, we find that the overwhelming passion of the normal man, woman, and child is for inequality, what is styled ambition; to get more money, more power, more beauty, more charm, more style, more refinement, more knowledge, higher social station; in short a greater portion of desirable things and qualities than fall to the common lot. Perhaps this list may be summed up in two phrases: family pride and social distinction. All else is a means to these ends; money and what it buys, pedigrees and coat-armor, beauty and ornament, grace and good-breeding, all excellent. In a sense even spiritual appearances have value only in emulation, and in the exclusion from their scrutiny of those who do not know the value and reality in them. Exclusiveness is inequality, and ambition is not brotherhood, nor can the longing for superiority of any sort be made to fit the scheme of freedom. Thus far conservatism has flatly refused to see this unquestioned truth, or to study its effects in the state. Discussion there has been about equal civil and politi- cal rights, as if they were quite separate categories. At most the line of distinction is nebulous, and they blend at the edges of their respective territories. ITS FORMULA AND TERMS 87 To grant equal civil rights has the inevitable conse- quence of securing equal political rights, democracy; and were a society conceivable in which every adult exercised the same rights and performed the same task of duty, then beyond peradventure follows the struggle for uniform social rights, privileges, and duties. There would be a type dwelling, a uniform dress and education, a common table, a universal entrance into every domestic circle, and compulsory association in conversation and talk; in fine, a mini- mum of personality and a maximum of monotony, of sameness and equality; spiritual and material. Latterly the strain in this direction has been very powerful. Accepting the social hypothesis of his origins, the unit, male and female, seeks not from personal or family initiative, but from the state and organized society exactly these social rights and duties; protection of the weak, the incapable, the stupid, the indolent against the able, cunning, and industrious. Protection of the weak and incapable it is called; " reaping where you have not strawed " is the reality. The enormous expense imposed by ex- isting legislation upon the prudent and thrifty under the rubric of civil expenditure rolls up every year into vaster dimensions. What the governments of to-day collect from the few and distribute among the many would have terrified our ancestry: old age, military, civil, pensions; unemployment and accident insurance, labor exchanges and social uplift, above all the lavish distribution of that greatest of luxuries, the higher education, to millions whose ambitions far outrun their ability, and to the actually unfit. There is no dissent among teachers of long experi- ence and wide observation, but that from the gram- mar school upward the student ranks should be thinned by fifty per cent, if we are to turn our educa- tional system into something which really educates 88 DEMOCRACY: the whole man: body, mind, and soul. The most pertinacious nuisance of our life is the semi-educated proletariat, which also is really the most serious menace to democracy in that its quickened stupidity, its acid, even vitriolic disappointment, detects the weak seams of the system. By misuse of the ballot and platform noisy agitators obtain control, and op- press beyond endurance those who have secured in any degree a kind of success; in his efforts to grasp which the pedantic agitator with a stamp of scholar- ship upon him in the form of a diploma has been disappointed. Another menace to democracy, of a similar sort, is the office-seeker and office-holder. In name, public opinion may both reign and rule; the highest officials may come and go, perhaps even the large policies of government may be fixed by statesmen called for a time to high office; but the administrator, singly or in groups, constitutes the real executive. There must be permanence in the civil service, or there is utter inefficiency and scandal. Yet in that permanence there lurks the danger of tyranny. The frightful convulsions of war, and the insidious diseases of peace are largely the unconscious products of official stag- nation. Offices are not paid in money; if the salary were all, the men who hold them would be elsewhere ; the main inducement is largely permanence, and more largely honor. It is a common occurrence for a practising lawyer earning large fees to accept a judge- ship with a third of the income, for honor's sake; indeed the professions, one and all, assert a pre- eminence over other occupations, because of their honorability. The policeman is the fountain of jus- tice, security, and honor to millions, and his carriage, his air, his demeanor show that he is aware of the fact. Between the turnkey and the President are all socio-political gradations, but they are gradations, ITS FORMULA AND TERMS 89 and constitute a hierarchy that knows little of equal- ity, fraternity, liberty, or even of government by public opinion. Every member must act within the law, but however minute the provisions of the law may be, they cannot cover the multitudinous details which afford to every office-holder his opportunity for a greater or less degree of arbitrary rule. My house and lot is assessed and taxed at a value for which I could not possibly sell it. I appeal, and the reply is that even if my contention be true, there is no remedy except such as would make a total change in all surrounding values, which is utterly impos- sible. And so I am oppressed, not by the law, or by public opinion, but by the arbitrary stand of officials, distracted by the demands of higher officials for the largest tax returns in order to meet the in- creasing outgo of the state in salaries and civic ex- penditures for safeguarding certain classes against the consequences of their own behavior. As yet we have no permanent bureaucracy in the French, Ger- man, or Russian sense, but there are symptoms which indicate an embryo of one, in our reformed civil ser- vice. The Europe of 191 5 was an awful example of what bureaucracies acting "efficiently and promptly" can do in the very face of public opinion, speciously proclaiming a crusade for life itself, the life namely of a ruling class, drawn from every rank, desperately set to maintain its power, its permanence, and the honor of its political notability. This is what makes politics the business of so many, engenders the class of "politocrats," and creates the importunate, presumptuous, and haughty society of our capital city, a society of public functionaries the most ludicrously stratified of any: London, Berlin, and Petrograd could exhibit nothing more complete. It is a stage on which both sexes cringe, fawn, and bully for favor and "pull." Parallel with the "politoc- 90 DEMOCRACY: racy" are the effulgent plutocracy, and the ostenta- tious so-called aristocracy, those whose pretensions rest on wealth, and those whose pretensions rest on birth. Both are exclusive and self-satisfied, both have in high degree what the majority has not, and both perpetuate themselves by the training and inter- marriage of their offspring. At times they blend, but in the main, money marries money, and family allies itself with family. After some generations of money-power, its possessors secure refinement and style, and the division of fortunes assimilates one to the other. Socially the " politocrats " meet with very modest success, as far as the "tip-tops" go, except perhaps in Washington, and the State capitals, where they are courted for their power; and, totally ignorant of social conventions, they are found, the males at least, amid scenes where they shine neither by felicity of manner nor of garb. They do not seem, however, to suffer from envy, malice, or hatred. Like good merchants they treat their customers with consideration. The little boss is also placid and content socially; the possession of power is its own exceeding great reward ; in the coun- try store, at the bar of the tavern, or on the shady porch of the farm-house. Democracy in the accepted definition of government by public opinion could not be said to find its most shining example among such men. While social inequality breeds rancor and spite among other disappointed aspirants, it is good- humoredly accepted by such as these. Elegant pre- eminence in bower and hall may be the far distant goal of much the largest number of shrewd, earnest, intelligent and busy men, but its remoteness makes it a distant scene, and daily gains for daily necessi- ties are the matter of immediate concern. "Too busy for politics" is the mild rejoinder of millions who consider themselves good citizens, and shirk ITS FORMULA AND TERMS 91 alike the exercise of political rights and the per- formance of political duties. They will not accept and carry the burden of democracy. They will and do accept the behests and war-cries of their party leaders, the selfish " politocrats " ; without compre- hension of or concern for, the social drift, except as it touches their balance-sheet, if they have any. A great judge and prominent citizen, when urged by the writer to give a reason for his party loyalty, said simply: "When my party is in power, the country is prosperous, otherwise it is not," and declined all further talk. He had no time for economics, or for- eign relations, or the quality of his rulers. That was the affair of others, his was the law. These are x the considerations which explain the chameleon-like hues of democracy. Inequality of representation, of justice under the law, of social rank, of resources, of education: these find their explanation even under social democracy, not merely because men are born unequal in ability, but because of their widely differing temperaments and aptitudes in particular, and above all else in their tastes. This, of course, is an admirable state of things, not because it is, but because it effectively prevents stagnation. Life is interchange, giving and taking, sharpening wits by discussion. We must, however, dispassionately consider that in all these truths there is no democracy in the sense of equality, fraternity, or liberty as we use the terms. True democracy is a state of mind, common only to the intelligent. VII DEMOCRACY: THE FOES IN ITS HOUSEHOLD PASSION FOR EXPANSION OF DOMESTIC RIGHTS JEOPARDIZES DEMOC- RACY — OVERTHROW OF CHURCH AUTHORITY BY RIGHT OF FREE THOUGHT FALSE EMPHASIS ON RIGHTS; DUTIES FORGOTTEN, RULERS DESPISED DEMOCRATIC STATE OF MIND TENDS TO RETARD PROMPT ADMINISTRA- TION RESORT TO DISCIPLINE AND DICTATORSHIP IN CRISES TYRANNY AND OLIGARCHY IN DEMOCRACIES; SPARTA, GERMANY, UNITED STATES — INDICTMENTS OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY; BRENTANO AND OSTRO- GORSKY — THE DEMOCRATIC STATE OF MIND IN GERMANY — EXTERNAL FORCES MOULD CONTINENTAL DEMOCRACY — SOCIAL DEMOCRACY IN GERMANY MISNAMED; WANTS SHARE IN GOVERNMENT DEMOCRACY IN RUSSIA, THE ORIENT, AND MEDITERRANEAN LANDS — FRENCH DEMOC- RACY CENTRALIZED AND IMPERIALISTIC. The democratic state of mind, the desire to equalize all mankind, for after all democracy is that, and that alone, doubtless underlies even the numerous influ- ences which appear so bitterly hostile to the prac- tical working of democracy in politics and society, and which are everywhere in evidence. If science indicates, as it does, the social origin of man, humanity arising in the family group in some form, and if, in the laborious process of evolution, the monogamous family is our highest achievement and our most precious institution, why the wide-spread spirit of rebellion in the family ? Why the assertion of newer rights and duties for wives, husbands, and children, hitherto unconsidered ? The child is by nature pre- cocious, imperious, self-conscious, and self-centred; the husband is disciplined by his wife, the wife by her husband, both by their children, the brother by his sister, authority and repression proceed from be- low upward. None but the blind refuses to see the levelling in- fluences at work in the family. Power as a bread- 9* THE FOES IN ITS HOUSEHOLD 93 winner and a fortune-builder with few exceptions, still resides where it always did, but the will to exer- cise it is enfeebled by feminine and infantile defiance and arrogance. All parties to the family organiza- tion have the democratic state of mind, importunacy on one side, submission on the other. The opulent know the danger to their offspring of indulgence, but indulgence is the easiest way; the poor fully realize the dangers which beset the emancipation of their children, but again feebleness wins the day. Both forget the fact that the fit survivor is the fittest, while the unfit likewise survive as the unfittest. The mass of sorrow and disease and crime is just as per- sistent in the demand for being and surviving, as the elect are for opportunity to be elect. There is in the family the never-ending antinomy of weakness and strength, the levelling to equivalence of producer and consumer. This same state of mind is further manifest in the church, no matter how comprehensively we use the term. To assert authority in any theocratic form has become impossible, even in the Roman and Greek Churches. Centuries ago the learned doctors were divided as to the source of papal authority, whether it came direct from on high, or through the people as expressing the divine will. To-day, whether profess- edly or not, the latter conviction prevails, and never have the laity so moulded the precedence of the hier- archy: state after state has sundered its interdepend- ent relation with organized Christianity in any form; even the age of Concordats has passed. It is only by indirection and by popular agitation that any kind of sectarianism controls state-action. The in- ternal affairs of the Protestant denominations are partly managed, and ultimately controlled, by the laity, with the equal suffrage of men and women, the latter being fully as influential as the former. There 94 DEMOCRACY: remains, to some extent, the outward form of medi- eval or early modern institution, there still exist church courts of higher or lower instance, the clerical garb and vestment, the survivals of ritual; but re- spect for them is confined either to the majority of the devout, or to the historically minded, who find some kind of ecclesiastical order indispensable to the existing social order. Ultra-radical iconoclasts link the family and the ecclesiastical establishment as really a single anti- quated institution. Christianity has always claimed to be, and is primordially, democratic, since it draws no distinction as to the value of souls to be saved from damnation. Yet inasmuch as Christians are human they have ordered their organization on the fallible basis of the political models successively in vogue, monarchical, feudal, aristocratic; and only initially has it been democratic. The priest of hum- blest origin could become a pope, but the apostolic grace once conveyed, a privileged order, however self- denying or self-sacrificing, was permanently consti- tuted; permanent, with the rarest exceptions, in the life that is. Liberty of thought and speech in a divine-right church have been as precarious as in a tyrannical state, to be exercised only at the price of excommunication and outlawry. Yet in spite of every trammel there has been a steady and victorious onslaught against hierarchy of any sort in religious organization, until there is now just as near an ap- proach to direct democracy within its various forms of organization as there is anywhere in politics and society. The general state of mind ecclesiastically is exactly what it is politically or socially. Any association of individuals with an element of permanency in it produces a new person, behaving quite differently from any one of its composites. Male and female make the man, by marriage; this THE FOES IN ITS HOUSEHOLD 95 man with offspring makes the family; neither the composite man nor the family behaves as did, or could, the component individuals. There is a paral- lel in business; however despotic the senior partner or director may be, firms, corporations, and trusts behave according to a collective will. It has been said that every committee of three should have a valetudinarian and an absentee member; even in that case the one active present member is influenced by what he opines to be the feeling of his colleagues. Masterful as may be ecclesiastical officials, they feel the categorical imperative of the representative bodies from which they derive their authority. No one denies personality to the state, but floods of controversy rage concerning its degree and com- petence. The democratic state of mind is universal in the modern nation. The state is by most living thinkers considered to rest for its authority on the reciprocal rights and duties of all its citizens or sub- jects, a secular form for the golden rule of Christi- anity, except that the emphasis on rights sadly dis- torts it. The duty element of the moral law, duty to God, duty to neighbor, is almost eclipsed by the iterative cicada-like assertion of rights as against both God and man: at the best, duty is not exactly a fashionable propulsion for conduct in the serious thought of modern democrats. What they demand is equal rights and "social justice." It is an obvious falsehood that all men are equal, but it is an equally obvious truth that every man has a high degree of value, so high that he may not be degraded to the state of a mere tool; that no man, however great and good, may exercise uncontrolled sway over others, even if he derives his authority from the multitude. If there is to be sacrifice for any cause whatsoever, the victim must be self-immolated. The democratic state of mind in politics would 96 DEMOCRACY: minimize the personality of the state almost fc> ex- tinction, on the ground that rulers, being individuals, may think and will as rulers, but dare not indulge in political emotion. In their sphere of action under the law they may exercise no private virtue, they have no authority for the practice of love or generosity or magnanimity in statesmanship; they may not exact blind obedience from everyone, nor commit the state to any policy in peace or war without an opportunity for public discussion; without a chance for the in- dividual to exercise his choice, to decide as to which is his higher obligation, to the state as expressed in government, or to conscience as prompting his duty to family or to business, or to the church. The payment of taxes is a free-will offering; so too is military service. The state has no conscience, and the conscience of each citizen is alone operative in the contrivance of general policies. But what about crises, which, internal or external, threaten the public order or menace the equitable relations of states to each other? Obviously there can be in an acute crisis no plebiscite, and no resultant action sufficiently prompt to secure self-preservation and self-respect. The democratic state of mind de- mands for its free play a profound peace and pro- longed meditation, the banishment of passion and all other human frailty from the scene. Its supreme renunciation is to suspend itself during critical mo- ments which threaten disaster to all national order. It is the habit of Utopians roundly to abuse nationality as utterly harmful to human progress, in that nobody can define it: it engenders rivalry and hate, and mil- lions have perished in the defense of a mere vision. Yet the spirit of democracy would find no embodi- ment were it not for nationality. In its alembic, mysterious as is the alchemy of politics, it is the zeal for nationality which stills embittered party strife, THE FOES IN ITS HOUSEHOLD 97 which feeds new personalities into the hopper of ad- ministration, which sloughs off antiquated function- aries, and, in changing the personnel of government, shifts the seat of sovereignty. To trust officials is dangerous, to measure their merit by efficiency even more so, because confidence and capability lead to permanency and the worship of embodied authority, and such worth as there is in the average man finds no room for its play. Even the man of principles is a suspicious person, because fixed principle is hostile to that flux of new measures and new men essential to democracy. The very word "standard" implies etymologically some- thing fixed and hostile to mutation. True democracy can tolerate nothing standard. The denial that men are stratified according to their powers implies an imperious necessity to give every male and female a chance to improve or debase the existing social order as his or her activity may affect it. Officials there must be, and in some fashion they must be chosen and entrusted with power, but normally they must be held to a responsibility of superhuman per- fection, posted for every deficiency, distrusted and continuously supplanted to make way for others. Democracy demands no class of trained, skilful, per- manent bureaucrats: it prefers the imperfection of neophytes as the pretext for perpetual rotation. In this way the exceptional man comes to his own only for a brief span, while the hydra-headed majority reverts to the general level. A short renown must suffice for even the greatest and the wisest. But what about the crisis, the menace to essential nationality? The men of consummate tact, of wise counsel, of commanding power, meteor-like as was their transit across the political sky, can again be found among the ranks of those who have been tried out, and have returned, either voluntarily or invol- 98 DEMOCRACY: untariiy, to the plough. For the emergency their ser- vices must be secured ; and, for the crisis, to them with a minimum of popular control must be entrusted the saving of the state. The notion is simple enough, and the plan sometimes works. But with what sacri- fice of time, what waste of life and money, what need- less expenditure of energy in securing discipline and cooling the passion of mobs disturbed in their leth- argy, and wedded to their idols of luxury, timidity, and stagnation ! Moreover, the awful spectre of Caesarism is evoked, of a temporary absolutism made permanent, of a willing bondage turned into repug- nant slavery. This rather appalling truth is admitted by us all, by the most lukewarm as well as by the most ardent democrats. The game, moreover, is worth the candle, in the opinion of every English-speaking person who has given attention to the matter. There was exactly the same feeling in the pseudo-democracies of ancient Greece, all of which were occupied in the tyrannical repression of numerous freedmen, slaves and strangers by the smaller number of privileged freemen, styling themselves what they were not, in any sense: demo- crats; enabled, however, to give most of their time and energy to ruling and fighting by the fortunes wrung from unremunerated labor. Sparta was syn- onymous with rigid discipline, self-denial in the ser- vice of the state, and the pitiless logic of facts. In force and in statecraft it surpassed Athens and over- whelmed her, because of discipline and unified ability. Yet Pericles boasted the Athenian preference for ease during peace, for intellectual exercise without physi- cal weariness and declared truthfully enough, that the Athenian was none the less brave in peril; brave with a courage gained by habit and not by law. Enjoying the arts of peace, living without the con- stant uneasy anticipation of pain, loving the beautiful, THE FOES IN ITS HOUSEHOLD 99 simple in tastes, cultivating the mind, the Athenian was a model citizen, as he saw himself: but in the final and desperate struggle his symmetrical manli- ness was of no avail against mechanical discipline. The decline of Athens was, nevertheless, of more moral value than the rise of Sparta, both then and ever since. Lost causes of such sort have in them the germs of immortality. Sparta was, excluding its aliens and helots, an even purer democracy than Athens. Democracy is, therefore, not necessarily a panacea for tyranny. When after the Reform Bill of 1832, a British Parlia- ment, representative of the middle as well as of the upper classes, destroyed the self-perpetuating munici- pal corporations, it cured many privileged abuses, but it likewise, as in the case of Liverpool, overthrew many admirable city governments. What cures in some societies poisons in others. The generalizations of politics are a menace to democracy. Common de- cency compels those of us who are saturated with the democratic state of mind to hear the other side. Among great German economists the United States had in Gustav von Schmoller and Lujo Brentano two friendly critics, who are likewise doughty German patriots. It is not easy to explain the American con- cept of freedom and liberty to such profound think- ers. Our phrases, like those of the British Liberals, ring hollow to them because we overlook what they consider basic, a collective temperament and genius arising from long common historical experience. For a German, liberty means the possibility of being a type-German, not a whimsical individual. Together the common stock has experienced successive politi- cal phases; the servitude of foreign rule, the com- bativeness of parts in a splintered unit, the partic- ularism of semi-feudal social hierarchies, a petty state system distracted by fiercely antagonistic interests, ioo DEMOCRACY: the rise of one among these to indisputable hegemony as a military, bureaucratic monarchy, the unification of all except Austria into a federal, but still military- bureaucratic empire, and the gigantic struggle of this empire to maintain itself by peaceful penetration of backward lands, in securing commercial, industrial, and colonial expansion, a policy professedly copied from our own method of increment and development. The result of creating a Germany has been to create Germans; Prussian, Bavarian, Saxon, all are Germans, each retaining a local character which is just as sub- sidiary to the general as the various local characters of England or America, or even France. From all these they have appropriated the rudimentary notion of liberty: opportunity to be German as others want liberty to be English, American, or French. The entire population of the empire behaved throughout the great war of 19 14-18, not as particularists, but as Germans, and reconstruction of the nation, what- ever its ultimate form, finds them working and feeling as such. Something more they have likewise appropriated, a goodly portion of the democratic state of mind, and a still goodlier portion of disdain for the total failure of the western world to secure the realization of democracy. Brentano has, as far as known to the writer, reserved his machine-gun fire of details for books still to be written, but in his quizzical con- versation the pepper-shot rattle pitilessly against the opponent's shield, and sometimes penetrate. He is far more radical than the Berlin scholar, and a per- sonage not entirely in favor with conservatives. But a passage from Schmoller summarizes the thought of both. "Germany would have experienced the fate of Poland, had not the type of military, and bureau- cratic state asserted itself in the conquest of feudal nobility as rulers, and overwhelmed the States of the THE FOES IN ITS HOUSEHOLD 101 Estates. If some or many German states in 1830 or 1848, or even later, had trodden the path of Swiss democracy, the petty cantonal spirit would have been victorious here. We (the Germans) had never secured our union. Did we not possess the aristocracy of our dutiful civil servants, and our incomparable officer class, we would have had an imperious plutoc- racy such as reigns and rules all over England, France, and the United States." To such men the quality of candor must be allowed, and granting that their convictions are dispassionate, it is strange that those with a democratic state of mind declare that they want a liberty quite different from ours, that their liberty must be evolved from their own conditions, and must not be forced upon them by the yoke of conquest. The beginnings of their peculiar democracy they see in manhood suffrage for the imperial con- gress, in the common school, in the national army, in the common civil law and the independence of com- merce, manufactures, and trade: enormous gains already secured, as they believed, in permanence. For thoughtful Americans the presumption is that as such we do not really wish to hold opinions not based on evidence, and will not refuse to accept facts however distasteful which are based on evidence. The essence of wisdom is a desire not to reprobate, but to understand. Human emotions, love, hatred, envy and ambition, are not vices but integral parts of human nature, its very properties. Now there are about ninety million German-speaking men who see the precious stone of liberty from a facet, or facets, quite different from those on which we gaze entranced, and they must be reckoned with; to be reckoned with they must be understood. For them militarism is not a fetich at all. Indeed it would not be one for us if it were our own. It is extremely doubtful if there be to-day anywhere on earth a military caste, 102 DEMOCRACY: except as we understand the word when we speak of social caste: certainly for the sauntering traveller throughout the German empire there was no offensive evidence of it whatever in that or any other sense. The tramp of recruits, the music of bands, the occa- sional uniform of an officer or soldier on the streets, these were in themselves no more offensive than the ubiquitous and supercilious police of that and other countries. And as for caste insolence, the foreigners who visit us and Great Britain, or other western lands, never weary of parading the wounds to pride which they receive from the haughty condescension of many types, snobs and snobinettes, within our French and Anglo-Saxon lands, especially the exclu- sive, disdainful, plutocratic snobs. The patron and the sycophant are everywhere, and they are in Ger- many; self-sufficiency is everywhere, and Germans abound in it, overlaying it also with an exasperating touchiness. But no people has a monopoly of such weaknesses. Bravado generally masks timidity, some- times even humility, even in a Hohenzollern. The object of these remarks is to clear the way for an examination in outline of the German state and its relation to democracy, a state which in a way is the antipodes of ours, but animated for all that by an identical democratic state of mind. Democracy professes external pacifism for the sake of internal conflict. For us the state has a limited personality, but we emphasize the natural personality of the men who exercise its power, and minimize the artificial personality resulting from the participation, however slight, of all the parts in the whole. Who- ever has the most rudimentary acquaintance with German history and temperament knows that no stock has exhibited this disposition more disastrously than they. Separatism, paternalism, individualism — whatever "ism" connotes centrifugal force in so- THE FOES IN ITS HOUSEHOLD 103 ciety — has been their bane and, fifty years since, they were a century behind in the race for what our mixed peoples styled civilization. From the misty traditions of MancOcapac, and Triptolemus, through the renaissance, down to the latest hour, the stimulus of peoples and persons to revolution or reform has come mysteriously from without, utterly transforming innate tendencies and creating a third something totally different from the double sources. What a universe of difference be- tween Greco-Roman classicism and the literature or art of the renaissance ! Kant declared that it was from Rousseau he learned to measure men, not by their knowledge, but by their moral virtue; yet, as is justly emphasized in these days, how different is the categorical imperative of the former from the sentimentalism of the latter. The kingdom of Prussia was inaugurated in Kant's city, the transformation of German thought originated in Kant's dictum. But the tendency of both was conditioned from without. The horrors of Napoleonic conquest created the German empire. It was borne in on all Germans that only within a German state, strong to keep the stranger at bay, able to control its own foreign re- lations by land and sea, could Germans find liberty. So far their historical experience was nowise different from that of other peoples: what was different was the emphasis they placed on the personality of the state, a person not to be bound and checked as else- where, but a person whose personality was to be the resultant of all German effort, and therefore unifying not merely the politics and power of its parts, but embracing their philosophy and their fine arts. It was the deliberate surrender of the popular democratic will which, after terrible struggles and spasmodic purges in 1830, 1848, 1861, and 1870, resulted in com- mitting the well understood task of creating a closed 104 DEMOCRACY: German state, not to the inefficient, quarrelsome burghers, but to the princes, under some popular regulation, perhaps, but at best a very incomplete control. Nothing was to hamper the work. For considerably more than a generation of men the work of disciplining the democracy of 1848 went forward under state guidance, until from the revolu- tionary movement of Marxism there sprang the con- stitutional agitation of what is totally misnamed social democracy. Democracy it is, but a keen and discerning one, historically trained to realize that without the forward strides of the empire there would have been a relapse into the old social division, and into the old stagnation of industry and trade. Hence when war breaks out the patriotism of the party is second to that of no other. The bureaucracy of Germany has long been aware that the socialism of the social-democrats was but a veneer, the great or- ganization has been making its enormous strides, not as a socialistic or even a labor party, but because it is solidly democratic. What its leaders and mem- bers want, what in a small and unsatisfactory degree they had secured before the war, what in full propor- tion they will get after the war, is a share, not alone as now in the burdens of government, but in its honors and emoluments. Under the constitution of the empire the imperial parliament was a debating club as was the short- lived Russian Duma: but it was becoming something more. The chancellor was to some degree the whipping boy of the Emperor, but he too was more than his office, because he paid with his official head for the grave blunders of the executive. What the enormous body of German democrats demands is that a respon- sible ministry shall inaugurate and carry legisla- tion, nominally at least, as at Westminster, and that the great responsible offices of the state, the plates THE FOES IN ITS HOUSEHOLD 105 rich in emolument and honor, shall be open to them as in France. Nowhere else does the common school play such a r&le as in Germany, and the degree r of education which it gives is quite sufficient to make the plain folk keenly alive to the deficiencies of both forms of free government: the parliamentary and the congressional. They are not collectivists in any sense but one: they want their political hierarchy to be fluid and careers in politics, as they are already in all other activities, to be open to all the talents. They are not shy of discipline, nor of subordination, nor of the law, nor of public servants, as we are; on the contrary, they would be wretched without them all, without the sense of safe guidance. They know that discipline and efficiency are complementary, but they demand the restraint of those who discipline proportionate to the will-surrender of those who are disciplined. All other German parties are political sects, within a hierarchy; the democratic party, now commanding a majority, was the opposition, itself a disciplined hierarchy likewise. The conflict between these "outs" and the privileged "ins" has attacked monarchy and aristocracy and army, and the civil service not at all. They have lost kingship of one form, but they love pomp as the British do. All three ranks, though stripped of political power, stand defiant and insolent with social power in Great Britain, but the people idolize them as the picturesque element in the otherwise gray political panorama. When plain John Morley and plain James Bryce re- tire with peerages, the populace is neither shocked nor grieved, it applauds. The German is just as fond of the show; so, for the matter of that, is the American, amused with the splendors of his President's progress, with his own snobbery, and intensely gay with the consequent enlivenment of life. Nowhere does the most-government theory of the state pre- 106 DEMOCRACY: vail, in ideal and in fact, as with us. With it and its inquisitive commissions, its tariff and income tax; its regulation, sometimes directly, always indirectly, of commodity prices, its census and passport question- naires, and so on ad infinitum, we hem in and limit our liberties actively, not passively, as the German does. Believing firmly that we can stop it all at will, we dance on the verge of a practice which, in other times and places, has hardened into tyranny. The latest Russian historian, Kluchevsky, himself a democrat, depicts in his long and thorough study, the steady evolution of a central Russian czardom from local democracies. More Finn than Slav by race, Rus, as he styles the nebulous nationality, had its choice: to be engulfed in the Tartar hordes of the Asiatic steppes, or to be Europeanized and central- ized and organized for the protection of its Byzantine church and state. The totality of Rus, as he also insistently styles the later Russian folk and its ethos, is soaked with the democratic state of mind, but was forced to Caesarism as a refuge against infidelity and barbarism. Of all possible social systems Islam is the most utterly democratic in ideal and in fact; but for ages it mutely accepted an absolute Padishah in politics and administration in order to conserve its religion and its society; over against outsiders it is fierce and intolerant. Similar democratic states of mind are not merely traceable, but obtrusive in China, even in India, the whole furthest east, not even excepting Japan. The contemporary and modern histories of Italy and Spain reveal them likewise. As scholars see the modern world, to its utmost bounds, democracy is the medium through which its basic qualities must be examined. The attitude and practice of persons in the personified state is a matter of emphasis, determined largely by physical geography and its consequent economic exigencies. THE FOES IN ITS HOUSEHOLD 107 This is particularly so in France. In her long evo- lution she reached a point where in the crown the person of the state and the person of the ruler, and tjie person of the church were almost completely blended into a unit. The abuses of absolute ecclesiastical and secular authority in a single alloy were so glaring that the ruin of the system was overwhelming. " We have lived six centuries in six years," said Boissy d'Anglas in 1795. The outside world was aghast at the dis- appearance of monarchy, aristocracy, ecclesiasticism, even of the family, and awe-stricken at the efficiency of the mob. Yet the six-year transformation would have faded from the scenes had not Napoleon turned the withes of absolute monarchy, which bound the sleeping Samson of democracy, into the steel gyves of imperialism. His institutions survive almost un- touched, especially that perfect engine of centraliza- tion, the prefecture; manipulated now, however, not by an hereditary emperor, but by a committee of politocrats, similar to those who control our own machines, in the constitution of which the great majority of Frenchmen exert a minimum of influence. Democracy in the sense of government by the popular opinion of the French attacks in vain the' supremacy of Paris, where what passes for general opinion is manufactured much as its other specialties in the arts are created. It is estimated, as elsewhere said, that the ruling class of France is the executive committee of less than three million free-thinkers, Protestants, and Jews. These include the "high finance" and the "intellectuals," with the subservi- ent manipulators of the press and of elections. The overwhelming majority of Frenchmen live their ad- mirable [lives, absorbing each his "journal" and its opinions, voting one and all with some modicum of intelligence, and as a whole, cultivating the arts of peace under the rule of a minority, too large to be 108 DEMOCRACY: called an oligarchy, perhaps, but nevertheless totally unrepresentative of even the better instructed masses. The "liberty, equality, fraternity" watchword, once printed or painted in great capitals on public build- ings and in public places, no longer arouses sufficient interest to make the authorities freshen up the fad- ing letters. So long as the French Government is strong, it is safe, not because it is democratic, but because it is strong; the democratic state of mind permeates the people, but their existing system is far from democratic according to the strict sense of the word. It is organized, administrative force with the mask of democracy. VIII democracy: its gains DEMOCRACY HAS NEW IDEAL OF "LIFE" — ALSO OF PHILANTHROPY AND "LIBERTY" ALSO OF "PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS" MAKES FOR PURITY AND MILDNESS, THEORETICAL EQUALITY — HAS TRANSFORMED DEGREE AND EXTENT OF EDUCATION — DANGERS IN QUALITY OF TEACHING AND EXPANSION OF COURSES — HAS SET A NEW TASK FOR THE UNIVERSITIES — HAS CREATED WIDE-SPREAD VIRTUOUS DISCONTENT HAS CREATED A SOCIAL CONSCIENCE, WITH NEW VIEWS ABOUT DUTY, SELF-DENIAL, AND EQUALITY — CRUDE CONCEPTS OF DEMOCRATIC MORALITY REQUIRE CLASSIFICATION — DEMANDS SANCTION OF FORCE FOR ALL MILITARY SERVICE INJECTS ELEMENTS OF REALITY INTO DREAMY UTOPIAS ADJUSTS SECULAR MORALS TO SUCCESSIVE STATES OF SOCIETY — REMODELS POLITICAL SYSTEMS TO SUIT — DISCOVERS DISTINCTIONS BE- TWEEN LIBERTY AND LICENSE. Life, liberty and — the pursuit of — happiness ! Should individual man tear off the mask of affectation and, dissecting his very being, lay bare what he really wants, would it be expressed in this well-worn formula ? Perhaps; but with many subtle modifications of the hitherto accepted meanings of these terms. Taught to believe that existence is the condition antecedent to all else, he earnestly desires to be rather than not to be, but what is being ? What is life to-day with- out the new environment? Every age has within it the germs of the next succeeding one. The goal of one is the starting-point of the next. The degree of fulness in one state of existence is totally insufficient for the complete existence of the next. Democracy dreams that there is an inexhaustible reservoir from which every man's desire may be supplied if only the channels, clogged for the many, could be opened for all. Life, like the daughters of the horse-leech, cries for more and more, if it is to be real life; and failing that, this mere "being" is not life; and imperfect 109 no DEMOCRACY: ITS GAINS life is not to be desired. In the periods of emotional storm and stress there is an ever-increasing number who deliberately take their own and others' lives be- cause such a life is totally defective and not worth while. Without health, or wealth, or home, or friend- ship, or faith, life is valueless, and to large numbers the negation of death is preferable. "Life" in the formula, therefore, no longer means mere opportunity for scanty existence with some initiative to improve ; it means fulness at the start with both capacity and means for enjoyment from the outset: physical and spiritual. Liberty again, if the mask of affectation be thrown aside, and the burden of the past be flung off, appears to mean doing as we please within a limited sphere, that of easy living: of being honest, charitable, gen- erous, intelligent, virtuous without much hindrance, and little, if any, self-denial or self-discipline. Just as we want a church that attends to the matter of our everlasting salvation, relieving us of exertion and responsibility, satisfying our craving for beauty and feeding our imagination with mystical suggestion, so we want a state machinery which shall reform the criminal, support the poor, protect the weak, and render dishonesty impossible, while the honest go their way accumulating property, heaping up educa- tion, refining their minds, and enjoying easy comfort. In regard to liberty, that is really the democratic state of mind; the system of freedom is the one which most satisfies it. Naturally the small mi- nority who have by sheer ability of some sort, or by the accident of inheritance already attained to some- thing like this, wish to ward off the greedy multitude who have not. They distribute their superfluity to the masses in admirable endowments, but they live softly after the Sidonian manner. The rest "admire to behold" this splendor of luxury in life and liber- DEMOCRACY: ITS GAINS in ality, but having through their votes the political power, they spend sleepless nights devising a way legally to "even up," to confiscate legally if need he, in order to "level down" as well. It is not equality with the lowly that is desired by the majority, but parity with the haughty. Finally in the triad comes not happiness, but the pursuit of happiness. The hardiest phrase-maker never dared to intimate that the democratic state of mind or a democracy in action could assure happiness itself. The highest earthly ' ' life ' ' is not the absolutely highest, nor the fullest degree of liberty the actual fullest; both are relative, while happiness, on the contrary, is positive and complete in its very mean- ing. But the "pursuit of happiness"! Pursuit is exertion, the chasing with panting breath of that which ever eludes our grasp. In this there is no languid enjoyment, not even comfortable exertion: watch the misers of every type, the great money- getters, the successful society leaders, the greedy scholars, the austere professional men, how they toil ! Is such pursuit the sort indicated in the democratic watchword ? No one thinks or asserts that the sur- mounting of obstacles, the risk of health and fortune, of life itself, the putting aside of every weight, and the straining of every nerve, is a type of pursuit pos- sible to the multitude, or desired in the democratic state of mind. If we run at all we want to jog along in a pack, which can go just as fast and as far as the weakest unit. We say we do not want "to best our mate": very generous! We want in our democratic frame of mind the most we can get with the least hardship. The strong and resourceful shall not spend and be spent in the public service; that would be aristocratic, the reversal of democracy. It cannot be too strongly emphasized, however, that every possible arraignment of the present-day 112 DEMOCRACY: ITS GAINS straining for the equalization and standardization of mankind, made from the platform of the immediate past, is nevertheless a verdict of innocence. Or rather it is the triumphant vindication of the demo- cratic movement. The ultimate test of any social system is the free play it gives for personal virtue; self-discipline, respect for authority popularly con- stituted, for moderation of public speech. This the democratic movement has secured in democracies of every type: freedom of speech does not mean license for blatant demagoguery, nor does liberty mean de- fiance of the law. This is so well understood by po- tent majorities that democracy is more ruthless in the repression of both license and lawlessness than any other form of government, witness Switzerland in the enforcement of neutrality even to the extent of military control in a crisis; or the United States during the Civil War, or England in the throes of conflict closing newspaper offices, and confiscating printing-plants. The free play for public virtue has been further illustrated in the expansion of the suf- frage. British democracy in 1832 secured the ballot, not for itself, but for its next higher, the middle, class, and in the succession of agitations from 1867 to 1 87 1, it granted what was substantially manhood suffrage. The agitation for womanhood suffrage has triumphantly overcome all resistance. At the beginning of the struggle, however, in this very democ- racy, its advocates inaugurated the same policy of violence as preceded the first Reform Bill: appar- ently they expected bloodshed and massacre on the same scale before attaining their end, and it did seem as if nothing less could break down the bull- dog conservatism of an English popular, "demo- cratic" government. The supreme achievements of women during the war overwhelmed all obstacles. In America the settlement of the western states made DEMOCRACY: ITS GAINS 113 limited manhood suffrage an absurdity, and the older eastern commonwealths followed the example of the younger, until, except for southern negroes and women in some states, there is the free exercise of suffrage right, and to some extent, the performance of corresponding duties. White women have only to exhibit a favorable majority and the state meets their wishes; imposing on them duties of a weight they as yet barely realize. The race problem is a most serious question, but should the majority of our negroes exhibit during a not too protracted future the self-discipline which a considerable minority have for ten years been practising, they too will wring from the state the free use of the suffrage in fact, as they have it in theory. Another significant triumph of the democratic state of mind is the spread of free education. A democratic state is unthinkable without the common school. Public careers require some training, and, as is blindly but deeply felt, are not really open to all without the opportunity for a higher education. By the continu- ous agitation of these two homely truths there has been an ever increased and increasing tender of every type of education, including vocational and professional; a tender accompanied in myriads of conceited souls by allurements of future place and station, as tempting as the apples of paradise. For this the taxpayer cheerfully bears a staggering burden, as indeed he does for every activity of the democratic state. The populace complains bitterly about the quality of teaching, but voices are scarcely audible which attack the quantity. To the dispassionate and disinterested no sight is less edifying than the number of lesson-books school children lug to and fro, unless it be the dull fury of the rejected dunce in the univer- sity. A certain type of dunce goes all the way: the plodding dullard with ambitions far beyond his powers, U4 DEMOCRACY: ITS GAINS yet sustained by blundering through a course of study which he sufficiently masters to secure passing grades. To pick out from the herd of the commonplace the elect few who command and use the free education of America for the public good is not very difficult; but, on the other hand, we seem to be accumulating a numerous proletariat of pedantic weaklings, who find themselves crushed to the wall in the struggle for advancement; and in revenge menace the world with anarchy. Yet the American slack-heap is not as large as the European was, nor so liable to spon- taneous combustion. Were it not for the accretions on our organs of many intractable immigrants, much of the discard could be turned into good material. Manifest as are the defects of our comprehensive system of free education, it makes possible the Ameri- can system of life, and its creation has been in itself a vindication of democracy. The glaring faults of our free education are not so much in the quality of the pupils as in the inade- quacy of preparation for teachers. Methods can never replace matter, but there is exactly the same striving to this end in pedagogics as in politics: to create a form of instruction which shall produce good teaching regardless of the teacher. It is probably untrue that, as is generally believed, our teachers could command either more money or more honor in any other career. But it is certain that the test can never be applied except as teachers are better educated and better disciplined, as they are less fret- ful and more devoted to their high calling. We have done what is under the circumstances our best in the equipment of normal schools, and the founding of special faculties for teachers in our universities; the best as far as we have come. But there is still a long road to travel. The unfit among pupils and teachers must be discouraged and eliminated at DEMOCRACY: ITS GAINS 115 every stage, and for the survivors must be provided encouragement and opportunity to a degree far higher than at present. Indeed the very genius of our highest institutions of learning must be changed. Mediaevalism struggled into the modern light by means of universities, parliaments, and trial by jury; of the two latter democracy is already very suspicious, and to the first it no longer harkens with- out dispute. Beyond peradventure democracy will meddle with every sacrosanct institution of the im- mediate past, with nationality, with constitutions, with representative government, with laws, lawyers, and the law's delays, and with the system of secular instruction from top to bottom. The universities have so far made their appeal to the person of the superior intellect, but now they are becoming levelled, compelling the dull to do better than they can, and energizing the slothful, while at the same time they deliberately diminish the oppor- tunity of the diligent; or, at least, they attenuate it. The stamp of the college and university degree can be secured by a far larger number than caution per- mits; which is a tribute to masterful democracy. Those who win it are left to vindicate, each his or her right. But with this success the social conscience is bitterly disappointed. What this conscience now de- mands is not reform but an evolution amounting to revolution. The modern alliance between pure and applied science has created a social force which appalls the conservative world. Facts are now arranged on a scheme of thought created by the identification of politics and economics. In the case of Germany, where the process has been most complete, the uni- versities were prompt to transform themselves and create an apostolate, not of history and the past, but of the present and the new. The past has been stigmatized as destitute of ethical 116 DEMOCRACY: ITS GAINS content. The result has been a type of nationality hitherto unknown to history, a nationality con- structed, not from former elements, but from im- mediate social and political conditions, marking a transition to democracy. Other lands spew venom over what they are slow to apprehend; an efficiency of the socialized state, of the social conscience, which dismays the peoples who have believed that democ- racy means peace, and liberty, to the verge of license. In the crisis of a nationality, whether based as of old on unity of tradition, origin, and territory, or as now upon environment and interest, democracy is its own most ruthless tyrant. It must be the business of our universities to accept this fact, to profit by the exam- ple of facts as they are, and to invent the needed checks on King Demos, be he personified in an heredi- tary or in an elective sovereign; to find a way to satisfy the social conscience without recourse to political mechanism. The lowly now despise charity, and though they seemingly accept it, they transmute, for their own vindication, generosity into social jus- tice; they are fiercer with monopolies than any abso- lute monarch of old, seeking and finding means to be, through the state control, the largest stockholders in them; they are impatient with any political con- trol for themselves, even by parties, and insist on the direct action of their votes in some way or an- other, so far mostly by inefficient ways; and they have compelled a body of humane legislation for the industrial worker, which enables blackguards, un- punished, to practise every crime on the plea of social equity. These are the matters, or at least a sample of them, which must concern our universities if they are to command leadership in the new society, and secure for all alike, for capitalist as well as for laborer, for refinement and gentleness as well as for rudeness and force, equal rights, equal duties, and equal jus- tice. Some women honestly believe that in this new DEMOCRACY: ITS GAINS 117 social and economical politics they can accomplish what they have accomplished in society: low, middle, and high. If the overwhelming majority of them do not shrink from so crushing a burden, even if they secure their opportunity, there will be on earth a type of male and female hitherto non-existent: so- cially efficient but personally and reciprocally un- attractive, sexually dispassionate and individually self-sufficient. It requires distasteful iteration to realize that the universities must deal with these — deal in such a way that the world may still retain in morals, in religion, and in art all that exalts humanity by its moral and aesthetic worth, and at the same time still the clamorous demand of democracy for control of all the sources. It is a solemn outlook. Government commissions for the study of social unrest are a foolish expedient to gain time : they rather accelerate the pace. What they discover is no dis- covery at all: that unregenerate humanity is un- changed, and the substance of their reports is just an old patent medicine. More pay for less work. The democratic frame of mind is just as selfish as the aristocratic or the monarchical — less exertion, more enjoyment — it merely demands for the many what has so far been the possession of the few. To abolish social unrest would be to abolish human nature. Every generation starts from the achieve- ment of the previous, grateful in a measure for the impetus, but bent, nevertheless, to achieve just as much more during its own allotted period of restless toil. It is in this respect that the gains of democracy are smallest, and the outlook at first sight most dis- couraging. The obstinacy of selfish human nature is appalling. Nevertheless there have been real gains in this regard, and they ought not to be forgotten, being as they are more substantial than the pessimist would have us believe. The social conscience is the proof. Its awakening Ii8 DEMOCRACY: ITS GAINS exhibits a high degree of self-denial, the merging of self in the community, no longer a family or a local community, but a national and even an international republic of mankind. To hate the common herd is no exhibition of superiority in our time, quite the reverse. There are two sides to the labor union, as far as general humanity is concerned, since it excludes free labor for the benefit of that which is organized. The unions have met greed with greed in a doughty contest, and come off largely victorious. But they furnish such an example of preferring the good of the weaker members to the advantage of the strong as was, in like dimensions, hitherto unknown. The unionization of unskilled labor proceeds apace, and while violence too often marks the advance, yet the violence of the early twentieth is feeble and atten- uated compared with that of the early nineteenth century. The sway of reason steadily prevails over the anarchy of unreason, just as the value of unselfish- ness and subordination is exhibited in the control of organization, exercised by officers elected by their equals to wield it. Discontent may be a virtue, if it lead to the practice of self-restraint in order to im- prove general living conditions. As for capital, never has it made greater sacrifices; the thoughtless sneer at the improvements in all the conditions of employment, and, in calm negotiations with labor representatives, as merely enlightened selfishness; but the emphasis is on "enlightened," and where light enters, for any reason, there is the beginning of power, higher life. "Soulless" corpora- tions actually ventilate themselves as never before; the directors' board-room of to-day is a Sunday- school room compared with what it was less than twenty years ago, when directors boasted that they served to acquire knowledge useful to themselves, and felt no responsibility to stockholders, employees, DEMOCRACY: ITS GAINS 119 or the public. Surely the social unrest is in some measure due to the prickings of the new social con- science, a conscience which could not exist but for the softening of the indurated individual conscience. There is bitter complaint that as yet the demo- cratic spirit has not totally expunged the survivals of the passing generation in regard to barriers of caste, and wealth, and race. There is an insistent demand for a new counsel of perfection: not the free-will giving of all that we have to the poor, all privilege, all opportunity, all ease, all refinement because we wish to lend a hand, but the surrender of it as an obvious duty to restore stolen goods. The notions of sacrifice and service in a personal way are obsolete, because personal virtue is obsolete; communal virtue, organized ideals, organized reciprocity, democratic morality must displace individual, because, forsooth, otherwise the recipient of good is, and feels himself to be, degraded in the obligation incurred by taking. There is no loss of self-respect in receiving the costly gift of education from universities or libraries privately endowed, no humiliation in recourse to the poor-farm, the workhouse, or to organized charity, because the whole transaction is impersonal. You are a truer democrat, if saved spiritually by a religious hierarchy: or socially by a secular one, than if you profess your need as a sinner to your Maker and before men, or make a reciprocally beneficial business arrangement with a fellow man. It is better to be a subordinate in a corporation or in a catholic church than a cap- tain of industry or a bishop, because you feel no per- sonal obligation and know no duty except to a com- munity. Indeed duty is a concept exactly as harm- ful as those of self-denial and devotion: like these it suggests inequality, when actually the object is on a par with the subject in the act of duty. It is just as blessed to receive as to give, to accept as to bestow, 120 DEMOCRACY: ITS GAINS to suffer as to give relief. There is no limit to the perfectibility of human nature, no slightest reason to distrust collective mankind or any part of it, and this present state of society is the stage on which collective virtue will find its r6le or know the reason why. Such considerations as these are a sturdy convic- tion with many sincere and thoughtful minds who balk at nothing and see in the attacks on conservatism a holy war. They regard men and women as a moral unity: their passion, their sexuality, and sensuous impulse, their emotional enthusiasm in art and re- ligion, all command room for free play. There can be no sin where there is no law, no licentiousness where there is no restraint. The family, therefore, is but a mechanism to perpetuate the race, and the finer af- fections of loyalty, love, helpfulness, chastity, find within it a scope no different from that which they find in the community at large. Babes go to the common nursery, the sick to public hospitals, the old to public homes. The speciousness of such thought is dazzling to youth — not merely to the young in years, but to the enthusiastic radical, young in feeling no responsibility about anything, young in property, young in experience. But it is shallow thinking because it substitutes desire for reality. Whatever the perfectibility of humanity may yet be, it is still sadly incomplete in its foresight and fore- thought. For instance, in the collective scheme there is no consideration of the categorical imperative. Volun- tary military service is undemocratic, compulsion alone is equalizing, as with every activity; even com- pulsory clothes and compulsory breakfast, as now compulsory taxes. Seriously this is the inevitable counterbalance of the other extreme: and while we think in a democratic frame of mind, the least fav- ored of men have never, and will never, consider for DEMOCRACY: ITS GAINS 121 a moment a revelling up of a sort which makes work itself compulsory, and that under the soulless tyranny of a majority that knows neither pity nor generosity, which, being personal . virtues, must be eliminated from the plan. Of all the gains for the democratic state of mind which have been enumerated, this is the most precious: the power to reason dispassionately, to form hypoth- eses, and to try them out by facts. The so-called Utopias or schemes of perfect society have hitherto been purely imaginary, delightful visions of a heaven on earth. This proposition to go to the limit in equalization of opportunity, to destroy wealth and caste and privilege and rights and duties is to be taken seriously, whether we like it or not. So much that was thought visionary, age by age has, step by step been realized ! Modern England, for better or for worse, rests on the achievements of the industrial classes during three generations in applied democracy; it balks and fumes before conscription, but democracy will yet see that compulsion is of its very essence. The great mass of men and women in the western world have gone a long, long way in compliance with the imperious behest to self-extinction in the interest of their fellowmen. There never was such a smooth, formal payment of hitherto unheard-of taxes, not virtuously but dumbly; never such an acquiescence in the stern rule of minorities which hold the balance of power between majorities; never such a surrender of pride in privilege or birth, until it is a stigma to be the son or daughter of somebody. Is this as far on the equalizing line as mankind can go, or can it make more changes in its tissue and its conduct which may, or may not, be progress toward eliminating church and state and family altogether? toward sub- stituting the holy community for the imperfect gods of the past, and still measurably of the present ? The suggested changes are momentarily in the 122 DEMOCRACY: ITS GAINS realm of speculation, pure and simple. Extreme pacifism gets a hearing, but it is likewise subjected to severe discussion. Rules of conduct, personal and national, are observed without the sanction of force to an amazing extent, but the substitute sanctions which are pleaded, those of justice and right and duty are, in the logic of extreme democracy, almost as antiquated and distasteful as force itself; moral force is as suspicious as physical. Democratic specu- lation of the radical type contemplates their aboli- tion from the framework of thought. But again let us remark what a substantial gain for democracy it is that in this regard revolution exhibits hesitancy and patience. Radicalism actually feels some re- spect for conservatism, at least as to preparation for the next step. In that regard it shows itself con- servative because a conservative is one who at least somewhat distrusts the apparent goodness of the good. He suspects humbug and hypocrisy and sham, having had a wide and rich experience with all three. When radicalism does the same we mark an enormous gain on the tally. The States of our union lend them- selves to every type of experiment in democratic radicalism. These laboratories prove very costly, but what of that ? Wisconsin contributes $8,000,000 in a single year for popular political machinery, pro- nounces it all to be junk, and puts in power a govern- ment which refuses the outlay a second time. Cali- fornia is another similar investigator, and with similar results. The Federal Government heeds a call to retrench $4,000,000 on rural delivery service. A great volume might be compiled containing the tests of the empiric in politics, and cataloguing the great array of discarded nostrums. But what of that again? What failed in one state of society may succeed in another; what was piffling rubbish in the political thought of yesterday emerges in that of to-day sifted DEMOCRACY: ITS GAINS 123 and sprinkled, ready to be cast into the alembic. When radical thinkers propound the dilemma of whether the people prefer self-government to good government they have rendered enormous service to a cause, and advanced its interests a long way. They will shortly join the ranks of the earnest mul- titude who are determined that good government shall be direct self-government, just as far as, and no further than, the "good" and the "self" can be rendered identical. The pragmatism in the vocab- ulary and system of radicalism proves a good deal like the effort of a stringhalt mule to kick over the traces. But this spasm will pass. The political system which replaces the personal by the social conscience cannot be found by a mathe- matical formula, and logic is mathematics. The word empirical is in disfavor, but most of modern science, especially in the field of electricity, is due to em- piricism; a thousand guesses, a thousand experi- ments, perhaps a single epochal discovery, perhaps not one. The test of truth is fruit. Might does not make right, and the converse that right makes might is only true in heaven. Throughout human experi- ence might has again and again made real the right, and might without right has utterly failed from the days of Xerxes onward. Discipline may put numbers to flight, it has done so repeatedly, but numbers with discipline is a more present help in time of trouble than discipline without numbers. So it is with di- rect radical democracy: the creation of such a con- cept as the social conscience is well worth while; it frequently overwhelms a numerical multitude of per- verted individual consciences, and it is not the mere arithmetical sum of personal impulses. Social con- science is nothing new, it is the continuity of civiliza- tion and culture in the state; but it was well worth while to dissect it out and give it a name. Civiliza- 124 DEMOCRACY: ITS GAINS tion is the totality of all the means available for making life bright and pleasant and beautiful^ good manners, style, taste, comfort, and educated intelli- gence; applied ethics and applied science. Refine- ment or culture depends for its degree on the assimila- tion and use of these means. It is a platitude that the most civilized peoples have not been the most cultured or refined. Every hour we have occasion to note among ourselves the prevalence of the civilized boor, with all the means in his hand, but handy with few or none of them. Exactly as we believe that every man possesses manhood, though in different degrees, and that the mean of manhood requires some supermen to offset the millions beneath the median line, so we believe that among all peoples there is a special type of manhood different from the general, that this type, American or Briton or Frenchman or German, having at hand the totality of civilization, has nevertheless shown special fitness to use certain elements more than others, that he possesses and employs them in a type of culture which is racial and national. This culture is his very self, for it he lives, and if need be for it he will die — in a war of self-preservation, as it is designated everywhere to-day — for the right to exist as he feels it possible to exist. With another social conscience he would sicken and die. It is at this point that radical democracy finds it- self in danger. There are great numbers who create and embody this national culture, there are millions who wear it as a ready-made but well-fitting garment, and there are other millions who despair of acquiring it, and sneer; the only struggle which interests them is that for less labor and larger returns. People of cul- ture are the only freemen, since they alone possess im- pulses unhampered in the cultural movement; all the rest, with the whole apparatus of civilization at hand, DEMOCRACY: ITS GAINS 125 feel enslaved, abuse their condition as that of wage- slavery, and dash themselves against the bars of everything except brutish comfort, the comfort of the stye ; it is hard for them in their perverted sense of degradation even to root for food. A people is a whole, in a way a unit, more or less close-knit. Feel- ing and acting in this union, it employs, must employ, individuals as organs. Democracy is in the house of its foes when it proposes and selects as such organs in its unitary organism, such persons as are inert, and entrusts them with labors for which they have no will, no training, and no character. The demo- cratic mind denounces the past; but this national culture, this social conscience, is the chemical product of national unity in time as well as space. Since the settlement of these shores the elements and the in- fluences in our social consciences have been at work, and there is no incorporated American force, men or movement, past or present, which is not indispensable in its composition. The herd cannot be expected to know or feel this : the element of reverence is embry- onic with them, they do not even revere themselves. The present writer has published a plea for American parties as the stern taskmaster of the foolish, to edu- cate and fit the multitude for intelligent participation in politics and society. No one can as yet suggest how far that education should go, nor how much in justice the taxpayer should contribute to it. There seems to be conclusive evidence that party government is extravagantly costly; the costly experiment has not proven that it produces the finest social conscience. To save democracy our statesmen are now striving to locate responsibility in a select oligarchy, almost exactly as Marius and his followers did in Rome. The only difference between them and the party of Sulla was that the latter did not profess any interest in the general welfare, except as it was a support for 126 DEMOCRACY: ITS GAINS the aristocratic class. The newspaper reader of to-day must be impressed with the emphasis laid on democracy as being the one system which leaves the citizen free to choose his own rules. This is just as applicable to aristocracy and monarchy, to oligarchy and tyranny as to democracy. Since the day when La Boetie wrote his Contre-Un it has been clear that if the physical force of the multitude does not over- throw the physical weakness of the tyrant, it is be- cause the multitude, for very complex reasons, per- haps, but truly nevertheless, wants the tyrant. The boss is the petty tyrant, and he exists because he fills a want of the busy multitude who want the form of choice without the infinite trouble attendant on careful selection. In our democratic state of mind we are on the way to the greatest gain of democracy hitherto made, to locate responsibility by making the legally elected magistrate the responsible party boss in local, state, and federal government: to supplant- ing hidden, dangerous power by open rule according to law. IX DEMOCRACY AND EFFICIENCY — I DEMOCRACY THE MEDIUM OF MODERN LIFE DEGREES OF FEELING AND REALIZATION DEGREES OF EFFICIENCY DEMOCRACY AND BUREAU- CRACY — THE SOCIAL CONSCIENCE — OUR DEMOCRACY TENACIOUS OF CONTINUITY IN PEACE — BUT ALSO IN WAR — ITS EFFICIENCY IN INVEN- TION AND ITS GENEROSITY TO PUBLIC SERVANTS— ITS SUCCESS IN DI- PLOMACY — THE MODERN CONCEPT OF STATE SYSTEMS — OUR DEMOC- RACY NOT SERVICE; DEGREE OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE — VERSATILITY OF ITS ARTISTIC GENIUS COMMODITY OF CITY LIFE — THE " MELTING-POT " IDEA AND ITS LIMITATIONS REVERSION TO COLONIALISM — FREEDOM AND SERVITUDE — LIBERTY AND DUTY. There is a fable which describes schools of fish as- sembled in parliament, earnestly debating whether or not there were such a substance as water. This discussion was represented as in the interest of lib- erty. There were present many wise and weighty individual denizens of the deep; but in large majority the sprats and minnows of the surface were remarked for numbers, noise, and activity, upholding for the most part, too, the negative, judging the concept of water as a condition of existence to be false. It was preposterous that such an element should limit their being; air and earth were equally their heritage. Perhaps this fable teaches that if from a row-boat the human eye observed the watery deeps it would conclude that fish democracy had resulted in the pitiful insignificance of shiners and skimmers. Our vision must start from a higher point and sound the depths in order to discover the great, though hidden, significance of its influential members. Perhaps, too, there is some analogy to such experience in contem- plating human democracy, its membership, and its results. Democracy seems to be the medium of 137 128 DEMOCRACY AND EFFICIENCY— I modern human life, quite as completely as water is the medium of fish life. If there be no efficiency in democracy, then efficiency ceases to be a factor in life. It is a burning question in millions of minds whither democracy tends in this respect, in peace and in war. For some time the English-speaking democ- racies have been very self-complacent regarding effi- ciency in war. Efficiency is the selection and application of means to an end; democracy is the state of mind which de- sires for persons and society the greatest possible share in government. To pretend that any hitherto dis- covered system of statecraft excludes democracy is delusion, and it is equally fatuous to assert that any single system satisfies it even approximately. Never- theless, we consider that certain nations approach nearer than others to the ideal, and we generally speak of ourselves and the British empire as democ- racies. The democratic temper prevails in France; it made the French system, and periodically elects the senators and deputies; but French administra- tive machinery is centralized and oligarchical to the highest possible degree : there is neither local nor gen- eral self-government, once the machine is assembled and put in operation. The whole administration is alike imperial and Napoleonic, by whatever name it is known. In the passing crisis, therefore, one monarchy and one oligarchical republic have stood out, pre-eminent for efficiency. It is a wide-spread conviction that at the outset the one true democracy, Great Britain, was inefficient because it was a democracy. By sug- gestion and introspection we had concluded that America would in a crisis be inefficient, because it is institutionally democratic and Anglo-Saxon. This shady hypothesis was for long the cause of wide- spread gloom, of some panic, and considerable hys- DEMOCRACY AND EFFICIENCY— I 129 teria. It was forgotten that two monarchies, one unitary and autocratic, the other federal and demo- cratic, Russia and Austria, exhibited before the ruin of both much bravery, but only moderate efficiency, and that the British democracy, so styled, is socially aristocratic, politically monarchical, and administra- tively oligarchical. Were the parallels we so stupidly institute in any way valid, France should be the least efficient in war, autocratic Russia would have been the most, and the others in the order of England first, Austria-Hungary second, Italy third. To make such a statement is to refute it. Germany was one of the most completely socialized of all existing states, as politically it was the most hierarchical. It was and is bureaucratic above all, in a far lower degree monarchical and aristocratic. The trained functionary and uniformed official was and is the type German, supreme over military officer, over statesman or hereditary prince, king and emperor. The effi- ciency of the country was neither military nor royal ; ! exactly like that of France, it was bureaucratic. [Both had the efficient, centralized, bureaucratic, ad- ministrative speed and accuracy, devised and em- bodied in the struggles of the Napoleonic age. Any government can create a bureaucracy. Russia had one of vast size, but its' members were individually corrupt and inefficient, so the whole was worthless. The bureaucracy of Germany is honest and industri- ous, that of France scarcely less so. The shameless- ness of French "grafting" is "higher up." Both these bureaucracies are ruthless and their members impolite; both are mechanical and offensive as to personal amenity; and both have exhibited an almost identical efficiency. It seems highly probable, there- fore, that the question of democracy and efficiency ought to be discussed on the basis of capacity to se- cure a civil service, whose rank and file are honest 130 DEMOCRACY AND EFFICIENCY— I and industrious, whose officials are honest, learned, and industrious, whose chiefs are honest, learned, industrious, and faithful, with the eyes of Argus for discipline below, and the popular welfare above. To a high degree that is what both France and Germany have, what Russia has not, what Great Britain has secured only in measure, and what our democracy cannot have as long as the highest and next highest ranks in the entire administrative service, federal and state, are filled by political patronage. Orderly and efficient democracy there can be, provided its members are capable of co-ordinated discipline. Can democracy meet the emergencies of both peace and war? The democracy of this question is not the ideal scheme of philosophers and reformers, yet to be realized, but that under which we live, the real working system of government in the United States. There is, alas, even now a very languid in- terest in the reply among our people at large. We are opportunists firmly convinced (or is it stolidly confident?), that among floundering Titans the fates will be kind to ours as the most favored nation; that like our British congeners we can "muddle through" somehow. Some few of us, however, retain a lively personal conscience, and many more fly for refuge to the newly discovered social conscience: for these the reply to the question must be categorically direct. No shuffling answer will suffice; just a plain and clarion Yes or No, the answer. Which is it? Thus driven to bay, every sane and intelligent American would, especially in the light of recent experience, explosively declare in the affirmative. And this would be the unconscious residuum of painstaking observation, careful consideration of the elements in the case, and critical analysis, not at all of instinctive bravado. We are no longer in our political nonage. Among DEMOCRACY AND EFFICIENCY— I 131 existing states we are one of the two or three oldest, and the written constitution under which we live is the oldest of all existing constitutions, written or unwritten. The present constitution of Great Britain really dates from 1832. We have had a far longer and richer experience in the political education of every type of citizen than any other democracy. The re- sults are matter of history. The real test of institu- tions is their strength in peace, and in no true sense of the word have we ever had a revolution. The war of 1776 confirmed the long evolution of our "conti- nental" political principles as a protest against the insular; the War of 18 12 secured a higher, though far from complete, commercial independence; the war of 1848 was a relegation of intolerable meddling to its semi-barbarous origins; the Spanish War had a similar purpose, though we were fighting dirt and infection physically as well as politically. The Civil War was the grim array of economic and humani- tarian forces. Even had it resulted otherwise than it did there would have been merely a fork, a delta, in the stream of political continuity, but no break. Our democracy has not yet deliberately gone to war for self-preservation, still less for the perpetuation of party rule. Our primary purpose was the main- tenance of justice, honor, and self-respect. It is, on the other hand, a truism that the efficiency of a people and its government, what is termed "prac- tical ability," is more thoroughly tested in the strain of war than in peace. The alliance between pure and applied science, asserted to be at the basis of contemporary civilization, can best exhibit its novel- ties and wares in the engineering of destruction and transportation: the democratic temper can be tested to the limit by the self-denial essential to the quick, effective organization which hurls one social force against another. Although we are not ourselves, as 132 DEMOCRACY AND EFFICIENCY— I a people or personally, fond of participating in the risk and peril of war, yet we have tenacity of purpose and a lively sense of shame in failure. Every single war so far waged has required disproportionate periods of preparation, and at every crisis we have fallen back, perforce, on conscription, bounties, and pensions — both in the Revolution and the Civil War, at least — the minor ones did not produce quite the same acute necessity. We heartily dislike to subordinate ourselves, while we delight in the subordination of others; yet under compulsion, physical or moral, we yield gracefully and resourcefully to what we call coordination and dis- cipline. In the invention of murderous devices we are second to none, from the submarine to the latest poison gas and death-dealing shrapnel, and we are fairly versed in their application, as witness Manila Bay, Santiago, and the Argonne. In the sphere of histor- ical production, military history has asserted its parity with political, and with economic or civil, or popular, history, as it is nebulously styled. Down to a very recent moment we contemplated with strange equa- nimity the antiquated system of a hireling soldiery and neither party, when in power, has dared to lay a hand on our preposterous pension system, as it did not until the breaking stress came on the rather in- significant, but quite the most extravagant, military system, by land and sea, so far known to social ex- perience. Nowhere do pensioners and active officers accept the public bounty with more self-respect; and our democracy, for whatever recondite cause, is vastly more lavish and liberal in giving than any older and less complex system of state organization. Our public servants are richly paid in honor, but their cash salaries would be, and are, elsewhere con- sidered princely. They have the double reward, cash and glory. France is the land where we sow DEMOCRACY AND EFFICIENCY— I 133 offices and reap taxes — said one of her own famous sons. This is likewise true in America. Our victories in treaty-making and at the council- board have been no less remarkable than the wars which they ended. So much so that we are consid- ered as the spoiled child among great powers. Who is to dissect out the nerve ganglia of diplomacy with their afferent and efferent ducts, and prove any unfairness on our part at any point in the beginning, conduct, and close of our wars? Mere physical force is not the whole of warfare, nor moral right neither. It was not luck which has brought us so far on our warlike way, nor, on the other hand, has military aptitude played the decisive r6le. The true efficiency of our democracy lies in its perfectly sane and sensible optimism, or meliorism, rather; the sanction with which it enforces its policies is the conviction of other states that we are eager to learn, that our motives are no more selfish than their own, and that we can exploit our latent moral resources as readily and successfully as we have developed our material wealth. We were the first to discern the coming transforma- tion of the state system of Europe into the world system of European states, a transformation which, in the relentless sequence of earthquake shocks, con- vulses civilization periodically, and we delimited our sphere of influence in America long before the Eu- ropeans were clear as to how they should partition the eastern continent among themselves. They have paid us the compliment of the closest imitation. It is highly probable that despite the proclamation of moral sanction as the sufficient cement for a league to enforce peace, they will strive to adopt us into the quarrelsome family of jealous world states, even to the extent of a combination to fall upon us and crush our outposts. But so far our position in the diplo- 134 DEMOCRACY AND EFFICIENCY— I matic world is not due to the training of our agents, who are mostly plain, sincere men of no experience; nor to bluster, nor to tact, nor to alliances, nor to trickery, nor to falsehood, but to the undeveloped possibilities of efficient power discernible to European sentinels, and to our defiant contentment with the happy lot which we are sure to preserve or perish in the effort to preserve. They think us self-complacent and nothing is more distasteful to the self-complacent themselves than self-complacency in others. As a matter of fact self-depreciation is the out- standing characteristic of the American. It is some- times a form of false pride, but more often a virtue due to humility and the zest for higher things. There is, however, no cringing servility in it, whatever its cause. What passes for such among our rich in for- eign lands is a perfectly innocent desire to learn how the rich elsewhere have spent their incomes with elegance and refinement. There is far more servility in those who pursue learning, literature, and art than in the plutocracy, but it is due to the same cause. "Get the best" is here among us a call of universal appeal, so much so that the supreme worth to a na- tional civilization of originality and creative power, however crude, is frequently forgotten. To enforce this fact should be the chiefest task of our national academies, both of science and of the fine arts. We have been apprentices too long. If we have one duty more solemn than others, it is to take stock of each successive stage of democratic society, to thresh the grain and winnow out the chaff; to find and give solid home-grown nourishment to the oncoming gen- eration. Of course we can only know ourselves in part, but we can know, and while the glass may re- flect but darkly the historian dare not withhold the vision because it is dim. The dim and darkling American is at least a respectable figure while he DEMOCRACY AND EFFICIENCY— I 135 gropes for his own, and becomes contemptible only when aping the genius of others. Literary and artistic effort for inspiration from the time gone by is noble; the muse of history is a gen- erous contributor to the present in all lands. Equally inspiring is close contact with the movement of the hour in every branch of the civilization which is a unit in its closer interrelations. But there is some- thing more, far higher and nobler, which is the recog- nition of essentials in the life of which we ourselves are a part. The genius of democracy is coy, and re- veals herself only to the ardent wooer. Sometimes she seems a forward huzzy, sometimes a statuesque and unapproachable divinity, sometimes a white and spiritual fugitive, but to those who seek in humility she is kind and winsome, the revelation of perfectible womanhood, the homely soul of humility at its best. The strongest" evidence of efficiency in American democracy is its keen discernment of its own nature, its versatility and originality in supplying the wants of its nature, its contemptuous disregard for junk in all the arts, pure and applied. We may differ as to the degree of our attainments in this respect, but not in the fact. The wonder of the present age is not the misgov- ernment of our democratic cities, a grave disease yielding to remedies, but it is the monumental sky- scraper, the street transportation on, over, and under the ground, the stupendous aqueducts, the equally amazing power and lighting plants, perhaps most wonderful of all our parks, playgrounds, hospitals, and museums, the most democratically efficient of all civic devices because the least touched by mer- cantilism. What is commodious is beautiful so far, and commodity is the characteristic of city life in America; that the higher beauty emerges from it, in spots at least, is beginning to be understood. To 136 DEMOCRACY AND EFFICIENCY— I this fact more than to any other is due the irresisti- ble lure of the city. Happiness is not a result of cir- cumstances, though misery may be. Feeling is the condition of happiness, and that feeling is given freer play in our democracythan elsewhere. We earn more and spend more for the same results than other societies have done, our residuum of gain is no larger; but our sense of worth is higher, the gratification of self-respect more complete. To wear good clothes, to stroll and stare, to enjoy majesty of size and beauty of prospect, to feel ourselves even an insignificant part of the human pageant; these and other delights account for the solid hold which an efficient democ- racy in city life has upon the millions who prize them as an earthly good. We were once vainglorious because our democracy seemed so efficient in the matter of assimilation. We welcomed white men of every shade, of every race, of every degree of culture, we were an asylum of the down-trodden and oppressed among Cau- casians. Neither the brown nor the yellow nor the black man was ever a welcome guest. But we were perfectly sure that all these others would, in a twink- ling, cease to be aliens and share our inheritance as devoted fellow-workers in repairing, strengthening, and upholding the pillars of state; our language, morals, institutions, and laws. We were rather proud of the phrase "melting-pot." It was with compla- cency that we saw all the elements cast in, and that we watched the stream of pure metal, for there was such a stream, strong and full, flow into the moulds from the tap. Somehow we did not consider the dross and slag; that there must be a scum at the top and a valueless residuum at the bottom. It was enough that the democratic pot was efficiently boiling and the furnace roaring with the blasts of Americanism. DEMOCRACY AND EFFICIENCY— I 137 It row seems that we did not, in spite of many warnings, analyze the situation discriminatingly. There comes a rude awakening in the periodic re r surgence of ancestral loyalty, until at times we feel as if there were no Americans of American nationality, just British and German and Italian, and what-not colonials. When the passions of Europe rage so do ours, attuned to the discords of the respective stocks from which we sprang, either in the long-ago or at the latest date. It is a patent truth, even to the wayfarer, that we are all here either because our forebears were not wanted there, even in the pent- house of their ancestry, or because they were them- selves discontented. In most cases there was a dis- content on one side or the other, or on both, so bitter that the social and political life of America seemed a blessed asylum, and there was corresponding en- thusiasm for what was found and what seemed per- manent: in short a sound and trustworthy loyalty to home and country, not a temporary devotion to place and circumstance, the while fortunes were mended. This was the gold. How different seems the case in the hours of soul trial when there proves to be abundant dross and slag in every social stratum, when passion reverts to source, and the past domi- nates both present and future. What shall American democracy do with the dumping of such refuse across its path? Is our democratic state of mind enough of a leverage to enforce efficiency for bursting the dam and restoring the flow of democratic patriotism ? About this there can be no certitude, but there can be a high degree of probability, and the probability is favorable in a delicately balanced sense. All Europe has become American in a measure. Every civilization thus obtruded on our way has, however late in the day, come to assert its democracy and its liberty; everywhere there is a measure of both. 138 DEMOCRACY AND EFFICIENCY— I Even voluntary servitude is liberty, because it is voluntary; any servitude is freedom as long as it is self-imposed, and the majority is always stronger in moral and physical power than the minority, strong enough to reject, the old and adopt the de- sired new form at its leisure. After all orderly life of every kind is servitude: time enough to change the yoke. The colored races, yellow, brown, and black think little of liberty in any true sense; when they do it is in some such terms. Does this seem a juggling with words? It is the stern, solemn rea- soned conviction of the great mass of white mankind, even of Russia, and with rare exceptions of the Orient generally. Then there is the liberty which takes the form of subordinating a segment of interest from all individ- uals to the interest of organized government or the state. This subordination may be glad and volun- tary, personally initiated and freely given; or it may be indifferent, mechanical, and compulsory. There may also be the widest difference in scope, the least government and the most. To the state may be entrusted the whole cultural movement: politics, domestic and foreign; the law, civil, criminal, and international; the economic control; the patronage of education, literature, and art. Manifestly there still remains for the individual a wide field for the exercise of choice, however broad the scope of govern- ment. There will still be the question of duty and the categorical imperative; the surrender of much, willing or unwilling, to constituted authority is in it- self regarded as duty and self-denial, what is left affords sufficient opportunity for ethical exercise. This presupposes, of course, a purely utilitarian sys- tem of public and private morals, that most favora- ble to what Lecky called industrial virtue. To the mysterious state is left the care of religion, or its DEMOCRACY AND EFFICIENCY— I 139 substitute aesthetics, i. e., of all cultural forces, the fine arts, the drama, music, and romantic beauty in nature, all of which are sacred because of their moral nature, and because in Hegel's words the state is the ethical spirit as incarnate, self-conscious, substantial will. Such a doctrine of liberty is very real, it has during four or five generations been more completely realized than any other, and results in the dreaded German resignation and unity of to-day. X DEMOCRACY AND EFFICIENCY — II HUMANITARIAN LIBERTY OF DOUBTFUL VALUE — ABUSE OF THE WORD "IDEAL" — PERVERSION OF MEANING IN THE WORD "NATURAL" LIMITATIONS ON THE SENSE OF "EQUALITY" THE NEW SLAVERY OUR STATES AS LABORATORIES FOR THE TESTING OF NOVELTIES — NEW FORMS OF TOWN AND CITY GOVERNMENT — DEMOCRACY AND PETTY REVOLUTIONS — DEMOCRACY EFFICIENT IN WAR BATTLE WITH RADI- CALISM TRANSFORMATION IN DEMOCRACY AT WAR — LEADERSHIP DEMOCRACY AND STRATEGY — GOVERNMENT A DEISTIC CONCEPTION — DEMOCRACY AND THE DIVINE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE — INCONSISTEN- CIES OF ALL GOVERNMENTS — THE ABNEGATION OF EXTREMES. But there is still another doctrine of liberty result- ing from belief in a system of morals as based on self-control and benevolence, producing personal hero- ism, on the one hand, and amiability on the other. This type of liberty demands the free and complete exercise in each adult, not of some but of all the fac- ulties, moral and intellectual, of every activity with- out exception, with one single reserve: respect for the corresponding liberty of others. This ideal of liberty has no place for, no sphere of, subordination. It seems to forget duty and the categorical impera- tive, and certainly knows nothing of superiors or inferiors. It is simply accommodation of individual to general interest, of personal rights to those of the community, the word being used in the sense of so- ciety in general, and not in the sense of a restricted community like that of the state or of one state, but a community of all humanity, of the most widely inclusive society of mankind. Such is the most ad- vanced ideal of humanitarian liberty, and for the sub- stantial accuracy of this statement the reader will find abundant proof in the war literature of France, and even of liberal England. This liberty, and this 140 DEMOCRACY AND EFFICIENCY— II 141 alone, is asserted to be moral, the standard of all that is pleasant and elegant in west European civiliza- tion; and its supporters believe it to be democratic above all other conceptions of the term democratic. They do not suggest its immediate efficiency, facts are to the contrary alike in war and in peace. But its ultimate efficiency is predicted with the most con- fident assurance. The significant omission from the discussion is that of equality, that will o' the wisp word, which for a hundred and fifty years has misled us all by its sound rather than its substance, which was tenuous at best, and insufficient to feed the steady fires of efficiency. Two other words must likewise be held to strict account in their use and meaning. These are the terms "ideal" and "natural." A true ideal, as a possible standard of duty to be held high and measur- ably attained is one thing; an ideal as a visionary and fantastic unreality, the stuff of dreams, is quite another. The perpetual confusion of the two con- cepts by presumptuous ignorance has become intol- erable because it is so subtle — and very dangerous it also is, because of the strong appeal in its gilded vanity. The word "natural" is equally exasperating in the world of morals. The natural history of the state in the light of biological research seems to in- dicate a "natural" man, the earliest possible being deserving that name, as physically weak and helpless, but mentally of high endowment. This fact, if a fact, indicates a political animal in Aristotle's sense of the phrase, already possessed of unwarped though rudimentary moral gifts, and likewise capable both of further political acquisition and of a special type of development on lines peculiar to himself; lines open to no other sentient being. In human evolution there is almost certainly no in- heritance of acquired physical character; but language, 142 DEMOCRACY AND EFFICIENCY— II written or spoken, produces both education and en- vironment, which alike overmaster physical obstacles and enlarge spiritual resources. This "natural" man is quite a different person from the savage, degraded "natural" man, gorilla-like and utterly brutish, so persistently connoted by the term in the overwhelm- ing bulk of discussion on the subject of origins. Inas- much as even natural law is emphatically declared by our foremost men of natural science to be no longer absolute uniformity, and to embrace the widest varia- tions, we would have more clear thinking if we could invent and use vocables for "ideal," and "natural" and "law" with the real and precise meaning those words now possess in the scheme of our painfully and laboriously acquired present-day knowledge. "Equality" in the moral sense we must dispense with; "equality" in any other sense is a notion erroneous and impossible. Lincoln asserted that the American nation was "dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal," and again that the Civil War had been fought to test whether a nation "so conceived and so dedicated can long endure." He had an ideal which was believed possible of at- tainment. He knew how far distant was the goal, and that the conflict for its realization would be long and bitter. But he did not and could not foresee that the intestine foe of slavery, then just vanquished, was a Lilliputian compared to the socialistic, un- speakable, and monstrous Frankenstein, which our generation, beholding aghast its devastating work in eastern Europe for a space of well nigh two long years, has to imprison and strangle, if Lincoln's ideal is even to be struggled for. His mild and gentle sadness in contemplating the possible deflection of the nation from that ideal of struggle for a principle, might well have turned to despair could he have foreseen the new slavery which by socialistic and DEMOCRACY AND EFFICIENCY— II 143 class legislation, through the needless and perpetual interference of place-holders with private affairs, through class legislation of every sort, a free democ- racy deliberately creates, engendering political in- equality, emphasizing social inequality, and building an impregnable fortress for economic inequality. Our slavery is worse than that which he abhorred and abolished, because it embraces the whole and not a part of the nation; worse, too, not only in ex- tent but in degree, because it deprives us both of the pleasures of hope and the stimulus to labor. The links in the chains of this slavery are forged and bent but not welded; it has been a terrible waste of time to manufacture them because when they really begin to gall they will be flung to the junk-heap of other political fads. The multiplication of places, the shameless use of place-bribery, far more harmful than money-bribery, the heaping up of crushing taxes, all this is attracting attention, and it is need- less to fear if only we act. But the longer we remain supine the more difficult and exhausting will be the effort at release. Democracy cannot mean self-anni- hilation, whatever may be the meaning we attach to the word. How efficient its existing political devices may prove is in the lap of the gods : auto-intoxication is an insidious disease, and needs watching. Such considerations of the efficiency resulting from the democratic state of mind while the nation is at peace may seem to digress somewhat from the con- crete. But they do not. The States of this republic are laboratories for testing remedial measures. Natu- rally the public attention turns with intense interest to novelties and their engrafting on the old system, but we are less alert to the steady unbroken process of discarding those which prove to be worthless. Many measures which secure a place on the statute book are not enforced, and fall into desuetude; many 144 DEMOCRACY AND EFFICIENCY— II are enthusiastically repealed either by legislation or by omission from the state constitutions made at intervals by conventions and adopted by plebiscite. The most striking instance is that of city or town government. It was natural to imitate the state and federal form at the outset. After innumerable modifications and patchings the general disgust with its failures has relegated it to the discard, and al- ready some hundreds of towns and cities distributed throughout the Union have adopted a successful substitute, called commission government. Its un- questioned efficiency is decried as undemocratic only by loose or tricky thinkers whose self-interest is op- posed to the common good. Most of our common- wealths once believed in and insisted on very short terms of office. These had until lately been steadily lengthened, either by legal or extra-legal devices. Through fear of unworthy political office-holders, they are again being shortened. Jefferson, as elsewhere explained, thought the Ameri- can system demanded petty revolutions in a violent way at rather frequent intervals, and a formal assent from the governed every half generation of man- kind. The revolutions do occur, but not as he con- templated : they are institutional, and assent is given or withheld at ordinary elections, for the most part. The governor of a Southern State asserted, however, very recently and in a Northern capital, that when mobs cease liberty is at an end ! Such instances serve to prove that, as our system stands, the demo- cratic state of mind creates, slowly perhaps, but eventually, high efficiency in administration with an unsuspected contempt for the demagogue shouting tyranny at every innovation, and does its creative work by a slow and painful, but scrupulous and safe, process of experimentation, of careful definition, of sound construction, and of verification. DEMOCRACY AND EFFICIENCY— II 145 The efficiency of democracy in war has been a sub- ject of anxious speculation. History proves nothing. That of the ancient world exhibits one so-called democracy conquered by another exactly as one Oriental tyranny was stricken to death by another. The Chinese republic is no more helpless than was the Chinese monarchy, and no less so. The mon- archical aristocracy of Japan, half -democratized as it claims to be, is certainly more efficiently bellicose than was the divine-right monarchy of a century ago. Mediaeval Europe, feudal or absolutist, can afford no instruction because readiness for battle was daily life throughout the dark ages, like daily bread. Ad- ministration of law and the arts of peace were only an avocation. When we regard modern times there is nothing but contradictory evidence. The British revolution of 1688 was bloodless. Our revolution of 1776 ex- hibits a year of warlike feebleness crowned at Prince- ton by a triumph of strategic genius, and carried to its conclusion by an alliance with the wavering abso- lutism of Louis XVI. The French Revolution began with a radical democratic efficiency which consumed itself and the struggle ended in the crushing of the imperial democracy which succeeded it by efficient absolutism. Yet at each of these epochs the demo- cratic temper of enlightenment was the foundation on which surviving absolutism builded the efficiency of its armies. The example of Cromwell's Ironsides had not been lost, and hireling soldiery were being replaced by the mighty men both of rank and file, whose first concern was the liberation of their country as a means to the end of personal liberty under a system of freedom. Democracy of that sort was the life-blood of victory, even when the administrative system was anything but democratic. Freedom from what? Liberty for what? At the 146 DEMOCRACY AND EFFICIENCY— II close of the Napoleonic epoch, conservatives answered : freedom from outside meddling in the domestic affairs of any folk, people, nation, state; liberty to respect existing customs and obey existing laws, with peace- ful agitation for newer ones. Radicalism answered: freedom from every restraint, even domestic; liberty to defy law and custom without any unpleasant con- sequences, social or political. Both these doctrines of freedom and liberty have existed and worked side by side throughout the latest epoch of democracy. In some nations as in Germany, the conservative has prevailed; in others, as in France, the radical. It seems as if in Anglo-Saxondom, that useful but sense- less term for a well-understood system, the latter were gaining the overhand, as it generally does during a long period of peace. "I must have liberty withal, as large a charter as the wind," said the melancholy Jacques, "to blow on whom I please." This is the democracy of peace, but that of war is quite another matter. Beneath, above, and around the democracy of war is liberty to choose superiors, to serve and to sacrifice; the lib- erty of stern duty, freedom from selfishness. Radical democracy in war spurns subordination and promotes coordination; conservative democracy exacts subor- dination and obedience to authority, once consti- tuted. It supports the administration, the other hampers it. One is quick and determined ; the other noisy and impulsive, or else sullen and silent. Radi- cals cry peace when there is no peace, and invite at- tack by unreadiness; conservatives prevent war by preparedness for it in time of peace. The latter con- centrate responsibility in elected officials for long terms, the former swap horses while crossing the stream. To these, any man suffices for any emerg- ency at any instant; to those, confidence in experi- ence, character, and previous training is axiomatic. DEMOCRACY AND EFFICIENCY— II 147 Competency and efficiency on one side, on the other unshaken faith in all human nature and trust in spontaneity, as the lively hope of victory ! Spon- taneity has gone far, will go far again; but ultimate victory comes when the holocausts of human victims have been offered at its shrine and after one most gifted man has been made responsible and has welded his self-willed democrats into obedient ironsides. Cromwell did this; Napoleon did it; neither proved able either to make a lasting peace or to triumph as a peaceful administrator. Yet emergency requires the man, and if he come forward as did Lincoln and Grant the country is saved nationally, institutionally, and morally. The close of our Civil War was the conclusive proof of democratic efficiency in war as well as in peace. The conqueror firmly commanded a peace, and dismissed himself with a veteran sol- diery to peaceful pursuits, while a democratic people, blended of radicals and conservatives, promptly, over- hastily, perhaps, but not ungenerously, began the work of reconciliation and reconstruction, happily concluded within the brief space of a single generation. In war the greatest thing is not heroism, nor scien- tific murder, nor machinery, nor even discipline and tactics. It always was and remains strategy, which is the art of winning victory with the least possible destruction either of life or of property. Examined from this point of view monarchy and aristocracy have, on the whole, had the best of it in warfare; Washington was a consummate strategist, and in a society like that of eighteenth-century America, could prove it. So could Lee in the Civil War, emerging as he did from a similar society, and acting through its organs. Probably McClellan was the prominent strategist and army-builder of the Northern side, but his fondness for compromise, his stern militarism, and his pathetic concern for the lives and well-being of 148 DEMOCRACY AND EFFICIENCY— II his soldiers were so resented by impatient democ- racy as to relegate him to temporary obscurity. The wars of radical democracy during the first French republic, in our own later struggles, and in South Africa, were bloody and destructive of material re- sources; yes, even ruthless and unprincipled and atrocious. Despair begets madness and scouts agree- ments made in time of peace to ameliorate warlike brutality. There is a strategy of peace as well as of war: there would have been no civil war in America had we possessed an army proportionate to the then existing navy in size, in discipline, and in loyalty. It was a thoroughly democratic navy, far more demo- cratic than the army, because its personnel was far removed in the performance of duty from political strife and social pretensions. It saw the country from without as well as from within, and the sailors of every rank from every section were, with rare ex- ceptions, passionately loyal to the Union. Our navy was, and remains, a superb example of democratic efficiency for the purposes of defensive war. Provided we avoid the loose thinking that accom- panies uncertain language, and reduce the concept of democracy to the definite limits expressed by a state of mind, we shall see the world of to-day as it is. Emperor, king, president, consul or chief magis- trate, he is a monarch absolute, says the people, while and when he does our will. Even the papacy, in the opinion of the most learned doctors of the church throughout the ages, expresses the will of God because -founded on the will of the people: vox populi, vox dei. At bottom all secular and political thought is, though it should not be, deistic rather than theistic, and this god in the form of popular will, which sets up states and systems, even ecclesi- astical rule, is a mere adumbration of the God who created men as political beings; political in their DEMOCRACY AND EFFICIENCY— II 149 embryonic societies founded on finesse and organiza- tion, perpetuated in brains; and by long-suffering, developed into nations. All government apparently rests on the deistic concept, even democratic govern- ment in its narrowest and concretest sense of rule by public opinion, through powers adapted to make democracy efficient alike in its peaceful evolution, and in its defense against mob rule or foreign attack. Two things are essential to efficiency, efficient citizens and an efficient system. Of neither is there an abso- lute standard. In the long vistas of democratic evolution popular opinion has employed every known form of social order and organization: monarchy and tyranny, aristocracy and oligarchy, politeia and democracy. Trial has been made of despotism, of conspiracy, of ochlocracy, each and all devices to put base men into power; each and all they have been discarded, often after discouraging, heartrending struggle and sacri- fice, but they have been discarded. Survivals, of course, there are: of privilege, personal and class; of unequal representation and legislation, of judicial perversion and misprision of justice. But for all that the diplomacy of democracy, the moral and material well-being under democracy, the swift, stern retort of war by democracy, all alike stand, if not as examples, at least as encouragements to believe that in nothing is democracy feebler, and in most things healthier, than other systems of society and politics. The divine right of the people is only another form of the divine right of kings as understood in our day. The president has just as much divine right in his representative character, and of the same kind, as a hereditary monarch, since everywhere and among all classes of civilized men the right to overturn a throne is the first article of faith. Expediency is, of course, another matter. What 150 DEMOCRACY AND EFFICIENCY— II is expedient in the United States of America we our- selves admit, in practice, is inexpedient and impossi- ble in the United States of Mexico. The American doctrine of recognition was, for a time, based on the de facto principle; under the changed conditions of the Civil War, and of international relations on this continent, it has reverted to the de jure principle in many startling instances. Consistency in public law and foreign policy is far to seek. When Napoleon violated the neutrality of the little duchy of Anhalt there were shouts of execration from all the mon- archies; when the same monarchies adopted the Metternich system and violated the neutrality of the two Sicilies and of Spain there was almost uni- versal applause. Aristocracies and democracies have been exactly as inconsistent, the one as the other. The appeal to self-preservation, the declaration that the state is in danger seems to justify any breach of faith, and to turn treaties into waste paper. Many will remember that when Panurge proposed a " problematick theme," to wit, whether he should marry or not marry, the faithful Trouillogan at first replied, yea or nay, both together; then on second thought he opined, not the one nor the other. Which answers the mystified Panurge characterized as "re- pugnant and contradictory," exclaiming that he un- derstands them not. Gargantua recalled the phi- losopher who said he owned his wife, although she did not own him. Rondibilis considered the answers like the "neuter in physick," neither sick nor health- ful, or like the mean in philosophy, the abnegation of both extremes. Hippothad6 quoted the apostle: Those that are married, let them be as if they were not married; and those that have wives let them be as if they had no wives at all. I thus interpret, quoth Pantagruel with finality, the having and not having of a wife. To have a wife is to use her as DEMOCRACY AND EFFICIENCY— II 151 nature hath ordained, for the aid, society, and solace of man, and propagating of his race. To have no wife is not to be uxorious, play the coward and be, lazy about her, and not for her sake to disdain the lustre of that affection which man owes to God; or yet for her to leave those offices and duties which he owes unto his country, unto his friends and kindred; or, for her, to abandon and forsake his precious studies and business of account; to wait still on her will, her beck, and her vapors. If we be pleased in this sense to consider the "having" and "not having" a wife, we shall indeed find no repugnancy or contra- diction in the terms at all. Our Western world is wedded to democracy. There can be no question of "to marry or not to marry." Of "yea and nay, both together"; and on second thought of "not the one nor the other" there is a large and grave question, and the best answer for us is that of Pantagruel : we are not to be uxorious and play the coward, not for democracy's sake to scorn God and common sense, not to neglect the offices and duties we owe to country, friends, and kindred, our precious studies and business of account. Democ- racy exists for the aid and solace of man, and is to be used as nature hath ordained. You can no more circumscribe the democratic state of mind than you can the marital. Held to strict accountability for the performance of its duty and its task, that state of mind has proved both adaptable and efficient, and if we who compose and manage the system are neither uxorious, cowardly, nor lazy, the system will prove like a good husband or a good wife: the means of perpetuating and adorning the order of nature in politics and society. II THE EVOLUTION OF THE MODERN NATION DEMOCRACY AND THE NATION CHANGES IN THE MEANING OF TERMS — DIVERGENT MEANINGS OF THE WORD NATION RUSSIA UNDER THE CZARS AND THE FRENCH REPUBLIC — NATION AND PEOPLE — THE QUESTION OF SIZE; DENMARK — GEO- GRAPHICAL UNITY AND NATURAL BOUNDARIES THE QUESTION OF RELIGIOUS CONFESSION — THE COMMUNITY OF CUSTOM — ECONOMIC UNITY THE ETHICAL CHARACTER OF THE NATION — THE USE OF DYNASTIES IN HISTORY-^RACE, RELIGION, LANGUAGE, CUSTOM, AND COMMUNITY OF INTEREST AS UNIFYING FORCES COMMUNITY OF RIGHTS; SWITZERLAND — THE NATION AS A SOVEREIGN AND A MORAL ORGANISM — THE FIELD OF INQUIRY. While all historical science is primarily a discipline of remembering, yet there is a very important side of it which is chiefly concerned with forgetting. This fact is easier to illustrate in the domain of terms and definitions than anywhere else. The confusion and vagueness which exist in political thinking are more largely due to a lack of nice discrimination in matters of etymology and bygone usage than to any single cause. No two writers agree in detail concern- ing the exact meaning of any single word which they use, and the dictionary-maker must, perforce, have recourse to the history of every vocable, tracing its various changes in form, usage, and meaning. While this fact renders discursive thought extremely diffi- cult, yet it is, nevertheless, indicative of a very satis- factory movement in language, which suits the forms of human expression to the successive states of hu- man society. The change in the value of a word not infrequently has a direct bearing on the change in the concept which it represents and is intended to express; but in the main the variation in the phe- nomenon conditions the changing usages of language. 155 156 DEMOCRACY AND THE NATION We are chiefly concerned, of course, to understand what a nation is in this twentieth century. In order to do so we must forget many of the former and an- tiquated significations of the term, but only in so far as they have utterly vanished, not in so far as traces of them survive. To this end we must proceed ten- tatively, by the method of exclusion, shutting out the rejected facts of the past, the confusions of the present, the theories which substitute, both consciously and unconsciously, what is hoped for in the future for that which actually is. Vague knowledge has its importance; in fact, it is the essential antecedent of accurate and systematic knowledge in all creative minds. No one need feel ashamed of a lack of definitions, provided it makes him feel the necessity for further thought. More T over, there is often far more trustworthiness in a state of mind which distrusts itself than in the assur- ance which rests on pedantry. Undue emphasis in the matter of limits frequently hampers the organic growth of what is contained within those limits. Take the attempt to explain the word Nation. It is no shame that the association of ideas at once brings up the word People, and that by an easy transition we pass on to State, whence we fall to considering Nationality. Quite probably we further call into court both Government and Administra- tion. Yet we feel instinctively that though closely akin to each other, not even nation and people are synonymous. Within the limits of our own genera- tion we, on this very soil, were a collection of states united into a federal state, comprising what was un- questionably an American people; but our own younger contemporaries do not yet, freely, unani- mously and Unhesitatingly use the phrase, Ameri- can nation. Again the Austro-Hungarian dual mon- archy was a nation considering itself two states, each DEMOCRACY AND THE NATION 157 with several nationalities, but making an effort to behave like a single people. In Germany there were several states and one people, in one nation. The Norwegian people were free in their union of two Scandinavian crowns because they had a separate democratic constitution, but they felt that as a nation they were not free because of their peculiar relation to Sweden; so they chose a king of their own to reign, but not to rule, over them. There may be a government despotic in form yet liberal in ad- ministration, and vice versa, a government liberal in form yet despotic in administration. Of the former the Mecklenburg duchies were a fair illustration, while the German Empire, of which they were com- ponent parts, was a terrible example of the latter. Thus we come to feel that present usage draws lines of demarcation among all these terms which clearly separate them, one from the other, even though mis- use may confound them. In reality their various true meanings form a connected progression from theory to fact in which there is logical unity. Considering, therefore, that distinctions certainly exist, intelligent curiosity prompts us to inquire where they lie. Suppose we take two extremes, Russia as it was, and France. The Czar governed what he asserted was one people, but it was composed of many nationalities. There are the Russians, Great, Little, and White, the Poles, Finns, Lithu- anians, and Baltic Germans, Tartars, Turks, Man- chus, and many wild tribes. These all speak differ- ent languages, have different customs, with no unity of belief, and no single standard of morals. They have but one thing in common, a certain body of law administered by a single sovereign, apparently able, in 1912, to enforce its precepts. Subsequent events have shown that as nation, state, and ad- ministration the Russia of the czars was a sham. 158 DEMOCRACY AND THE NATION France, on the other hand, antecedent to the Revolu- tion of 1789 was a nation, the most highly centralized absolutism the world has ever seen. And yet the cry of the people was for nationality in the true sense, the abolition of provincial boundaries, the unification of law systems, of customs dues, and of political be- liefs. The inhabitants felt themselves to be arti- ficially separated by feudal survivals into different peoples; they determined to be a single people, "one and indivisible." To-day they are, therefore, one nation, and at the same time one people. They have a unity of law, custom, belief, a common past, and, as they feel absolutely sure, a common destiny, an organic, moral unity, identical rights secured by a popular sovereignty. Such considerations are very helpful. We see that nation and people, though not synonymous, may stand for concepts which are nearly identical on the one hand, or widely divergent on the other; and the idea flits across our minds that perhaps — perhaps, the higher the civilization the closer ' the approach of the two meanings; though we inevitably murmur, the English people, the Scotch people, the Irish people, and again we feel we must be cautious. The remedy for uncertainty in the particular case of the British nation, for nation it is, can only be found in the history of the three peoples — England, Scotland, and Ireland became the British nation when the word had a meaning now antiquated; they were steadily growing into a nation in its present-day sense. The Russian empire was not formed at a time, nor in a way, nor in circumstances making possible the amalgamation of its inhabitants as was the case with France, now become, after a long period of evolution, a nation in the most modern and complete sense. Our instinct is, therefore, correct when we feel that both the word and the thing it represents must be DEMOCRACY AND THE NATION 159 viewed genetically. With such modifying exceptions as we shall later notice, the word nation still con- notes either a substantial ethnographic element of common generation, or a substantial blending of races to create a blood relationship more or less close, which carries with it a community of speech, custom, belief, and tradition, accompanied by a unity of sovereignty and law, both sufficiently complete to make the social union very close. In this community which we call the nation there must also be the element of size; a village, a manor, a mir, a hundred, or a tun, is not a nation. Nor is a clan, nor a gens, nor a sept, nor yet a federation of these into a city-state. Athens and Sparta were not nations. Not even early Rome. The former were each a polis, the latter was a civitas: Greek and Latin terms, respectively, for an organized society of Greeks and Latins, which was but a small portion of the Greek and Latin nations. Athens and Rome were true states; but it required all the Hellenes in the Pelo- ponnesus, on the mainland and in the islands of the ^Egean, to make a nation. The case in Italy, though differing in particulars, was substantially the same. Corresponding to the number of inhabitants there lies also in the vaguest notion of our term a concep- tion of size in territorial extent. We have to do a certain violence to our instincts to think of Denmark as still being a nation: we have no trouble when we think of her as she was during the Thirty Years' War, as she was after the successive treaties of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. But as she was after the Dano-Prussian War of 1866, shorn of Schleswig and Holstein, we have to summon his- tory to our aid in order to think of her as a nation. She has a home territory of about 15,000 square miles, on which dwell about as many inhabitants as live on the island of Manhattan. She has a nominal 160 DEMOCRACY AND THE NATION sway over Iceland, and administers the tiny, sparse settlements on the icy continent of Greenland. Small in population yet vast territorially, we feel that she is marred as a nation because the two do not correspond. A very small portion of her vast do- main is capable of sustaining civilized life; that por- tion is already taken up, and beneficent occupation of the rest is impossible. We may fairly conclude that in our definition of a nation lies the concept of size in population and territory, not in one alone, but in both, and proportionately one to the other. When we shall have made as definite as possible our thoughts regarding the size of a land, the number of dwellers in it, and the unity of the latter as to origin and destiny, other suggestions will at once arise. Can there be, or must there be, a geographical unity in the land as there is a race unity of some sort in the controlling population thereof? On the breaking up of Charlemagne's empire the divisions were made largely on the basis of customary German law; but race, speech, and geography had something to do with them. As the process of nation-making went on these last were studied and used as arguments to prop the pretensions of the powerful feudatories until, in the final outcome, it is possible to talk of national boundaries in Western Europe as foreshadow- ing national destinies. We have mentioned language; that consideration also seems to force itself upon us. France and Italy alike appealed to public sentiment in the civilized world on that ground, the former for the restoration of Lorraine and French Alsace, the latter for the incorporation of all the Italian-speaking peoples around the Adriatic into the Italian mon- archy. And their appeal has met with considerable responsive sympathy. Turning from physical considerations we are at once confronted with another class of ideas which DEMOCRACY AND THE NATION 161 seem to be comprehended in the concept of nation. The first of these is community of religion in its broad- est sense. "As a people believes so it behaves; as it behaves so it thrives," said Charles Kingsley. Oriental scholars no longer doubt that the first great cleft in the Aryan race, that between those who are now Europeans and the I ndo- Iranians, was due to a divergence in religious belief, for it is certain that this was the cause of the division between Persians and Indians. The only real expression of unity among the Greeks was the Amphictyonic leagues of the Peloponnesus and the mainland: the barbarian had other gods. In the same way the Jewish nation comprised all who worshipped the one true God; the nations of the heathen worshipped each its false god. Throughout the Middle Ages every man in Europe had a double secular allegiance: that to his feudal suzerain, that to the emperor; the latter allegiance being theoretically paramount, each man was a citizen of Christendom, of necessity a Chris- tian; otherwise he was an infidel and outlaw, not alone in religion but as regarded his political and civil relations. Even the protesting reformers harped on the phrase: Cujus regio, ejus religio. No Calvin- ist could be the citizen of a Lutheran state, or the reverse. Intimately connected, in fact inseparable from this oneness, is the oneness of habit; a single norm of conduct, one standard of morality. As Rome de- veloped from a city-state into a nation she discovered what stubborn stuff humanity is. The morality of the Twelve Tables, the customs of Rome, had little in common even with Italian habit, still less with those of the Greek lands which she conquered; little or nothing with those of her Eastern and Western provinces. The commonwealth of Rome displayed some fitness to rule over other city-states and foreign 162 DEMOCRACY AND THE NATION lands in that, year by year, the prator peregrinus issued edicts expressing the necessary changes in both Roman and foreign usage in order to reach a practical compromise — thus creating conjointly with the prator urbanus a body of jus honorarium quite equal in importance to the jus civile ; so important, that under Hadrian it was co-ordinated into a per- petual edict. In the same way the Lord Chancellors of England, the keepers of the King's conscience, built up a body of equity in order to remedy the rigid- ity of the common law. In other words, both in Rome and England, the oneness of custom admittedly existing in the ruling community was gradually al- tered to suit the other customary units with which that community came into advantageous contact. Out of customs grow institutions which express the general morality, occupations which are deter- mined partly by necessity, but in the main by choice, and these eventually segregate into the various forms of industrial, commercial, and agricultural life; and then, interacting on each other like the organs in a living organism, they finally create an artificial or- ganism which grows from within, and stands for a community of interest. To many this has appeared the most important thought connected with the word "nation." The economic man is influenced by self-interest; the most powerful tie among such men would be community of interest. This is the favorite dogma of an industrial age. Whatever else men do not have in common, race, belief, morals, before they can become a nation they must recognize a community of personal interest; the hard, prac- tical side of life is everything and all else sinks into insignificance before it. In any nation there must be identity of other things, perhaps, but all these are secondary and not primary. Most men feel the compulsion of such reasoning, DEMOCRACY AND THE NATION 163 especially Americans. Practically the casual observer would have concluded before the Great War, that if there be any national unity in the United States, it expresses itself economically; but the readiness for economic sacrifice in a high moral cause then dis- played was conclusive evidence to the contrary. During the long peace the political questions in which Americans took the liveliest interest were economic; free trade and protection in all the ramifications of the complex systems which were built up around those dogmas. We seemed to be economic rather than political sectaries, displaying the same animus in economic debate as that which our forefathers dis- played in discussing both religious and political Cal- vinism. We felt the truth of this indictment and were turning our attention to socialistic and labor questions. Yet we were not altogether ashamed of our economic obsession, for the instinct is correct which tells us that there should be some community of economic interest among any large number of men before they can be welded into a nation. The thinking minority, however, while admitting that there is some truth, perhaps even a large amount, in each of these conceptions, refuses to accept any one or all of them together as adequately defining the nation. Among European statesmen of the last century was formed a view which has had great vi- tality and has survived as an active force down into this — that a nation is created by conquest, that the conqueror establishes a dynasty which is accepted by the people, that this dynasty by further conquest and by marriage accumulates a number of feudal units of land (provinces) and welds them all into a homogeneous nation. This was the view of absolut- ism, revived both in the interest of and to oppose Napoleonic imperialism. There was an attractive historic basis for this definition. Great Britain was 164 DEMOCRACY AND THE NATION thus formed; so, however, was Austria. Italy failed to become a nation because no powerful Italian dy- nasty arose until the nineteenth century. France became a nation under the house of Capet, and Ger- many, or Prussia rather, a thousand years later, un- der the Hohenzollern dynasty. But the notion is an anachronism, the revolution of 1688 in England had discredited it; the American revolution made it ridiculous: the world revolution of 1789 destroyed every shred of its credit. Thenceforward it has per- haps been a historic aid but modern nations are the men and women who compose them, not a dynasty which governs them and confines the expression of national life to the welfare of the king as its representa- tive; possibly a survival of this is the idea that the nation must support the citizen and not the citizen the nation. Since the reconstruction of Europe by the Congress of Vienna and the convulsions which undid it, no thinking man, except the statesman who practises politics as an occupation and not as an art or science, can be brought seriously to consider a nation as founded on race or on religion or on language or on custom or on community of interest, important as each of them may sentimentally be. All have their uses in swaying popular opinion, but from the scien- tific point of view they are well nigh if not altogether obsolete. It pleases us to speak of the Anglo-Saxon, the Slave, the Latin, as if they were races. If so they are political and not zoological races; each is compounded of various strains; scholars now doubt whether there ever were any subdivisions of the Aryan stock, separate and pure; they are certain that none exist to-day. Take religion — we speak in a very general way of Christendom as a system of life which has spread over the globe politically: national sov- ereignty, however, never contemplates proselytism DEMOCRACY AND THE NATION 165 by political means within that system; and every Christian land now has subjects or citizens differing widely in faith. There is probably not one in which Protestants, Roman Catholics, Jews, and atheists, are not members of the body politic; in some there are Mohammedans, Buddhists, Brahmins, and in a few, fetichists and idolaters. And this shocks nobody. If we mention language it is only to mention it, for America and Great Britain, France and Belgium, Germany and Austria, stand in powerful refutation of any such claim. Geography and the theory of natural boundaries are also discredited except in so far as they serve strategic or diplomatic convenience. Close scrutiny of the economic doctrine refutes it, because common material interest as the sole bond of union would degrade the nation to the level of a business firm, a notion which refutes itself; Sidon of old and the German Empire of yesterday are out- standing and horrible warnings of what greed may do to a people. Each of these considerations having a modicum of truth in it, but proving itself utterly inadequate when taken alone, let us examine still an- other. The existence of rulers and ruled is a self-evident fact: the paramount importance of the people in a nation is another: the devotion of citizens, male and female, to their fatherland, is another: the sacrifice of individual to general interest for the sake of secur- ing a personal well-being, substantial, and enduring, is still another. Switzerland is a nation; she has no natural boundaries; she has three, and some claim, four race elements, she has three religions, and four languages. There is no doubt in any one's mind that other nations with equally heterogeneous elements might be formed and as firmly united as she is. Why is she so strongly compacted? How might other nations be formed equally homogeneous from the 1 66 DEMOCRACY AND THE NATION political point of view? Most investigators would reply: We have in her an illustration of men devoted to a community of rights. These rights easily find ex- pression in a sovereignty based on force only as against the alien and the evil-doer; but based upon habit and good-will as regards the citizen. To this sovereignty the Swiss without reference to race, language, or be- lief, yield a willing obedience. They created it, they modify it to suit their convenience, they enroll them- selves under it and through it they are a nation. Unfortunately there is no word so difficult to define as the word rights — either in its origin and meaning, or in the extent of its meaning. We understand the word nation far better than we do the word rights: to define one by the other is to darken words without knowledge. And yet there is a mysterious relation between the nation and the rights of man as an in- dividual, which no one denies. But men are hopelessly divided as to the nature of this relation, as to whether rights are antecedent to organized human society (natural rights) or subse- quent to it (the legal state): as to whether the na- tion is a mere agglomeration of persons in which numbers and force control, or whether it is a responsi- ble moral organism under the control of eternal jus- tice. As to the word sovereignty, the abstract noun derived from a concrete word, nobody denies that there is such a quality somewhere, that it inheres in the nation, that the world has need of it, and can- not get on without it; but when it comes to defini- tion there again, as in the case of rights, no two can agree. In its independence, its fulness, its majesty, its supremacy and in its unity, qualities which appear self-evident, it is attacked every day, sometimes by international, sometimes by municipal, law; some- times by rebellion, sometimes by conspiracy. This is no argument against its existence, but it never DEMOCRACY AND THE NATION 167 comes out of the attacks exactly as it was before they began. All these many considerations, severally and col- lectively, enter therefore ihto our inquiry and condi- tion its nature. This is our field. The object of our investigation is to discover how far our instincts in regard to these matters are trustworthy, how much of our knowledge is clear, how much vague — what is real, what artificial ? II THE METHOD OF INQUIRY THE QUESTION OF INVESTIGATION — DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN LAW AND MORALS IN HISTORY — GOVERNMENT AS A SCIENCE AND AS AN ART — POLITICAL SPECULATION IN THE UNITED STATES — THE LITERATURE OF THE TOPIC — POTENCY OF POLITICAL THINKING INTERRELATION OF NATIONS — ESSENTIAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN POLITICAL AND NAT- URAL SCIENCE — PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LAW — HISTORY, POLITICS, AND ECONOMICS — POLITICAL ETHICS — THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE NATION — PUBLIC AND PERSONAL DUTY — HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY AS COMPLE- MENTS — DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONAL CAPACITY — STATESMEN AND HISTORY — THE EMPIRIC AND THE IDEOLOGUE. It is a curious although a well-known truth that the very existence of many facts is dependent upon the method of their examination. Objects appear very different when seen first by the naked eye and then under lenses of different magnifying powers. Some stars would not exist but for the telescope: some sounds can only be heard by an artificial ear: some equations can only be solved by the introduction of a quantity altogether extraneous. We fail to see a lost object on the floor with the line of vision at one angle to the light; then, if we alter that angle never so slightly, we easily discern what we are seeking. To put it in a more philosophical way, every science has a method more or less its own, and many sciences are dependent for their very existence upon the dis covery of a method suited to their field. There can- not even be such a thing as history unless we are clear both as to the field of our investigation and the object we have in view. This is especially true in all the field of political science and in each of its subdivisions. It requires the nicest analysis to separate political science in its narrow sense from political economy; to distinguish 168 THE METHOD OF INQUIRY 169 between morality and legality; to clear a field for the exhibition of political morality as distinct from ethics and religion. Many doubt not merely the present existence of sociology as a science: some go further and declare that if the will be free, no such science can even be outlined, much less constructed. Such a conclusion is inevitable unless we distinguish on the one hand between two meanings of law, or on the other admit the existence of a subconscious sphere of action in which, will and emotion neutralizing each other, the will either cannot, does not care to, or is not ac- customed to, exhibit itself in free play. The importance of method is beautifully illustrated in the art as distinguished from the science of govern- ment. The United States came into existence at the close of a century which produced more political speculation than all the other ages combined. By nature, men of our blood are not speculative, yet in the creation of our constitution the theories so rife at the time had a certain share. The constitution of the United States is not remarkable because it was struck out of the human minds of its framers by a kind of inspiration, but because they followed so closely a method best characterized as the historical; embodying in the paper the political habits already firmly established among those who were to live under its provisions. To these, however, were added a few, which some think were purely theoretical and others insist were already known in one or more of the col- onies. Such were the share of the senate in the ap- pointing power, the relation of the States to the federation as of towns to the colonial government, the indirect election of senators, the appropriation of money for treaty fulfilment, and particularly the in- stitution of the electoral college. None of these was a vital colonial institution and they were adopted as fine-spun theories of what ought to work. The first 170 THE METHOD OF INQUIRY has had a certain efficacy, although it has been the source of much friction; about all the others except the last there may be two opinions, the weight of public opinion being averse; but the last has been a farce and a nuisance from the beginning. This is, of course, but one illustration among many which could be given of the historical method in the art of politics. We naturally conclude that the same method is the best In the science of politics. In the structure of the constitution so compacted there has been so much room and comfort, that for nearly half a century there was almost no political speculation, and what there was had reference directly to the French revolution, secondarily to the creation and consolidation of the party which rallied around cer- tain principles of that revolution as set forth by Jef- ferson. But the question of States' rights, though partly quiescent, was never settled; with the spread of negro slavery and the growth of a slave-holding aristocracy there began grave discussions of the laws of freedom and bondage. Then arose, with the ever- increasing Roman-Catholic immigration, the Bible- in-the-schools question, the contest which finally secularized public education; and this was over- lapped by the debates on political theory preliminary to civil war. The two following generations have been deeply concerned with the relations of social classes to each other. The literature concerned with politics in America is sufficiently large. Paine's Rights of Man, De Tocqueville's Democracy in America, Lieber's Political Ethics, Bryce's American Commonwealth; these all are very valuable treatises written about us by sym- pathetic foreigners intimately acquainted with our circumstances. Hurd's Law of Freedom and Bond- age, Brownson: American Republic, Mulford: The Nation, Woolsey: Political Science, Woodrow Wilson: THE METHOD OF INQUIRY 171 The State, Burgess: Comparative Constitutional Law, are Americans concerned to examine the laws of all national growth, stability, and progress. These volumes like many others are symptomatic of an awakened intelligence, but they also display a certain uneasiness which is perhaps a better thing still inas- much as it proves that we are not living in a fool's paradise, but feel, if we do not altogether under- stand, the weak points of our modern society, and appreciate the vital necessity of watchfulness. The existence of a large body of political specula- tion is in itself a very important fact. Elsewhere as here it has been created either in the interest of an existing system or to destroy it, or else it has been an attempt to analyze "the mystery which resides in the soul of state." Hobbes wrote to support the Stuarts, Locke to overthrow them. Plato and More had a philosophical curiosity to display a perfectibil- ity of social union for the encouragement of oppressed and disheartened men. Now, the judgment of great minds is a potent force in history because in human society cause and effect work inversely quite as potently as they do directly. The entire social, legal, and political systems of both England and America may be said to rest for their validity in the minds of most who live under them upon the theory of the English Revolution of 1688, a theory which in many of its essentials is utterly discredited to-day. With- out the history of the time the theory would be utterly grotesque. Theory must be supplemented by history and history by theory. The methods of each are ancillary one to the other. A second and equal value in political speculation is, furthermore, that by means of it we secure a definition of our terms and a limitation of our field. Without these we would wander aimlessly and be lost in the laby- rinths of history. 172 THE METHOD OF INQUIRY It is an accepted truism that there can be no his- tory in the strict meaning of the word without a na- tion : it is also fairly well understood in our day that there can be no history in the large, true, sense without the interaction of several nations on each other. The unity of history is the revolutionary dogma which has separated scientific from purely literary history, has demanded from it a character in which the reason controls the imagination. The subject-matter of history thus controlled displays a power in action which is essentially different from any exercised by the individual, the family, or the church; a power which inheres in the mass of men, directed by the accumulated force of their union into specific channels which we designate as political. This is the field of study for the statesman : from his observations he should draw such precepts for his guidance as he conceives to be valuable in the ad- ministration of public affairs: such precepts are sup- posed to be conducive to the public welfare, the in- terests common to all classes in the nation: rulers and ruled, poor and rich, intelligent and stupid, the idle and the industrious. This art of politics can learn much that is essential from general history; it is, however, chiefly concerned with the special history of the state in which it is to be practised. The science of politics is quite another thing. Science concerns itself with the systematization of facts. Its business is to ascertain facts and then so to array them as to display the secondary chains of cause and effect which are the subject-matter of philosophy. The facts of scientific politics are those which bear upon the origin and growth, the nature and the powers, the obligations and responsibilities of both nation and state ; they may be taken where- ever found. It might easily be supposed that the facts when once discovered were to be treated like THE METHOD OF INQUIRY 173 the facts of physical science; many have proceeded on that assumption. The results have been disas- trous. So extreme a physical scientist as John Stuart Mill felt it necessary to sound the note of caution, lest his favorite discipline should prove futile. He finally laid down a method with the rather lofty style of the inverse deductive method, which differs by the whole universe from the pure induction which Buckle and the men of his school have employed with only slight success. The great facts of history are so few and the great central stream so short, while at the same time the unessential details and barely essential minutiae are so multitudinous; the eddies in the current so frequent and confusing, that he must indeed be skil- ful who can distinguish essential from unessential, the long, quiet outer swirl of the eddy from the yet stiller and stronger impulse of the main current. Political science deals with public as opposed to private law : with the relations of sovereigns to sover- eigns, that is states to states, of sovereigns to citizen or subject: with the protection of rights and liberty; with everything that promotes the highest welfare, mental, moral, or social, of man and men, insofar as these are connected and bound up with and in, na- tional life: with the social union of mankind in its highest ethical manifestation, and with the organic growth of that society. The complete and encyclo- paedic view of the genesis and development of previ r ous political systems can be obtained only through history. At the same time we ought to observe the effect on those systems of political theorizing, which, as previously remarked, has concerned itself not only with what was but 'with the completion of philosophi- cal systems, confessedly incomplete as long as they explain merely the individual who perishes but not the race which continues. Nor will any one deny that these systems have powerfully, sometimes de- 174 THE METHOD OF INQUIRY terminatively, been conditioned by one personality: and that his emotions, his will, his psychological in- dividuality, have been so far political forces. More- over the world does not advance smoothly or easily; on the contrary it changes intermittently and with difficulty, often in convulsions. Law tends to rigid- ity and exerts therefore a retarding political force, while beliefs, or perhaps we ought to say, the inter- pretations of religious truths, change with even greater reluctance; and so form the very mortar of the social union. Political science therefore is closely connected with religion and jurisprudence, with phil- osophy and history, with morals, political economy, and sociology, if there be such an "ology." And yet it is no one of these ; and not to be confused with any one of them. It does not "teach by ex- amples" as history does, nor is it mainly concerned with persons as history is. It does not much consider the arts of war and peace, nor the occupations and feelings of men. More than all this its material is quite as much contemporaneous as past. Nor is political science identical with sociology, so called. Sociology is social statics; the existing social state may or may not find its expression in national institu- tions. It may not be socialistic in form, yet highly socialistic in temper and operation: it might, on the other hand, be identical with organized socialism. In fact it has never happened that a complete national polity, that is, the fixity of a social state and its con- ditions — its public and domestic conditions, its cus- toms, arts, industries, and commerce, the balance of its social classes, their beliefs, aspirations, and com- fort, its institutions and standards of conduct — that all these were expressed in the national system. If they should be, a sheer impossibility, then political science and sociology would be identical. For like reasons it is self-evident that political science is not THE METHOD OF INQUIRY 175 political economy. This, too, is chiefly concerned with the nice adjustment of the complex material interests, private and general, which enter into the perpetuation of any social state, and with them alone. Only in so far as its results affect the continuity of national life in the succession of social states has it any relation to political science. Also we must not confound the nation itself with the laws which guaran- tee its stability. The systematizing of the rights and customs which underlie national life is but one department of political science largely considered; it is contributory, but is not the discipline itself. Man is a being capable of choice in regard to rules of action which he may obey or disobey — whether these rules appear to be dictated by revelation or by human reason. This is equally true of the nation. Political science thus viewed is a department of ethics and may be called political ethics: only this is not in the least helpful constructively, being merely a change of name: its value lies in emphasizing the fact of na- tional responsibility for national action. No one dare contend that obligation of a man even in his political relations is identical with the obligation of a political sovereignty, however expressed. The man regards his duty' to God and his duty to his fellow men, jeopardizing not only his present, but his eternal welfare, in his choice and in his conduct according to his choice. An artificial person must have regard to the general welfare in relation to an existence which is in no sense other-worldly, but which safeguards the conditions of general prosperity, happiness, and morality in this world. It is much the higher responsi- bility, viewed from the standpoint of secular science and of time as opposed to eternity. Men invested with this higher responsibility have been considered publicly immaculate while privately their lives were far from spotless, while from the days of King Renee to 176 THE METHOD OF INQUIRY those of William II, monarchs of spotless private life have been reprobated for guilty public life. Public duty is determinative of everything which goes to make up this life, alike for rulers and ruled. If man were merely a creature of flesh and blood, if he had no soul and no hope of a future life there would be an absolute identity of public and private ethic, for personal advantage would always be sub- ordinate to that of the public and the general. As he is, he has interests which far transcend those of the family or the nation: and in so far he has a private personal responsibility far above his duty as a citizen. The most troublesome task he knows is to suit the one to the other. He cannot justly hold himself re- sponsible for the social conditions into which he was born, but he must hold himself so, for his relations to his Maker, for his efforts to ameliorate society to the best of his ability. Though sometimes hard to dis- cern there is a line of demarcation between political and personal ethics. It was, however, a counsel of perfection which Confucius gave when he said: if you desire to govern the world you must rule your state well; if you desire to rule your state well, you must arrange your home well ; if you desire to arrange your home well, you must purify your heart. Keeping in view the various aspects of politics, the possible methods of study, and its relation to kindred subjects, we may hope to frame an adequate method of investigation and to secure some results from its application. There is a whole range of sciences which, though not exact, in the sense in which the mathemati- cal sciences are exact, are nevertheless eminently use- ful and practical. In any department of human in- vestigation we have to posit the investigator's limita- tions and when that imperfect creature is investigat- ing himself, his fellow men, or his race the factor of uncertainty becomes much greater than when he works with inert matter. He cannot therefore afford THE METHOD OF INQUIRY 177 to neglect any means to his end. The mere super- ficial review of what has been done with regard to the nation, which so far is the highest form of human association, seems of itself adequate to prove that both the historical and the philosophical methods must be blended into one as a condition antecedent to any further advance. If this be done, one will control the other; we will think and not merely catalogue; that is we will think in the only useful way, concretely. It is an old scholastic saw that Nihil est in intellectu quod non erat in sensu. Political theorizing has had so close a relation to facts that it really gives us the essence of bygone human experience in a convenient form. Now there has been no change within historic times in the human quality which makes the whole world kin: there has been no change in the highest standards of human conduct — truth, honor, justice have not changed a whit: the only change has been in the steady advance of human capacity, individual and racial, of mind, heart, and soul. Man and men apprehend truth, honor, and justice far more clearly to-day than they did at the dawn of history, and they are stronger to suit their conduct to their knowledge. We find, therefore, that human progress is according to tradition, that is, along lines clearly discernible in history — the experience of the past is therefore our guide for the future. But to repeat the past in the present is to stagnate, to create uniformity is to stag- nate: the very essence of progress is change. How far then are we to venture in our generation beyond the experience of the last generation or the one before that, or of a still earlier one? Here again steps in philosophy, which, by the close scrutiny of man as he is to-day, and by the use of broad generalizations drawn from the whole sphere of knowledge, is able to make the only suggestions which are helpful and fruitful. A despairing Austrian statesman of the eighteenth 178 THE METHOD OF INQUIRY century [Schwarzenberg] exclaimed: "I can learn nothing from history." He was quite right: the his- tory he studied, that of his own country, and the only form of national life he knew, could afford him nothing but warnings; its contributions to construc- tive statesmanship were absolutely undiscoverable. But suppose that instead of the history of Austria he had perused the general or philosophical history of Europe, suppose that instead of the narrow art he, had studied the broad science of government, based partly on the speculations of his century, as his con- temporary Napoleon Bonaparte did, partly on his- torical generalizations from the experience of all civilized men, surely he would have found much. Others had found much: men like Hardenberg and Stein, not only his contemporaries but his kinsfolk; men like Pitt and Burke, who had girdled the globe with English settlements; men like the great First Consul, who fixed the institutions of half Europe on a plane corresponding with the ideas of the revolu- tionary epoch. The nation subsists in the stability of its laws, it grows in the vitality of its institutions: philosophy is the Apollos which waters and assures the continuity of both, alike the receptivity of mind and the courage of convictions. Another proof of this, if additional proof be needed, is found in the disastrous absurdities which exclusive devotion to either method is sure to produce. We have an equal contempt for the empiric and for the ideologue. The great fact of this hour is the existence of the United States. We are not European, we be- long neither to a state system of dynasties nor of con- stitutional monarchies : we are not committed to any sectarianism in religion. We owe our existence to a protest against national empirics, for George III had no philosophy of history: to be a king according to his mother's instructions was to be an absolute THE METHOD OF INQUIRY 179 monarch, ruling as parliamentary premier as well as reigning; to be a Briton was to be a Whig of the revolution, as he declared himself to be, using the supremacy of Parliament as a fact settled for all time. Lo, he could do neither, in imperial affairs, at least, and it was left for us to show how new theories could supplement historical facts and give free vent to in- stitutional development. As another instance take the French Revolution. Up to 1789 the revolution was admirable; in that year the historical supports of continuous French life, the upper classes, fled and the theorists took charge, Napoleon's ideologues. With what results ! For long a movement among the most beneficent in history was disgraced by excesses, dis- credited before the world; and the course of reform was retarded by nearly a century. It was but lately that we began to understand the majesty of those principles for which it stood. Ill THE COURSE OF POLITICAL THEORY PERSONAL ELEMENTS IN PRIMITIVE NATIONS CONFUSION OF TEMPORAL AND SPIRITUAL POWER — SURVIVALS OF THEOCRACY AND OF JOINT FAMILIES — THE CITY-STATE OF GREECE AND ROME THEIR HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT — CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE OF POLITICAL THEORY — THE MAXIMS OF THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY — THE INFLUENCE OF CHRIS- TIANITY—SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE NATIONAL ORGANIZA- TION AND RELIGIOUS IDEALS — THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH HOSTILE TO THE NATION — TENDENCY TO NATIONALITY THEORIES OF RELATION BETWEEN SPIRITUAL AND SECULAR POWERS — CHANGE FROM META- PHYSICAL TO HISTORICAL THOUGHT — THE DOCTRINE OF SOVEREIGNTY. In the dawn of history there was much wisdom and the wise men were for the most part political phil- osophers. Nevertheless they drew no distinction between politics and ethics. The basis of authority in the nation appeared to be threefold: force as ex- emplified by military rule and conquest; paternal authority as shown in the character of the king's precepts and the nature of the obedience rendered by his subjects; religion, or rather superstition, for all government was theocratic as well as paternal and despotic. All training was based on experience and imitation; education was the learning of moral pre- cepts suited to private relations; trades and profes- sions, including the priesthood, descended in families, and, except when disturbed by war, the formation of caste began and continued until the process was more or less complete. Under the patriarchal system the arts flourished amazingly, there was a majestic size in the enterprises undertaken and a high perfection in finish. Witness the pyramids, the palace of Dur Saryukin, the great stones at Petraea. Yet these enterprises all appear to have had a con- nection with military control, having been carried on 1 80 THE COURSE OF POLITICAL THEORY 181 by slaves taken in warfare or by subject nations. Little by little, labor was relegated to those who were not citizens or even subjects, and it was thus steadily degraded. As it is an inexorable social law that such social conditions beget greed, pride, self-indulgence, prodigality and finally dishonesty; and as these in turn destroy the man, so, as we might expect from a paternal despotism, the earliest political theorizing consists largely of moral precepts directed against all these vices. The nearest thing to law is the careful regulation of all the relations existing between persons and among various classes. These regulations enter into the minutest details and in the confusion of tem- poral with spiritual power they are enforced by re- ligious sanctions. It is by supernatural power that the relation of sovereign to individuals, of individuals to the nation, and of individuals to each other are sup- posed to be controlled. Before such a supreme authority the man is nothing ; and when the ruler who embodies it, likewise personifies national authority, the man, the individual as such, has no worth; he is a worm of the dust. There is therefore in the great Oriental theocracies no general, rational controlling influence, there is no public opinion, there is no intelligent legislation, based on right or high expediency; there is nothing but the incarnation of physical force behind the mask of pa- ternal and religious authority. What passes for law is custom ; morality is a more or less rigid habit ; the nation has no organization. The touchstone of con- duct being a narrow experience, repetition and itera- tion are the aims of life and this cramped conservatism becomes first immobility, then stagnation. How this works when the unit is small may be seen in the tribes of Bedouin roaming the deserts, in the village com- munities or joint families of Ceylon, in the Russian Mir and other similar survivals which have come 182 THE COURSE OF POLITICAL THEORY down through the centuries virtually untouched by time or unchanged by outer influences. The great Oriental theocracies of the Nile and of the lands be- tween Tigris and Euphrates disintegrated before the forces of western civilization ; but Japan survived un- til yesterday and China was immutable almost until to-day, in spite of the shocks of foreign and intestine wars, in spite of contact with western peoples, in spite of conquest and the establishment of foreign dynasties. The theory of such nations was one of dangerous simplicity: a family including all families; the father the emperor, priest, and embodied force; the people enjoying divine favor through him and owing obedi- ence by both sacerdotal and natural sanctions. At first sight the city-state of Greece and Rome does not differ widely from the Oriental theocracies in any essential features. Society was founded in superstition — the common worship of the sacred fire and of ancestors was in the family superior even to the bond of natural relationship; the institutions of the nation were largely military, and slavery was defended as necessary in order that drudgery should be done by those who had no interest in the freeman's occupa- tions of war and politics. There was likewise a com- plete subordination of the individual to the com- munity. The highest authority knew only the family, not its members. They, the individuals, were subject to the patriarchal authority of the eldest male, who was both priest and ruler. The loftiest ideal known even to the Greece of Pericles was to be a good citizen rather than to be a good man. To the end that per- sonal and national action may harmonize in the high- est degree, the general will regulates every department of life, domestic and social as well as public. But on the other hand the differences between Greece and Rome, on the one hand, and the Oriental theocracies on the other, are more radical than their resemblances. THE COURSE OF POLITICAL THEORY 183 There is a great advance. There is a federation of recognized units, the common relations of which are regulated by common consent, following on dis- cussion, so that the federal principle is recognized. The thralls of customary law are broken and mos is supplemented by lex, custom by choice ; and most im- portant of all there is the recognition of the general good, the public affair, the commonwealth. The very rigid- ity of the prehistoric city-state seemed to create a sense of security so great that discussion and debate might not merely be allowed but invited. It was be- lieved that without much reference to political habit or institutional growth remedies for all existing ills might be found in the human reason. Moreover the physical constitution of Greece is such that in the absence of easy land communication many states were formed in one people and the interstate relations thus established were a subject of constant care to each separately, to the nation as a whole. This was a matter of no regret to the Greeks, their free spirit and active minds made them the creator of speculative philosophy and no questions were subjected to closer scrutiny than those concerned with public affairs. The dawn of their history shows the city-states of Greece and Rome already verging toward revolution and their history is the narrative of their gradual transformation: of how the patriarchal, sacerdotal, kingship was abolished and the sovereignty vested in the heads of families; of how these in turn ceased to command obedience and respect; of how, finally, the national will found expression through the assembly of all the free-born men; of how patricians and ple- beians were commingled in the exercise of authority on the basis of citizenship; of how citizenship was gradually extended beyond the walls of the polls or civitas ; of how in an unorganized democracy tyrants arose; of how heathen beliefs utterly disappeared 184 THE COURSE OF POLITICAL THEORY before Christianity and new constructive influences supplanted the destructive ones of heathen philosophy. Through all this long period the great disintegrating force was doubt. Greek philosophy is strongest on its destructive side, as regards public life. It saw that in the advance of knowledge men had forgotten the meaning of the public fires, the public feasts, and all the rest of the observances based on the old forgotten, discredited superstitions. If there be a supreme be- ing the local worships were meaningless; if there be a human conscience that and not custom must control politics. It was in ranking truth above cus- tom and justice above law that Socrates' treason consisted, for the statement and acceptance of that fact were subversive of the entire system of national union as it then existed. i Thenceforward, however, thought was free to deal with every great political problem. Plato could not let the city-state go, but at least he substituted real education for tradition. Even Aristotle clung to slavery, but he made the radical departure of proving that the nation is in no sense the analogue of the men who compose it, its organism being different both in degree and in kind. He showed that man without family, without law, justice, affection, and the associa- tion which springs from these, is not man but one of the lowest, feeblest, animals. The Cynics recognized the two fundamental errors of both Plato and Aristotle. They asserted the rights of man as man; and dis- played the dignity of labor. Diogenes was a citizen of the world, a universal philanthropist; and not un- like many of his kind to-day, an enemy of family, of property, and of country. It was the Stoics who set bounds to the two extremes of Plato and Diogenes. They separated the man from the citizen and freed him from the yoke of the state, making clear the dis- tinction between private and civic virtue. This is a ( THE COURSE OF POLITICAL THEORY 185 corollary of their great doctrine of the unity of man- kind. On the other hand association is the order of the universe — man, therefore, is not merely a part of the whole, a man among men wherever found; he is likewise a member of one society and as such must take his share in its affairs, while not neglecting his duties as one of the race. Said Marcus Aurelius: as Anto- nine I have Rome for my country, as a man, the world. The benches of the Roman theatre rang with applause as the spectators heard Terence's words: I am a man and consider nothing that pertains to man for- , eign to me. As this feeling spread and Roman citizenship was extended until under Caracalla it was virtually held on the basis of manhood, a cosmo- politanism was finally established, which marked the culmination of a new speculative system, and meant the overthrow of the municipal regime. The local, separate, municipal, spirit in every community of Greece rendered impossible any true union of an or- ganic nature: the same particularism explains the difficulties of early Roman conquests? its steady weakening under the influence of philosophy enabled her to absorb even her Greek and Oriental provinces. With this the constructive power of heathen thought came to an end. Plato at his best can only conceive of a communistic Utopia, Aristotle's highest concern is the comparison of Greek constitu- tions: neither evolves anything new which is prac- tical. Cicero and Polybius attempted to construct systems; the results seem attractive but they are vague and never formed a basis for action. The great jurists of the empire — Gaius, Paul, Papinian, Ulpian, Modestus — introduced into the Roman law the grand maxims of Stoicism, which was the philosophy of their education and their choice. But, with all that, they never could rid themselves of the old, discredited, worn-out beliefs as the only conceivable sanction, 186 THE COURSE OF POLITICAL THEORY even when they turned them into fictions. The Caesar was still Divus and Pontifex Maximus. It was at bottom an Oriental despotism which was the sover- eign and any advance they were able to make was not on high philosophic ground, but only on that of expediency, or, at best, of experience. And thus, exactly as the theory of equality made headway, true liberty ceased to exist: with the absorption of the classes into the masses the necessary expression of the public will was found in an absolute despotic government. From one point of view the inhabitant of the Roman empire enjoyed a theoretical liberty, but it was at the price of civil slavery. The city-state was built up by a superstition. Around the vital principle of faith, conviction, sin- cerity of conduct, grew up the organic constitution and its system of civic control; organic, because it grew from within, assimilating the materials it used and adapting itself, as best it might, to its environ- ment and its tasks. It performed a great work and in its exertions the primitive beliefs on which it was founded were first discredited and then forgotten, while the institutions based upon them long con- tinued to exist. They in turn ceased to correspond to the social state into which they had survived : but even then there was nothing to substitute in their place because the beliefs of men were negative and de- structive. It was not until the greatest event in history, the appearance of Christ upon earth, took place that any new constructive beliefs could be substituted for the old. What was the new princi- ple? The answers have been innumerable and as various as the minds of those who sought them. One thing only has seemed certain: that society has been born again, as well as the men who compose it; so have nations and their governments. New institutions have arisen and have found their expression in new THE COURSE OF POLITICAL THEORY 187 forms of government; the worth of man as man has been established on a new basis; justice is done as never before and progress, though often checked, has attained a certainty and regularity of movement which it never had before. If we search the Scriptures for political maxims our harvest is but scanty, whereas if we examine the rec- ords of the Christian ages it is abundant. The his- torical Christ expressly disclaimed earthly dominion. He would not only render to Caesar what Was Caesar's, but at the hands of the civil authority he suffered the extremest penalty of accumulated human sinfulness. His followers were persecuted and his religion outlawed for generation after generation. It was not peace, but a sword which he sent and that sword was the power of an endless life in the hearts and minds of his fol- lowers. For centuries the church took no cognizance of the state except to avoid its interference, and in humble retirement Christianity spread its teachings and gathered in its disciples with their adherents. When it steps forth into secular history, weak no longer, but strong, it is organized as an independent force, with no confusion between itself and the state. The city-state was a community of religion and wor- ship among heathen citizens : its successor, whatever it may be, can no longer be that, if all or a majority of its citizens be Christians, for now church and state are no longer one, but two. The nation as a com- munity can only have in common civil and political rights: the church takes charge of men's spiritualities and is the community of faith and worship. This is the fundamental fact of twenty centuries: the separation of church and state. Neither their spheres nor their relations have been clearly defined, we are busy with that yet. Some things, however, are clear. National sovereignty might control a man's body and estate; Christianity is supreme in 188 THE COURSE OF POLITICAL THEORY his spiritual life, and thus God, the family, the in- dividual, are placed above the state in importance; and as all Christian men have a common father and a common redemption, so they are brothers in the closest sense and have duties to each other and to their fellow men which transcend the bounds of a narrow patriotism. Christianity emancipated law from supernatural sanction and established its basis in morals; it established the right of property in labor and destroyed the sacred landmarks fixed by the limits of worship. What heathendom and mere philosophy had dimly guessed, was plainly revealed by Christianity — the fatherhood of God, the brother- hood of Christ, the perfect morality of the Sermon on the Mount, the clear conceptions of immortality and responsibility, the ideals of charity, benevolence, and love. As these have wrought to regenerate the man, so the social union of men has displayed qualities hitherto unknown, and the national organism has pre- pared itself for duties and activities it once would have been unfit to undertake. In the early ages of effort to effect a modus vivendi between church and state there were two powerful factors which had to be reckoned with: the Teutonic spirit and the tremendous prestige of Rome. Ab- solutism was destined to fall before the free spirit of the primitive Teuton; with his uncouth disregard of theory he remained free as he was born free, and, asserting with emphasis the natural right of the in- dividual, he preserved what was best in his birthright, administering rude justice, destroying centralization, and securing local self-government. The church, however, became for a time the heir of imperial Rome and of Roman imperialism, arrogating to herself as an organization the succession of the empire not merely in spiritual authority, but in temporal. So brilliant and dazzling was Roman tradition that ecclesiasticism THE COURSE OF POLITICAL THEORY 189 of this type was able to take advantage of the disor- der consequent on the appearance of the Germans as the new historic race and by conserving whatever was best in society and institutions within the bosom of its organization, an organization continuous and power- ful, to usurp many functions which belonged essen- tially to man: material, social life, and, having usurped them to keep them for a long time. Inas- much as Christianity was universal, men reasoned, so must also the political power of Christendom be universal and the continuity of the Roman empire, therefore, be unbroken. This for a time utterly destroyed the possibility of such a concept as nation- ality, even among the most enlightened men of a dark age. The Middle Ages were essentially unpolitical. The tumults of immigration and its consequent inter- mingling of races, resulted in both mental and physical oppression; amid the clash of arms men resorted for the protection of life and property to temporary ex- pedients rather than to permanent principles. In theory there was one nation, in reality there was none. The only political system was, to use a paradox, in reality a social one : that of feudalism. As time went on social order was gradually reestablished on the basis of personal relations; with the accretion of fiefs or little rudimentary states, there arose again some- thing truly political, a number of small and imperfect but real nations. In them the form of government was that of a limited monarchy; slavery had dis- appeared and personal rights were recognized, though of course imperfectly; the state is something else than the church; and although their relative powers are not determined, the tendency is toward nationality, toward national churches rather than a universal, Catholic, church; the unity of functions and powers in hereditary offices has made way for the separation i 9 o THE COURSE OF POLITICAL THEORY of legislation and administration; the direct inter- vention of the supernatural is modified into a belief that the king is the vice-gerent of God; the notion of citizenship as dependent on community of birth and worship is so far changed that although the citi- zen of a Christian state must be a Christian, yet there is a distinction clearly drawn between civil and private duties. Any man may enjoy his civil rights although only a Christian has full political rights. In general, principles of high morality and absolute right demand and get recognition and there is in existence a true state system based on community of rights and terri- tory. As the great question of the Middle Ages was the relation of the spiritual to the temporal power, so the political speculation of the same period all turns about the same question. On both sides there were men of all sorts: of both extremes, and moder- ates. The two leaders on opposing sides were respec- tively Thomas Aquinas [1225-1274] and Dante [1265- 1321]. The latter was an Imperialist Ghibelline, suf- fering exile for his belief in the emperor as the su- preme and universal monarch. As a political phil- osopher he must rank very low; but the splendor of his genius brought his belief and his behavior both into the greatest prominence: his conception of a secular power supreme in secular matters was im- pressed upon men by him as no other could have done it. The great ecclesiastical doctor [Doctor Angelicus] on the other hand was the most subtle and liberal political speculator who ever argued on be- half of papal supremacy; and his writings to-day are a living power in the United States as elsewhere. Political power as pertaining to the will of men, he taught, is of human right; the institutions by which God reveals himself to men are alone of divine right. The powers that be are ordained of God. Yes; but THE COURSE OF POLITICAL THEORY 191 only power in itself: the relation of ruler and ruled,! power in action, the concrete exercise of power, is not necessarily so. What is the essence of sovereignty? Law-making. Where does it reside? In the people and it is only as their representative that the prince, makes laws. In this lies the legitimacy of the prince and if he happens to have obtained power justly, he must, even though a bad man, be obeyed: the dis- obedient must suffer. But, either violence or the long continued abuse of power, or the sin of simony, destroys legitimacy. To power thus obtained subjects owe no obedience: "tyrannicides," he cautiously adds, "have been praised." He is equally cautious about papal pretensions, although he thinks the pope "utriusque apicem tenet," and claims that in case of conflict the spiritual is higher than the tem- poral power. The arguments of mediaevalism on both sides were purely metaphysical. With the rise of a state system in Europe, and, in the enlightenment of the intellectual and spiritual renaissance, the whole character of po- litical thinking changed. This was due to Machia- velli [1469-1527] whose supreme merit it was to in- troduce the historical, critical, and comparative method. By him was announced the supreme truth of political science: that what men can do and ought to do may only be learned by examining what they have done; in the light of reason and common sense. To this end he made choice of Roman history. Francis Hotman [1 524-1 590] in the Franco-Gallia, used the same method, but having inherited the spirit of reform, he examined the French monarchy in order to secure its improvement. Hubert Languet [1518- 1581] aimed at a general reformation in politics: In his Vindicice contra Tyrannos he took recourse to sacred history and became the father of the con- tract theory which is one of the most modern of all 192 THE COURSE OF POLITICAL THEORY the ideas advanced to account for the modern nation. Simultaneously with the Protestant writers, the Jesuits also were busy. The greatest among them was Suarez [1548-1617] who transformed the system of Thomas Aquinas, adapting it to modern thought and avoiding in his teachings the pitfalls laid for mediaeval ecclesiasticism by the Protestants, during the latter half of the sixteenth century. The next great discovery in regard to the nation was that of political sovereignty as an absolute and 1 perpetual power. This was the work of Jean Bodin 1 [1 530-1596] who anticipated Hobbes by a whole century. Absolute monarchy having been estab- lished, he proceeded to examine the permanent ele- ments of sovereignty and nationality for which they stood. After the work of absolutism was done the next step was to destroy despotism by means of political philosophy, while preserving both sovereignty and nationality. This was the work of Locke and Rousseau. Both proceeded by a remodelling of the contract theory and an appeal to natural rights. By them, with the practical assistance of the universal belief in the sanctity of property, were accomplished the three great revolutions which ushered in our own times. IV THE NATION IN THEORY AND FACT EELATION OF THEORY TO FACT — SUPERNATURAL AUTHORITY IN THE NATION THE STATE AN INSTITUTION ORDAINED OF GOD — NATIONAL AUTHORITY CONSIDERED AS AN EVIL THE FORCE THEORY— THE SOCIAL-CONTRACT THEORY — REASONS FOR ITS DISCREDIT THE DERIVA- TION OF THE STATE FROM THE FAMILY — GOVERNMENT AND THE STATE AN IMMORAL INCIDENT — THE NATION AS A JURAL SOCIETY — THE NATION AS AN ECONOMIC SOCIETY — THE STATE AS A MORAL ORGANISM —SPECULATION BASED ON PREHISTORIC INVESTIGATION — THE PRIMI- TIVE SOCIETY A FAMILY RELATIONSHIP — LOCAL FAMILY WORSHIP A BOND OF UNION — FEDERATION OF TRIBES — THE CITY-STATE. Every effort to study the natural history of a nation seems to result in some theory ; for the simple reason that in every department of historical study it is ab- solutely necessary to follow some hypothesis or theory: without it there can be no orderly arrangement of the facts ascertained. The theories which thus emerge have each and all their value; for there is not one which does not shadow forth a great truth or at least one side of a truth. Political heresies are for the most part similar to those of theology, being the perversion, distortion or undue emphasis of a truth. For pur- poses of convenience we may follow the accepted divi- sion of them into two categories: those which attrib- ute a divine nature and origin to the nation, and those which proceed upon purely secular grounds. The ancient Orientals held not so much that a super- natural power intervened directly in their national affairs, as that the expression of the national sover- eignty was itself divine. This has never been a modern theory, and may, therefore, be passed by. So also may the unique instance of the Jewish theoc- racy, in which divine sovereignty upheld and con- 193 194 THE NATION IN THEORY AND FACT trolled the state and in which the will of God, directly revealed, was the law. The ancient Greeks and Romans constantly sought in their public and private worship to secure the good will of the gods for the state and likewise to secure through oracles, omens, and auguries some manifesta- tion of the divine will to guide them in their conduct of public affairs. To their latest day a very few of their historians remembered their origins: and even Plutarch declared that it would be easier to found a city without ground than for a state to be formed or to last, without faith. The moral order of the uni- verse under a personal God is one of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity. The only question, there- fore, in the Middle Ages, was whether the authority of the state was exercised through the emperor directly from God; or through the pope communicating the divine authority to the emperor. It is a remarkable and instructive fact that St. Augustine, Gregory the Great, Thomas Aquinas, and Suarez, find the source of national authority to be derived from God through the people. If this be true and if the pope have the only authority derived directly from God, viz., the spiritual, it follows that his is the higher; but only in spiritual, not in secular, affairs. This theory has been thoroughly modernized and is to-day held by far the largest majority of Christian men and women in the Roman church. Niebuhr expresses the general Protestant German view, held since Luther asserted that the three holy orders were, not bishops, priests, and deacons, but the family, the church, and the state. It follows, thought the great historian, that the state is an institution ordained of God, necessary to the existence of man, like marriage or the parental relation. Our own Washington in his inaugural address makes his fervent supplications to "that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, THE NATION IN THEORY AND FACT 195 who presides in the councils of nations, and whose Providential aids can supply every defect." The Calvinists, who so strongly impressed our political institutions, were such firm believers in this theory — at least the New England branch of them — that the primitive colonial governments were more or less theocratic, that of Massachusetts in a high degree. The Scotch Presbyterians carefully drew the line of demarkation between church and state, having suf- fered wofully from the confusion of the two in Ire- land, and even in Scotland itself. This theory is also that of the most enlightened Roman Catholics in America. Brownson declared that political author- ity is derived by the collective people or society from God through the law of nature, that law transmitted from Adam through reason and those traditions of the primitive instruction embodied in language as the jus gentium. He has the support of modern for- eigners like Stahl, de Bonald, and Joseph de Maistre. Our latest materialistic and agnostic philosophies, represented in the writings of Herbert Spencer, look upon the existence of national authority as an unmixed evil from the operation of which the individual is to be freed in the golden age which is coming as the result of evolution. The object of authority is to terrify evil-doers, and assure each man his due share of what there is to be enjoyed. This was virtually the doctrine of quite another class of thinkers, those who looked backward, not forward, to the state of primitive nature, not as a time of conflict and struggle, but as a golden age past, never to return. There were also others who saw the golden age in the Garden of Eden: who regarded the state of man after the fall as a stormy time of hate, conflict, and misery. It is rather difficult to see how that which represses evil can itself be evil; how an agent can at the same time be repressive and formative. Moreover, at the i 9 6 THE NATION IN THEORY AND FACT basis of such a conception lies the false view of man which regards him as repugnant to association; as selfish and solitary. The next theory is of course the force theory; that which gives to the strong because they are strong, authority over the weak because they are weak, because they cannot resist. According to such a theory there is no need of law or of morality: for all are either despots or slaves. In its bald statement it had generally been scorned until the German Empire began, about 1905, to proclaim it from the housetop. Nevertheless it did covertly underlie a commonly or at least widely accepted definition of law, viz., a rule enforced by a sovereign. Austin, Holland, and all the writers of the analytical school have so held. As a matter of fact nations have been born again and again in war, much more often than by treaty — but nevertheless the history of jurispru- dence shows that laws based on immoral principles are no laws, whatever sanction may be behind them; and political history shows that might without right is never constructive, but results in devastation and disorder; while might conjoined with right has often been the inception of order in society. ' ' The strongest is never strong enough to be always the master, if he does not transform his might into right and his obedience into duty" are the admirable words of Rousseau. Next in order of the purely secular theories comes the theory of social contract. Languet discovered in Jewish history a tripartite agreement between the Jewish people, Saul, and God. All Protestants be- lieved in the right of resistance. Hobbes ingeniously based existing institutions on a state of nature marked by an unendurable struggle for existence, which was ended by an agreement to forego certain rights and to transfer all other rights. In this way was formed a THE NATION IN THEORY AND FACT 197 collective will, expressing itself in Leviathan — the mortal god — a person authorized in all its actions by a certain number of men, in virtue of a reciprocal agree- ment to use at its choice the power of all to assure peace and the common defense. Now the transfer of a right means non-resistance, so that the state has all primitive and absolute power. Locke accepted the state of nature and the contract theory; but with modifications. The former of the two might be but was not necessarily a state of conflict. On the con- trary man in a state of nature might enjoy peace if he only lived according to right reason and granted to others the enjoyment of the natural rights pos- sessed by each, himself among the number. Political society exists only when free and equal men give up the natural right they have to punish those who do them wrong. This one right of vengeance is the only one inherited by the nation; not all rights, as Hobbes declared, and for the exercise of this right they form an agreement with a sovereign who is bound to protect them in the enjoyment of all the rest. In a sense, therefore, both Hobbes and Locke describe a compact between governor and governed. But Rous- seau confined the contract to the people themselves. They are supposed to have met and each individually for himself to have "in common put his person and his power under the supreme direction of the com- mon will," "Thus," he says, "is produced a moral, collective, body which derives from this act its unity, its common personality, its life, its will." Jefferson was thinking of this when he wrote in the Declaration of Independence: "Government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed." Rousseau's form of the contract theory has been called the Bible of the French Revolution, just as Locke's form was the guide and justification of both the English and American revolutions. In spite of 198 THE NATION IN THEORY AND FACT the great work done by the contract theory, it is never- theless utterly discredited in our day, almost as much as Hobbesism. Men never met on a vast plain to make a contract for the establishment of a nation; his- torically the notion has not even a slight basis. Con- tract, moreover, never produces public law, it only creates a private obligation. The nation is not sub- sequent to, but precedes the citizen : no man was ever born into the world except under some form of human association, however primitive. Nor is the state dependent on the individual choice of its citizens; in certain numbers, individual citizens, by united action, assume a right dimly recognized but never fixed ; assert the right of resistance ; but in organizing for that purpose they act as citizens. There is, more- over, no progress without government: civilization such as this theory presupposes, is impossible without a previous political organization. Worst of all, con- tract loses its force when the parties to the covenant cease to exist. Jefferson himself admitted that con- stitutions should be sworn to by all the people about once in every nineteen years, so as, from time to time, to secure the allegiance of every male adult. The life of a state then is shorter than the life of a horse, sneered his opponents. Probably the simplest and most attractive of all the secular theories is that which derives the powers of government from the family and makes the rela- tion between the sovereign and the people identical with that between father and children. But history knows no time when there was not an authority dif- ferent from that of the family and above it. Even the tribal relation was not the family relation; even that, such as it was, had at the dawn of history been already converted into that of the city-state, race being already subordinate to the nation. In all civilized countries, the nation is, in earliest historic THE NATION IN THEORY AND FACT 199 times, above the family. The father may govern his own child by reason of his paternity: how can he govern the child of another, even that of his own son, by reason of the same relation ? Moreover, the lesson of history is that wherever nations have adhered most closely to this ideal of paternal government, there has been the lowest organization, the least political power. It is clear that the character of family rights is radi- cally different from that of political rights. According to each of these theories of the genesis and nature of the nation, men have attempted to answer the question : What is the nation ? The an- swers are even more various than the theories, be- cause they correspond sometimes only to one, but are more frequently eclectic, taking elements from two or more. As we saw but a few pages backward, identity of conclusion may result from widely different prem- ises, from the most opposite standpoints, and an- tagonistic methods. The nation, according to the physical evolutionists, is an organization to suppress crime; government is an immoral incident subsequent to the state, and will cease to exist when crime ceases. National union therefore as expressed by the state is an external phenomenon of society, variable according to xircumstances and according to the demands made by the "universal aim of advancing the private ends of the individual. ' ' This is not very different from the police theory, which sees in the nation a jural society. "Man born in a family is compelled to maintain society from necessity, from natural inclination, and from habit. The same creature in his further progress is engaged to establish political society in order to administer justice without which there can be no peace among them, nor safety nor mutual intercourse. We are therefore to look upon all the vast apparatus of our government as having ultimately no other object or 200 THE NATION IN THEORY AND FACT purpose than the distribution of justice, or in other words the support of the twelve judges. Kings and parliaments, fleets and armies, officers of the court and revenue, ambassadors, ministers and privy councillors are all subordinate in the end to this part of administration. Even the clergy, as their duty leads them to inculcate morality, may justly be thought as far as regards this world to have no other useful object of their institution." No statement of the theory could be stronger than this oft-quoted passage from Hume's Origin of Government. There is still another answer to the question : What is the nation? It is an answer which reduces the noble fabric of society to the lowest depth of degra- dation, to what Mulford calls "a field of individual ambition for the gratification of selfish interests and private ends. ' ' It regards the nation as an economic society. The unity of the nation lies in its material prosperity, its political economy. It is a trading con- cern with no other end in view than the success of its citizens, who are the partners. These purely utilitarian or if we must use a euphe- mism, benevolent, theories and definitions, are not in our time very strongly upheld. They are neverthe- less extremely influential, being the real ground of action in public affairs for the majority of men. The later text-writers on the nature and origin of the nation take, however, a view quite different from any of those we have stated. Among them, Mul- ford in his exhaustive treatise gives a typical and comprehensive definition in these words : ' ' The nation, having its foundation laid in the nature of man, is a relationship, a continuity, and an organism; conscious, moral, and personal." This view is not to be con- founded with that of Draper in his Civil Polity. He stoutly maintains that the nation is an organism: but, like the school of medical historians to which he THE NATION IN THEORY AND FACT 201 belongs, he bases his reasoning and his generalizations on an imaginary analogy between society and the individuals who compose it. Like them its organiza- tion, he thinks, is physical; in the nature of things it must begin, advance through various ages, and die in order to make room for its successors. But the statement of the organic theory in its entirety is not content with physical organization alone. "The end of the state," says Aristotle, "is not merely to live, but to live nobly." "The state is no mechanism," concludes Hegel, " but the rational life of self-conscious freedom, the order of the moral world." Milton thought that a nation should be "but as one huge Christian personage, one mighty growth or stature of an honest man as big and compact in virtue as in body." Burke declares the state should be looked on with reverence as a partnership in all science, in all art, in every virtue, and in all perfection. And Shakespeare sang: " There is a mystery in the soul of state Which hath an 1 operation more divine Than breath or pen can give expression to." Aristotle laid down as an axiom that man without the state was not man. The Latin saw has it: " Unus, homo nuttus homo." Mirabeau declared that man was not man, i. e., a reflective being, capable of virtue, un- til he commenced to organize. Cicero says the cause of men gathering into political bodies is "quam naturalis qucedam hominum quasi congregatio." "The state," says Bluntschli, "is a necessary good, the fulfilment of universal order, an organization for the perfection of all social order, of social life in all public things." The great difficulty with all these attempts to de- scribe the natural history of the nation, unless we except the last, is that they are based on an his- 202 THE NATION IN THEORY AND FACT torical assumption incapable of proof, or else on an untenable theory, illogical in one or all of its parts. Until within very recent times historical knowledge outside of certain short periods and certain limited portions of the earth's surface, was scant indeed. But within about two generations the spade has revealed storehouses of knowledge not yet exhausted, with regard to the earliest civilizations: the de- cipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs and Babylonian cuneiforms has given us the story of those peoples: the comparative study of languages has revealed the mysteries of India, Persia, and the dispersion of the Aryans in prehistoric times : the opening of Japan and China, with the comparative studyof institutions, has let in the light upon their exclusiveness: and in- telligent travel has collected a great mass of material which the archaeologist, the folk-lorist, and the student of comparative religion have used to such advantage that we seem finally able to outline the genesis and development of human society on something approxi- mating an historical basis, in a fairly continuous story. We no longer doubt that the earliest form of society was the family; not necessarily of course the monog- amous family, as we know it; but some form of relation between man, woman, child, and property. It really makes no difference whether we believe the monogamous family to be the most precious conquest of civilization, evolved from consanguine, punaluan, polyandric, and polygamous forms: or whether we hold all these to be degradations of the most primitive institution given to man by his Creator; the fact re- mains that in our earliest authentic records, monu- ments, literature, institutions, we have proof that men were living in groups, based more or less directly upon blood-relationship and upon community of goods. This relationship was traced to a single source, male or female, in which was a mastery more or less com- THE NATION IN THEORY AND FACT 203 plete over all persons and property, and the basis of authority was partly in a community of worship, partly in the fact of natural generation. In some races we can go back to polyandry as a system. Directly from that have sprung no institutions except such as tend to promiscuity and savagery, traces of mother-right in the Brehon laws being the most familiar. In Jewish history we go back to polygamy, a form of family in which female chastity was estab- lished, so that descent was traceable through the male. In the earliest societies of the Aryans we find the mo- nogamous family firmly established, although it is claimed that the larger tribal associations bear traces of having been developed from more or less promiscu- ous relations such as those prevalent among savages in their irregular tribes. This, if true, was probably due to the general depravity which has not yet dis- appeared from even the highest civilizations. It has been too much taken for granted that the monogamous family grew into a clan by the mere process of increase in the number of kindred. When the father dies he is succeeded by the oldest male and so on until in course of time the generations have so multiplied that even the clan, gens or yevcx: is so large that it is split by its own weight; new clans are formed, and these, remembering their common origin, reunite into tribes. As these become numerous and civilization becomes more complex, these tribes re- call or invent a hero-eponymous and join under an elective king of that hero's supposed line; provided always that there be a male with qualities which fit him to rule. But in the institutions of all peoples whatsoever there lurk traces of primitive savagery in some form, like mother-right or totem-kinship; in some, two systems of descent determine two forms of succession in property, and these have flourished side by side within historic times. There are customs 204 THE NATION IN THEORY AND FACT still prevalent in civilized society which are so reminis- cent of savagery that all nations are supposed by many to have passed through savage stages. Such are bride-stealing, which was once well-nigh universal, the still common shamefaced mystery among the vulgar about marriage, an English custom still prevalent in certain localities which forbids the parents of either bride or bridegroom to be present at the wedding ceremony. The explanation of all these seems to be found in the prevalence of local family worship in primitive times and the subordina- tion of natural generation to common religion as a bond of family union. The next step in human association seems to have been in the form of federation. The monarchies of China, of the early Egyptians, and the Chaldaeans were simply swollen families; the monarch being father and priest. In them civilization made little progress on its political side. They were interesting survivals like the joint-families of Ceylon, which are to-day much what the English manor once was or the Greco-Roman gens. But the city-state of Greece and Rome was a federation of tribes under a common ruler and with a common worship. At first kinship played a most important r6le; but, with the advance of philosophy, locality became of greater importance ; since neighbors found their interests more closely con- nected than relations who were not neighbors. Very early in history the demes were established by local boundaries instead of the hitherto prevalent lines of separation by kinship. This relation of men to the soil they occupied was only possible when they had finally abandoned their nomadic habits and, once domiciled, recognized that the friend near at hand was better than the brother afar off. Within the same tribe could be many stocks claiming different an- cestry; the old gentile ties were loosened and the true THE NATION IN THEORY AND FACT 205 distinction between cognate and agnate was long forgotten; to be rediscovered only in our own time. The strong ties of a true family were gradually de- stroyed and regard for remoter kinship was totally lost. We have already examined the development of the city-state into the world state, the influence which Christianity as a world religion had in creating a de- sire for an all-comprehensive earthly Civitas corres- ponding to the Civitas Dei. We have also outlined the formation through feudalism with its patriarchal social quality, dependent on land and military service for its existence, of a system of modern states with many characteristics in common. They all had un- written constitutions virtually identical in origin and quality; three orders of society; sacred territorial boundaries determined not by nature but by feudal claims and therefore artificial; they respected each other's independence; had identical government forms; recognized that curious survival, the Holy Roman Empire, as a bond of union; held themselves subject to an inchoate international law; and enjoyed a community ,of social movement. The change was regular and continuous which produced this state of things — the great single fact of modern history. It was confirmed in the rise and growth of absolutism; which welded communities together under a dynasty, a common interest, a common system of law, and a common sovereignty, for long also a common religion. To absolutism has succeeded either constitutional monarchy, or, where the people were sufficiently en- lightened, democracy. Thus was formed the modern nation. What is it? is it merely transitional, intro- ductory to a new state of society ? THE MODERN NATION LIBERTY, THE MAN, AND THE COMMUNITY — THE IDEAL COMMUNITY DIRECTIVE, NOT COERCIVE — RELATION OF MAN AND HIS SURROUND- INGS — CLASSES IN THE NATION — AMELIORATION BY PRIVATE MEANS AND PUBLIC EFFORT — DANGERS OF POLITICAL CALVINISM AND THE JURAL STATE — THE MEANING OF INDIVIDUALITY — MEANINGS OF THE PHRASE "NATURAL RIGHTS" — LEGAL, MORAL, AND NATURAL RIGHTS — THE SOCIAL CONSCIENCE: THE NATION AN ORGANISM ITS DUTY TO ENLARGE PERSONAL, AND DIMINISH SOCIAL, RIGHTS — LIMITATIONS ON COERCIVE RIGHTS OF THE NATION — INTERNATIONAL RIGHTS, CO- ERCIVE AND DIRECTIVE. It appears then that through both the lines we have been considering we can trace a fact or series of facts and a corresponding intention : that all the strug- gles and convulsions, that the intervals of peaceful development in history, have been absorbed with the problem of how to advance the cause of personal liberty. The intention underlay the facts: to de- stroy every form of human association which stood in the way; and uproot whatever beliefs- these forms were founded on. If it be true that a purpose has been running through the historical ages, that pur- pose has been to establish the individual man as the ultimate fact, to secure for him the fullest liberty to act according to his personal belief, to enjoy what- ever makes him most complete in his entity, to exer- cise his powers to the greatest advantage, to discuss whatever gives him the clearest view of his duties. Incidents may hamper him and be of little moment, because he can, single and alone, overcome obstacles proportionate to his personal will and strength. Whatever hindrances require organization for their overthrow will surely be attacked by an association; permanent, durable, and large enough for its purposes, 206 THE MODERN NATION 207 If in the process of emancipating the man from the thraldom of communism the nature of man had been completely regenerated, the problem of political science would solve itself. Were the perfect law of love habitually observed by every human being there could be no question of rights, for there would be no repression, except by himself, of any man's desires; no regulation of one man's conduct for the sake of another man's existence or well-being. We would have no police, no courts, no armies, or fleets ; the customs officer, and the tax-gatherer would be friends; there would be none of the paraphernalia of government, now so abundant, to restrain the vicious and selfish, even those who unwittingly perform acts hurtful to others; for the simple reason that such classes would be non-existent. There would remain nothing but the necessity of common action for the common good ; a very small sphere of public activity when once perfect institutions had been set agoing. There would be for this end a corporate sovereignty, since solitary man is so helpless; and since the condi- tions essential to even the lowest form of living can only be secured by joint action. The sphere of government would be confined to what Suarez calls the directive powers of government: the coercive powers would never be called into action. If this be true of the conditions essential to the lowest form of living, how much truer would it be of those which enable man to live nobly, and a fortiori of those essential to perfect living. But of course we are not dealing with the possibility of human perfectibility this side the grave ; nor with a millennial age such as at the opening of the twentieth century many idealists fondly believed was already well inaugurated. Nor can we here discuss the mean- ing and nature of progress, assuming only that it is a change from simplicity to complexity [not com- 208 THE MODERN NATION plication] for the purpose of development, of adapting men to their surroundings, and their surroundings to men; and thus of attaining ideal ends in the relation of men to each other, to God, and to nature. We do not, simply because in looking abroad on the world we see so much misery and wickedness, admit that there is a steady degeneration of things animate and inanimate from what they were in a golden age which will never return. This is not the worst possible world nor the best possible world; it is a world growing better, characterized in all directions by meli- oration. We should see it as it is. The fittest indi- viduals have been emancipated from the bondage of communistic life, from awe and terror in the presence of natural force, and from the horrors of dark supersti- tion. A wide-spread comfort and contentment have been already attained, and to a still greater extent the practice of commonplace virtue and ordinary thrift put both within reach of millions and millions. There is unfortunately a small area of life within which in- capacity or impracticability, joined to good or even the best intentions, seems to thwart all success- There is also a still smaller sphere within which bad men abandon themselves to shameful living and thus create a social class which endangers the well-being of themselves and others. In a sense these social classes represent correspond- ing degrees of morality. Among a substantial num- ber of the best men and women we find a quickened conscience, intense earnestness, high principle, the power and practice of self-denial; and accompanying these to the highest degree, pity for those who are not as they are. Next after these we may place the great majority of really civilized people, the common folk, persons with limited but wholesome intelligence, eminently practical too, since their chief concerns are a competence for this life and security for their THE MODERN NATION 209 immortal souls, disposed to accept well-tried beliefs and moral axioms on authority, indisposed to dis- turbing thoughts and to change, with sound instincts and a vigorous will — the historic class. Associated with them is a class, almost equally large, who from ignorance and interest have substituted legality for morality, in whom a soul-habit established by heredity and environment has supplanted conscience, and among whom shame is almost the last basis upon which an appeal for righteousness can be made. Fin- ally there are the selfish, indolent, and vicious, diseased in soul and body, who in every community are in reality comparatively few, but who for the very reason of their exceptional character attract wide- spread attention. These are the real social classes of the United States: with the destruction of feudal privilege in Europe and the increasing influence of liberal ideas throughout the world similar divisions have become more and more evident everywhere. We talk much of rich and poor, of capital and labor, of educated and ignorant, and of similar social divisions as if they were permanent, constant, and absolute. In reality there is only a very small modicum of truth in the assumption. Constant fluidity is the characteristic of the modern world, careers are open to all the talents, the individual who fixes himself in any one of these divisions is a self-made and self-fixed man, the excep- tion rather than the rule. It is not true that the rich are growing richer, the poor poorer. There is neither as much disease nor poverty nor vice in the world to- day as there once was: there is a higher regard for life, property, and personal worth than there once was; and good men are vastly more sensitive to evil than they ever were before, vastly more energetic in remedying it than their ancestors. The whole attitude of the rich, the powerful, and the intelligent, 210 THE MODERN NATION while they remain such, is no longer one of 'haughty contempt, but on the contrary it is one of interest and pity. Such are the persons with which present-day forms of human association are concerned. There are sur- vivals of every pre-existent human quality: pride of birth, place, wealth; intense respect for kinship and local advantage; passionate longing for the imagined charms of ancient, mediaeval, and absolutist society; the weakness of selfishness and sin. Against all these, however, the conflict is declared and there is no ques- tion as to which side unfurls the banner of right and justice. Considering men as they are, therefore, it is clear that their organization can include only that which is essential to their common interest as indi- viduals. The less regulative force the nation exerts, the freer the play of personal initiative. Bad men with debased natures are still with us; these in an environment of high type, leaving unrestrained the natures of noble instinct, have greater opportunity for harm; when, however, they reach the barriers that are set up, their condemnation is more complete and their suffering, for suffer they must, is more bitter. There is no remedy for this except the efforts of the good to reform them by moral means before the stage of transgressing the law is reached. Political Calvin- ism tends toward the jural state, and if the nation were merely a jural society, it would, as the American nation tends to do, extend its law-making to the pettiest offenses, its police functions to the extremest limit, and force men to be good rather than invite them to it. Already we have gone too far along this road; the climax of a jural nation with police govern- ment was reached in the German Empire under the Calvinistic Hohenzollerns. The essence of morality being spontaneity, the jural relation in the units of a nation would, as it has already done, make fear the THE MODERN NATION 211 only motive of action and destroy the finest of all human qualities, self-respect. An organized society working in this single direc- tion would therefore trespass unduly upon the sphere of the individual, render its members less fit for their functions and so in the end, first degrade, then de- stroy itself. The mention of the word "organized" seems to call up the antinomy or supposed antago- nism between the individual and the nation. This is due to a prevalent prejudice of which we divest our- selves with difficulty: the utterly distorted idea that individual and isolated are synonymous. No in- dividual is ever isolated, never was, and never can be. Suppose the possibility. If on the one hand two or more should then enter into a permanent relation with each other, in that act and its consequences each in- dividual, though remaining the same person, is changed, because mere contact of mind or body pro- duces action and reaction. In the sequel this be- comes stronger and stronger until the interchange of relations completely absorbs both individuals while they nevertheless remain separate persons. This is not necessarily to the detriment of individuality: indeed, each person is likely to be more individual than before, every quality being not only possibly, but almost certainly, sharpened and intensified. The relation creates conditions and a force which did not exist before. The elements of the force are vital. Suppose every human being to be placed in a cell so constructed as to afford him a field for all his physical and mental energies, what then ? Life is mere exist- ence, however complete; and a steady degeneration of what is really human sets in. Convicts in solitary confinement become with time something less than the most degraded man. Defoe with all the magic of his pen could not delineate a real life for his hero without companionship. Saintine in the well-known 212 THE MODERN NATION tale of Picciola tried the same problem in making his prisoner love and care for a flower, but the effort resulted in unreality. There is no possible way of even conceiving man as man outside of some form of organized association. The nation is not an exceptional organism ; it is a true organic association, not a mechanical agglomeration of individuals. We have seen how men appealed to justice and right and the common welfare as a means of destroy- ing status and custom. Rational legislation having once been secured by a just intermixture of these elements, the next step was to appeal against all authority on the ground of "nature." Our ancestors first appealed for redress of their grievances to their rights as British subjects; but there is nothing of this in their final appeals; they took higher ground and appealed to their rights as men. Now, without entering into any discussion of the knotty question of "natural rights," we must remember that the idea of natural law has had several distinct, though constantly confused, meanings. In one it has been the basis for the doctrines taught by the anarchists, the Cynics, Rousseauists, and Marxists, being a revolt against all the restraints of civilization and a demand for a return to an imaginary state of nature in which every man did what seemed right in his own eyes, that is, good to satisfy his desires. In another signi- fication it is substantially identical with the law of God, revealed through conscience, the inner voice, or the Bible. The Declaration of Independence, carefully read, will be found ambiguous in so far as both conceptions suit its terms. The third signif- icance of natural law is that of modern biologists, which claims that when "the phenomena of human society come to be brought under conceptions and studied by methods similar to those used in the study of the phenomena of .vegetable and animal life, the notion THE MODERN NATION 213 of causality is introduced into ethics and politics and economics, which now become branches of soci- ology." They appeal, therefore, to the consensus humani generis, one field of biological research: and preferably to savages as being nearer to primitive man than civilized man is. They are far astray be- cause savage man is the one universally accepted case of devolution known to natural science, and so they approach closely in their distorted view to that of Rousseau. At the most the biologists can only mean that the nation must respect the instincts and tendencies of a primitive man about whom we make many guesses, but know absolutely nothing. A legal right is easily understood : it is the power we have to control others through the force of society organized in the state. A moral right is less definite : it is the power we have to control others through public opinion; a claim recognized by society though per- haps not by law or the state in such a way as to en- able us to enforce it. Where all the people, or vir- tually all, hold the same religious belief, a moral right is easily defined and therefore easily transformed into a legal right. But in modern civilized nations there is every degree of belief and unbelief as there is of education and ignorance. To what shall we appeal ? Not to nature as opposed to present artificiality ; that is to retrograde, nor to nature as the whole universe, the oracle is dumb; nor to the ideal, that is not yet attained. These three forms of appeal : to authority, to nature, or to utility, all seem to be impracticable. We ourselves carefully guarded against any appeal to authority, by setting bills of rights above the govern- ment: we do not permit the organized nation to de- termine what are and what are not our rights; in religion and in politics we virtually judge the validity of authority by its power to secure our rights. The appeal to the inner voice or higher law is constantly 214 THE MODERN NATION made; *'. e., to nature in the deistic sense, to the rem- nant of a primitive instruction remaining in every man's conscience, in every good man's conscience. This comes very close, indeed, to the utilitarian doc- trine that reason and experience must be our guide. The earlier writers like Bentham thought that the reason and experience of the individual must be the guide; the present-day physical scientists substitute an evolutionary utilitarianism as the measure of obligation and there is more or less a stampede to follow them, to say that the measure of oughtness is found entirely in the view of society. Organized society alone can determine the moral obligation of the individual; but not necessarily society as it is, rather an ideal society, finding by the measure or criterion of an Utopia the worth of ideas formed in society as we have it. This consensus of several later writers seems to me, aside from its in- tent, very difficult to grasp accurately. Clarity is not its distinguishing feature: it is not plain what a social conscience is; even when consulting the oracle of an Utopia. As matters stand and are likely to stand every right, legal, or moral, is in the last analysis based on the personality of the modern citizen. It is useless to discuss whether the nation or the individual is antecedent: we have never known men except in association with others, we have observed them se- curing a greater and greater degree of personality, and with it a clearer and clearer conception of duty, justice, and truth; which are eternal ideas. We may well suppose that the personality thus evolved will continue to have a relation to organized society which we may designate as his right and we may feel sure that the appeal will be to what is socially useful now and likely to be hereafter in that better society, which we may infer from our experience of the past. We may hope, moreover, that as society has steadily THE MODERN NATION 215 emancipated the individual heretofore it will continue to afford him an ever-increasing sphere for the exer- cise of the virtues which he may have in the future. There is, therefore, no question of precedence in the matter of rights and society; but a parallel develop- ment of the organism and its members for the com- pleter activity of both. What the Bible reveals to us is the story of grace. The question of personality in the theological and metaphysical sense, that is the relations of God, nature, and man, belongs to the sphere of these two disciplines: the person and the nation have a relation, which is historical and theoreti- cal both; but theoretical only as regards the concepts of duty, truth, and justice. This brings us to the second conception of the na- tion ; that it is not only an organism and a continuous one, but that it is moral in the sense of enlarging the rights of the individual as against itself, its own direc- tive rights ; and diminishing its own rights as coercive of the individual. Now just as we need constantly to be reminded that the nation is the highest form of human association, that as such it has a power and a quality above the individual, yet we also need to re- member that it is composed of fallible men and women. These will necessarily have among them two elements; those who condemn existing institutions in order that they may strive to throw order into chaos by evil doing, and gratify their own lusts; and those who by condemning existing institutions hope to se- cure better: Reformers are constantly classed as criminals; how is the nation to distinguish? Take the case of the Mormons, when they lived in polygamy and claimed religious sanction for the practice. The theory of the supreme court was that congress could not control opinion but could control actions in viola- tion of social duties and subversive of social order. The judge was to be congress itself and the Edmunds 216 THE MODERN NATION act made polygamy a crime. This is held by all the purely secularizing politicians who prate about religious liberty to have been a direct violation of that precious principle. They thought no marriage should be recognized as legally binding except a civil marriage; polygamous marriages should then have been prohibited, and certain grounds for the divorce of those already bound by them should have been established; by female suffrage the escape of any Mormon wife terrorized by her husband could then have been arranged. To them such a procedure would not have appeared a violation of religious liberty ! As a matter of fact, congress acted on what is the general consent of Christendom in modern times. In so doing it strictly interpreted the modern conception of a nation, viz., that however heterogene- ous its population or widely varying the beliefs of its citizens, a nation must have and unite upon a mini- mum common basis of religious belief, with an accom- panying morality which shall control its conduct. There may be two opinions as to whether or not this basis shall be a rigid statement embodied in the fun- damental law; or a general understanding, fluid in its nature like the English constitution. The former has the advantage of indicating the general tenor of legislation without dispute; the latter has the ad- vantage of being more comprehensive and more easily changed to correspond to variations in personal con- viction. From this point of view the nation is a moral organism in its coercive relation to its own citizens, almost as one citizen is to another as a sub- ject of law. Furthermore, the nation being a continuous moral organism with maximum duties as to enlarging its directive sphere and minimum duties in the coercive, the latter fact must correspondingly diminish coercive functions, to the very lowest terms. The duty of the THE MODERN NATION 217 nation is to compel every child to take a certain amount of education; yes, but the lowest compatible with good citizenship. The nation is not a university nor should it sustain a sufficient number of universi- ties for every youth to secure a free university educa- tion. Nor is the nation a trading firm. The nation should regulate trade in the interests of all, it must not control it in the interests of a few. The nation is not a church : it must in the very nature of itself and its individual constituents establish relations between religious organizations, as indeed between associations of all kinds, and itself. It must take cognizance of religion as a social fact; but it is not concerned with the subordination of the spiritual to the ecclesiastical organization or vice versi. The relations it knows are not those of church and state, but of government and religion. In like manner the state is not a law- court, though as part of its functions it must sustain both law and the officers of the law, coercing these, however, through processes of equity, so that the rigidity of the law may not retard the development and movement of society. Finally, it is very doubtful whether there can be such a thing as a single nation. We might conceive of a federation of nations into a world state ; but even then, if the sphere of federal union be extended so as seriously to limit national sovereignty, there arises a federal state whose members steadily turn into mere administrative districts and lose all semblance of na- tionality, as the States of the American union have done. Just as within each nation the national life depends on the interaction of sovereign and people, of various classes, persons, and interests, to each other, so the very essence and character of national sovereignty depends on the relations of one Such sovereign to another. The anarchist always strives to deliver his first blow at the nation, even his own; 218 THE MODERN NATION the "International" is a favorite name for his activi- ties. On the other hand the believer in progress sees the relations of states to each other becoming closer and closer, better and better regulated until the coercive measures of each to each shall be merged into one great scheme of constructive direction, having for its end the peace of mankind and the furtherance of each member's interests in just proportion to the in- terests of all. The less national legislation coerces and the more it directs, the finer the individual citi- zen : the more perfect the nation, the less friction with others, the less effort at coercion to maintain national rights. The land of the earth is virtually appor- tioned, and the jurisdiction of the seas determined, by the consensus of sovereign nations. No state must be an armed camp or a floating arsenal in order to protect itself. The only essential armed force is that required to restrain the disorderly, whether natural or national persons. Milton's concept of a nation may approximate realization: a great per- sonality furnishing every means of advancement and prosperity to its citizens. The making of men better will be easier just in proportion as men make the na- tion better. One without the other is impossible. Men cannot be made good by machinery: but the machinery of government may make the practice of goodness easier. Only regenerate men can regenerate nation, state, or government; such a state can only assist in the work of regeneration, not inaugurate it. VI THE ORIENTAL STATE AND NATION THE ANCIENT EAST UNCONSCIOUSLY HISTORICAL RUDIMENTS OF BOTH NATION AND STATE — ANCIENT ORIENTAL MONARCHIES DEFECTIVE IN POLITICAL IDEAS — THE BASIS OF AUTHORITY CONQUEST, ITS SANCTION THEOCRATIC — THE COMMON INTEREST OF COMMON BONDAGE — EQUAL- ITY AMONG SUBJECTS: LIBERTY UNKNOWN — THE FORM AND EXTENT OF SOVEREIGNTY — CONTRASTS BETWEEN FORMS OF BONDAGE DUE TO PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY — SELF-INDULGENCE AND SELF-IGNORANCE — METHODS OF DESPOTISM SOCIETY ARTIFICIAL BUT UNORGANIZED — THE CITY-STATE OF THE ORIENT. CARTHAGE — THE COLLECTIVE WILL IN GREECE AND ROME — THE ROMAN PROVINCES AND ROMAN EMPIRE RELATION OF STATE AND CHURCH IN BYZANTIUM — THE GROWTH OF INDIVIDUALITY. A greater impulse has been given to the study of institutions and of political science by the great flood of light let in on the Orient since the days of Sir William Jones than by any other single cause. Through the further investigations of men like Sir Henry Maine, Sir Alfred Lyall, and Sir John Strachey, we have become aware of our origins and gradually the historical school in jurisprudence and politics has asserted itself as the peer of the analytical theorists who had hitherto ruled public opinion. But among the treasures which these men have given us, we can- not find a historical account of the origins of the earl- iest civilizations from contemporary sources. This clearly proves that people unconscious of political ideas could not write what they did not perceive. The process of social evolution, though perhaps clear enough, as we have seen, had reached no completed stage; nor was it simple and easily discernible. The movement in its most primitive and very earliest revelation was complex, low as was the organism. Many still dispute the right of the ancient East to 219 220 THE ORIENTAL STATE AND NATION claim a history, reiterating that the organization of its society was so low and its movement so impercepti- ble that Egypt, Babylonia, and Assyria were just as unhistoric, as India, Japan, and China were non- historic, fifty years ago. In several connections it has been emphasized that those peoples were called nations, only for conven- ience ; and not because they were nations in our sense of the word. Nevertheless the empires of Russia and Turkey were, in 1914, still European powers, nations in the primitive Oriental sense. In the Oriental monarchies were contained many germs of national life whose vitalizing energy is far from exhausted at the present hour. It would be worse than folly to dis- regard the knowledge of formative causes which we can gather from them even better than we can from their modern perverted survivals. Processes which they inaugurated have partly dribbled away into the sandy desert of modern despotisms; but they have also run through fertilizing channels to initiate many of our present conditions. They were in a way cu- riously democratic; and never has property been more ingeniously safeguarded. Unquestionably, as regards the record of the human race, they are to be con- sidered historic. If we accept the dictum: No state, no history, we must simply expand the concept under- lying the word state, modifying it to include the em- bryo. Though, politically speaking, the organization of Oriental peoples was very simple in theory, yet from the standpoint of civilization they were historic in a high and permanent way. Beneath the shifting sun- face of changing dynasties, vast migrations, and periodic revolutions which seemed to alter nothing essential, there are discernible certain true national qualities: settled populations with common beliefs; sovereigns and subjects with a customary law which might pass for a civil constitution; territorial pos- THE ORIENTAL STATE AND NATION 221 sessions occupied by a society recognizing its common origin through generation ; and institutions which were sufficiently homogeneous to satisfy the social nature of the people living under them. The ancient Oriental monarchies therefore may be said to have taken two most important steps toward expressing nationality: domicile and the establish- ment of primitive fundamental relations in a settled government. There was a people upon a territory. But the relation of sovereign and subject was very indefinite; the relation of the people to the land was equally so ; there was no distinction between the rela- tions of men to each other and the relation of man to the state. There may be said to have been a distinct conflict between the nation and its organs. In- dividuals there were in the sense of separate men and women; but there was no direct relation between them ; or between them and the expression of sovereign power. In both cases the old family group of kinsfolk was an effectual barrier. Absorbing the religious, moral, and material lives of its members this group regulated all their actions. They stood in relation to each other under customary law, sanctioned by experience and superstition, administered by a sacer- dotal patriarch who was their intermediary with the supreme authority. This was the only relation which was clearly understood. Over wide expanses of territory matters continued in this form down to a very late day, national union being temporary and incidental to some emergency, such as the necessity for common defense. It was easily dissolved after the common exertion. Alexander the Great found India in a state of society exactly like that depicted in Homer, and that condition, not materially changed, exists in many parts of Asia at the present day. Though much disturbed by the consequences of warfare, this mediatory system was never entirely 222 THE ORIENTAL STATE AND NATION destroyed in the valleys of the Nile and Euphrates. Those highly desirable lands were occupied by con- querors charged with the control and assimilation of active and uneasy aboriginal inhabitants, who were not autochthonous but had themselves once been conquerors ; for, apparently, successive waves of con- quest had swept over both valleys from prehistoric days. For the control of these restless folk and their permanent subjugation two elements were added to that of patriarchal sovereignty: despotism and re- ligious awe. We know that the man of that time was the slave of superstition, not easily separating himself from the universe in which he lived, believing himself to be largely controlled by the mysterious and inex- orable powers of nature, whether dark and gloomy, or bright and joyous. The conquering monarch availed himself of this fact. His first care was, of course, to establish an administration for his despo- tism, to which blind obedience must be rendered under the sanction of force in the last resort. But simul- taneously and as an even stronger sanction he an- nounced a supernatural revelation, more or less direct, and proclaimed either himself or his office to be a manifestation of the highest divine power; either as absorbing in his own person all means of communication with the gods of nature, or, as being himself semi-divine and infallible. This new relation of ruler and ruled on the grand scale wrought in time a complete revolution in the relation between individuals: a common bondage and not kinship being the one strong tie which en- circled them. This formed a large society within which intercourse was regulated by common interest, an interest bounded by and sometimes disturbed by despotic caprice. In other words, all power descended from above; and however beneficent its rules, these were enforced by a sanction partly supernatural, THE ORIENTAL STATE AND NATION 223 partly based on fear and force. Of personality in the high sense, of personal initiative in the exercise of choice and the regulation of conduct there was none in public life. Of course human nature, however low, could not be entirely stifled: there were rebel- lious conspiracies and social upheavals without num- ber or bounds. The records of both valleys display absolute blanks which can only be accounted for by long periods of utter anarchy and the chaos of cataclys- mic disturbances in society. Examining those ancient nations as best we can at this distance of time and place, we are equally struck by the absence and by the existence of certain condi- tions vitally important in national life to-day. There was, for example, an equality of the most complete kind ; not in a modern sense to be sure, for our equals ity is the equality of peers, of sovereigns, of man as separate from the world about him; but in a very real sense, equality; that is, apart from the ruler. The distance between ruler and ruled was so great that any inequalities in the mass disappeared when viewed from his lofty height. Before the awful and majestic embodiment of the law all were alike subjects, to be exalted or cast down at the will of the monarch with- out reference to birth, wealth, privilege, or any such features as would have been the cause of inequality apart from the existence of the sovereign. There was also an industry such as even our age regards with amazement; a perfection of craft and a largeness of design, a beauty of ornament and adaptability of plan which we can only examine in despair. In appearance, however, these exquisite results seem to have been due to the initiative "fiat" of the superior; and not to the impulse of the oppressed people: occasionally the artist appears to have sought consola- tion in gloom by the work of his hands. But there were none of the liberties which we designate as rights 224 THE ORIENTAL STATE AND NATION to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; the right of religious liberty, or of public meeting, of free con- tract, of acquiring property by labor, and of keeping it. Elaborate deeds and mortgages we have found, and the sanctity of real estate seems to have been al- most a fetich: but safeguards to personal property were the person's own affair. Coincident with this social condition there was nevertheless a powerful state, .vigorous in its external relations and in the management of its internal affairs likewise. Successive ages have given no parallel examples of gorgeous symbolism in religion, of an oppression so wholesale that it reduced entire nations to slavery, compelling laborious drudgery from them ; nor of a territorial expansion so wide as to reach the ends of the then known earth. The impression left after a just consideration of the ancient Oriental mon- archies is one of vast extent and degree in all their component parts; power, land, people. We count their subjects by millions on millions, their lands by geographical degrees; and when we contemplate the warlike achievements of a Rameses or a Sennacherib, we discover an intensity and a power of war which seem stupendous. This was the fact as long as one Oriental aggregation measured itself with another: their uttef helplessness was only seen when Persia, typical of them all, undertook to chastise Greece. Size against discipline was found to be entirely help- less. One form of sovereignty was pitted against quite another; and was found inefficient. In the former there was merely the attempted expression of custom, of despotism, of superstition in the activity of a single man ; in the latter there was the organiza- tion of the purpose, the devotion, and the faith of a people. Of course when we use the word people with refer- ence to Greece, we must guard against any identity THE ORIENTAL STATE AND NATION 225 of meaning with the same word when we use it in speaking of the Oriental despotisms. In Greece every human being stood for a certain measure of> spontaneous potential energy : in the Orient the count- less men and women had lost that entirely; if, indeed, they had ever possessed it. From our standpoint it is scarcely possible to appreciate the condition of what we call by prolepsis the people of the early Orient, the masses of humanity. Their instinct for freedom was never entirely quenched, but such was the physi- cal geography and system of rule that a discontented man could only fly to the inhospitable mountains, or the trackless forests, or the desert wastes, which sur- round the oases and river banks on which civilization was established. The only escape from the common servitude was death. The masses therefore sank into mental sluggishness and with the increase of popula- tion, the subdivision of land and the struggle for existence absorbed all else. The grasp of the tyrant being on manufactures, on commerce, and on what rudimentary science there was, none of the three could develop and emancipate man from his utter dependence on the soil. In India a Brahmin could demand twenty-four percent for the use of his ac- cumulated property, a handworker sixty percent; but the former really had property, the latter little or none; if he had, he could not collect his interest, while the former could. In case the creditor belonged to the privileged class, he could enslave the debtor. Not that the oppression was always the same: in the great monarchical despotisms it was exercised through the priests for the king ; in India it was exer- cised by the so-called kings for the real rulers, the Brahmins. Had eastern soil been dry or reluctant, habits of thrift and a notion of the essential dignity of labor might have sprung up, but where nature yielded great returns for the asking, even the smallest 226 THE ORIENTAL STATE AND NATION plot would afford the absolute necessities of life : and the people, being neither hungry nor cold, lost one stimulus to intellectual agitation. Oriental luxury is a phrase which still retains some significance, its influence on the early despots and those selected to be their supporters and representatives is well known. It destroyed the finest human qualities, just as com- pletely as abject poverty does. Ignorance became rife above and below, licentiousness destroyed moral- ity, insignificance was the only guarantee of safety, and energy was at a discount. The world was young, men neither felt nor suffered then as now, there was no hungry, desperate proletariat: there was simply a cessation of appetite, a dull and simple round in ex- istence, a general apathy, a complete stagnation. The so-called common man of our day and place is, and feels himself, far removed from the Turkish peasant, or the Russian moujik; he could have found nothing whatever in common with the plain man of the ancient Orient. It dimly seems as if while men confounded themselves with nature in a dark super- stition, they scarcely distinguished between them- selves sufficiently to understand their own individu- ality. Of self-knowledge in the high sense there could have been little or none at all : the wisest of all their wise men had one emphatic precept: Know thy- self. This confusion and self-ignorance made possible the powerful, all-comprehensive, despotism we have been considering, and seems to have rendered totally impossible anything approximating organized society. The state was a man or a system in direct conflict with the people and the nation was embryonic. With society in this condition it is impossible to speak of a confusion of powers; there was no con- sciousness of separate powers. The powers of law- making, of law-enforcing, of law-interpreting, were barely, if at all, differentiated, and were exercised by THE ORIENTAL STATE AND NATION 227 one person. In the family group, the tribal associa- tion, the customary unit, whatever it is, one man was king, priest, and interpreter of custom. These groups had stamped easily discernible traces on all society in the early Oriental empires, but their chief legacy was the influence which made the one supreme ruler analogous in all respects to the patriarchal chief. Over teeming multitudes a single man could not exer- cise such powers; he must of necessity have repre- sentatives. Hence there were men to command the army, to control the revenues and collect them, to administer provinces, and so on. There were spies, too, whose business it was to make reports of ad- ministrative officials of every rank to their employer, the monarch. Casual observation might easily de- ceive us into confounding a division of labor with a division of powers. We must beware; a personal ministry like that of the Czars in Russia was the antip- odes of a constitutional ministry like that of Great Britain ; although we call them by the same name. In those immutable civilizations of the Orient some- thing which is often called an organization was, however, effected: the system of caste in a more or less complete form. In Egypt, for example, there was the priestly caste, recruited from princes of the royal blood, which was the depository of all the learning. They ordered the religious faith and observance of the people and as the sanction of authority was chiefly religious, they collected the taxes, dispensed justice, and administered the realm. There was next the sol- dier caste, the expression of sovereign force, which quelled disorder at home and enforced the national will abroad. These were supported by the agricul- tural class, scarcely to be called a caste, who tilled the soil, and by a corresponding artisan class in which trades were hereditary in families. This was indeed a highly artificial state of society, something similar 228 THE ORIENTAL STATE AND NATION existed in all the ancient Oriental nations; something not far different has continued to exist in Russia. But this is not organization in the true sense of the word; it is merely a distribution of the functions of sovereignty, not the distribution of power. The only sense in which we could speak of the differentia- tion of power would be the instinctive division of activities which finally developed into the division of that for which those activities are in operation. It is a very loose usage when we speak of the Egyptian or Russian judiciary, legislative, and executive. These three are in theory one, the confusion arises in the attempt of a single man to exercise them all. The Orient produced another form of state, the city- state of Phenicia, the parent of the Carthaginian oli- garchy. But under that regime there was no corres- pondence between state and nation any more com- plete than that which we have been considering. In the first place there was never any independent sover- eignty in the little coastwise strip called Phenicia. It was always subject to the overlordship of Egypt, Babylonia, or Persia. And whatever autonomy was exercised in return for services rendered, or for tribute, was all divided up among many little city-states, the connection between which was very slight. Like the commonwealths of Greece they formed at times a slack union under the leadership of one; now of Sidon, then of Tyre, and to Gebel there was always yielded a slender hegemony which we do not understand. The Phenicians were a trading people; within their city communities custom was quite as rigid as elsewhere in the Orient, except that it was based entirely on common material interest, instead of on common birth and common worship. Their affairs were man- aged by an elective head and elective assemblies on purely business principles, the gradations of society being determined by wealth. Of political life there THE ORIENTAL STATE AND NATION 229 was none and the whole system would have no interest in the discussion of the nation except that out of it grew the Carthaginian oligarchy which knew no single head to the firm but became a great business corporation with political independence and a na- tional sovereignty. As soon as Carthage came into contact with Rome the character of her institutions was seen to be based on wealth, on her commerce exclusively. As Persia had gone down before Greece, so Shemitic Carthage was doomed to succumb to the successor of Greece, whose kindred stock was also one of strong individualism. To be a Roman citizen was to possess and exercise in public affairs an indomitable will. We may perhaps not deny that Phenicia and Carthage had political existence, but just in so far as they failed to develop the man at equal step with the general interest, they failed in securing nation- ality, and may not be considered true nations. The ancient city-state of Greece and Rome, though it lacked much which modern nations have secured, does not display a situation in any way parallel to that of the Oriental city-state. We have already seen that whether the state existed, for the man, accord- ing to the Stoic doctrine, or the man for the state, as Pericles declared, yet nevertheless the whole general impulse came from within and not from above. Be- fore the close of either Greek or Roman history the single municipality had rid itself in great measure, though not entirely, of custom and of supernatural sanctions, thus developing a true organization. The motive power was the individual will and right reason of each man interacting on those of other men to pro- duce a conclusion; generally reached by discussion, the decision was the expression of the collective will. This in turn strove by education, by bodily diet and training, by the patronage of art and the sanction of religion, to give every man the greatest possible 230 THE ORIENTAL STATE AND NATION stake in the community, to bind him by bonds of rea- son as well as of interest to a society in which he be- lieved he could attain comfort, happiness, and his own highest perfection. But in spite of many phi- losophies the process did not transcend the munici- pality for generations and generations, if ever: the stranger was still an enemy. Whatever expansion of the system there was consisted in the conquest and subsequent rule of one city-state by another city- state. Within the geographical limits of Italy the Roman franchise was quite different from the Latin franchise; or Italian, as it is less frequently styled. Down to the latest day the device of representation occurred to no one; the Roman citizen could only enjoy his privileges within the walls of Rome itself. In the effort thus to rule the world the Roman com- monwealth devised the scheme of the "Province" whereby a portion of the civilized earth was given to an individual as his very own, to rule as a despot. This, of course, was in contravention of all the prin- ciples which in the municipal polity had formed and moulded the man himself. By this procedure persons multiplied who had accumulated enormous wealth outside of Rome in ways hostile to free government and used it inside Rome to acquire a degree of political power that menaced all her liberties. These baneful influences allied themselves to the weakness inherent in every human system to overthrow it. The com- monwealth became so rotten that, deprived of the faith on which its forms had been constructed, it was easily converted into the empire and thus started on the backward track toward the Oriental despotism which it eventually became. The appearance of organized Christianity as a factor in social life introduced the necessity for reg- ulating the relations between the church and the state. Constantine's system was that of their co- THE ORIENTAL STATE AND NATION 231 ordinate existence in theory; in reality it entirely subordinated the spiritual to the temporal power within an identical realm ; a realm which was eventu- ally to be coterminous with the entire civilized world. In the early Oriental monarchies there does not ap- pear to have been a conscious aim at universal dominion; in that of Alexander the Great it appears for the first time; it was further developed in the heathen empire of Rome by the spread of Stoicism; and it was fully conceived in the Christian empire of Rome. Here then was an Oriental power once more ; hostile to the existence of separate nationalities. It contained, moreover, a new element which felt not only the possibility . of universality in the com- mon nature of man, but was firmly convinced of cer- tainty in their common redemption. Yet the Byzan- tine empire, apparently firm on a double foundation for its authority, proved to be an anachronism: the beliefs of the individuals under its sway were hostile to its aims and purposes. Its unstable equilibrium was toppled by the appearance of a new race in the West simply because there was no correspondence within its bounds of organized authority to organized society. This Roman-Greek-Oriental system was, however, utterly unlike the earliest monarchies in one essential ; it was favorable to the growth of individuality, if not of organization by individuals. The man under Constantine and his successors was not crushed. The machinery of government was ruthless enough, but it was kept in perpetual check everywhere by the existence of the church. Under the powerful protec- tion of organized Christianity and within its limits every form of human activity except political was unrestrained. The heroes of the early Christian ages are churchmen; but they are churchmen who stimulate discussion and thought; often to the detri- 232 THE ORIENTAL STATE AND NATION ment of ecclesiastical unity; but generally to the great and immeasurable benefit of the human mind. Within the church, ability rules supreme; no differ- ence what the social origin of its possessor. Ideas of equality are cherished and the habit of organization is never suffered to lapse. There is thus an "im- perium in imperio," within which a vigorous personal life is displayed as regards spiritual matters; and this power often reaches over into the temporal sphere: ability is ability, however displayed. In time the ecclesiastic becomes the ablest statesman, and during the dark ages the only one. By his efforts the Holy Roman Empire is conceived in the interest of Catholic Christianity and made the channel through which the ideas of order are transferred to the mediaeval world. Absurd and flimsy as it now appears, it was the transmitting link between old and new. VII THE MEDIAEVAL STATE CHARLEMAGNE. THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE — FEUDALISM IN THE STATE — THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY AND NATIONALITY — THE NATION AND THE SUBJECT — FEUDALISM IN THE CHURCH VERY FLUID — FEUDALISM IN CITIES FORMAL AND INCOMPLETE — FEUDALISM AS THE OPPRESSOR OF AGRICULTURAL LABORERS — REVIVALS OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT — RE- NEWED COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISE. DISCOVERY AND INVENTION — NEW BIRTH OF THE FINE ARTS — ENLARGEMENT OF FEUDAL UNITS THE REFORMATION — COMPLETED SENSE OF PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY — • FORMS OF THE REFORMATION — INFLUENCE OF CALVIN ON POLITICS ECONOMIC RESULTS. The conception of personal worth was not weakened by the entrance of the Teutons on the stage of his- tory: far from that, it was so exaggerated that for a time political organization was utterly impossible and unthinkable; not only political, but even social, was for generations in abeyance. This extreme in- dividualism was, of course, partly due to the revul- sion of feeling on the removal of the strong hand of Rome in the west; but it was also a natural conse- quence of the wild, free, Teutonic spirit, operating on the worth which Christianity attributed to the in- dividual by reason of the immortal soul which had equal value before God whether it have its earthly home in the body of the pauper or under the crown of the prince. It is difficult to conceive of the social chaos which would have prevailed in Europe except for the enlightenment of Charles the Great (Charle- magne) and the tremendous force he exercised in the interest of learning, morality, and order, upon all Germanic peoples. If he had produced successors like himself, something closely allied to a mixed Ger- man-Roman universal state might have taken the place of the Roman order. As it was, he did not live S33 234 THE MEDIAEVAL STATE long enough to do more than prepare the way; and that at a long interval, for the chemical mixture of the two. Under Otto the Great, the nominal sover- eignty of Germany and Italy under a Teutonic prince was definitely established. By that time the new society had been stratified into three layers: the southern, which was nearest to the influence of Rome, retaining a strong Roman character in speech, re- ligion, and institutions; the northern, which was furthest from Rome, retaining an almost pure Ger- manic character except that it had adopted Roman Christianity, and got such scanty spiritual and in- tellectual nourishment as it received from the Latin spirit which had entirely permeated the church; the third, which was between the two, was a real composite of almost equal Roman and German influences; and in it appeared the new institution which was destined to pervade all European society to a greater or less degree, namely, feudalism. The first effect of feudalism to be briefly noticed, in order that it may speedily be dismissed, was the feudalizing of the empire. Slavery was replaced by serfdom; so far there was an extension of human right, and there was in the largest number of people something akin to an idea of rights as based on man- hood and on domicile. The ruler himself is not divine, but is the vicegerent of God in the second or third degree. Since power is now localized in the landed feudal suzerains, temporal and spiritual, the indi- vidual is primarily the member of a social order, secondarily a citizen. The feudal empire is based on the loyalty not of persons, but of great vassals. The allegiance of individuals is to one of these and not to the emperor. There were certain cities which had, like the landed fiefs, a direct relation to the emperor, and since their burghers were free men, they stood closer to the emperor than the persons on the THE MEDIEVAL STATE 235 sail. Theoretically the emperor was, from God, the fountain of political power: where he used it, he was likely to use it wisely, because it was to his interest that city liberties should be strengthened as a counter- balance to the aggressions of the powerful feudatories. But in the main the emperor's functions were rather ornamental and ideal, than practical and real. He was the fountain of honor, the keystone of the feudal arch. Whatever rights and privileges the people enjoyed they got directly from the feudal lords, not from the crown: they, and not the Emperor, were the de- pository of authority. This authority was long either of a personal or social nature; and, in time, whatever organization the feudal state had was in the form of social classes or estates as they are termed. These were: the sovereign, the nobility, and the people, as we designate them for want of a better term. But the people were legally and really cleft in two: the townsfolk and the country folk. The former had an organization, the latter were merely adjunct to the land owners, a sort of appanage class. Finally in the thirteenth century, one of the great transition epochs of history, the development of power in the estates created the beginnings of true nations. The feudal empire sank into the shadow where it belonged, feudal princes, secular and ecclesiastical, having accumulated land, and therefore power, in their own hands. Thus was introduced a new element into the nation; a territory no longer with indefinite but with well- defined boundaries, up to which the sovereignty ran and beyond which it did not go. The frontier of a nation was the boundary of the fiefs which composed it, no matter whether they were contiguous or not. This sovereignty was moreover limited; and that by effective restraints. The functions of raising money and armies were exercised only by the representatives 236 THE MEDIAEVAL STATE of those who paid, sitting as separate estates of the realm. These limitations of power were so strong that if the means of exercising them had been clear and de- terminate, something like real national organization might have sprung out of the interaction of the vari- ous classes in the community, and the individuals composing them. But as a matter of fact there were no means of securing harmonious action. The estates were jealous of each other, and, within each, the feudal classification of individuals was so fixed that there could be no worth in a man as a man ; his value was due to artificial and inherited distinctions. Conse- quently the estates of the nobles and the burgesses were each hampered in the expression of their separate wills and it was easy for the sovereign to get his way by setting the two at variance. Finally, on the con- tinent, he made a permanent alliance with the bur- gesses and crushed the aristocracy as a political power altogether. Then, for the first time, under a new absolutism, something like a real unification of authority became possible. This explanation is at the same time that of how in the later Middle Ages the individual came to have the character and value which he proved to have when a true nation was first formed. It is the re- sultant of a combination: the system of feudalism; the survival and growth of cities; and, still as before, the attitude of the church to the man. The basis of feudalism is the land. The feudal seigneur held his acres and his castle on condition of military service. This he rendered by means of his tenants and his serfs. These were materially in a condition worse than that of slaves: morally, however, they stood far higher because being attached to the land they could not be treated as chattels; nor deprived of life and family rights, except by process of law. Each feudal unit THE MEDIAEVAL STATE 237 was at first comparatively small and entirely separate from every other. The remoteness of the overlord, seated in a commanding fortress, from others of his social rank, threw him for companionship on the society of his wife. Marriage, too, was a sacrament of the church. Family life in the modern sense of narrow kinship was for these two reasons enormously developed. Consequently within the higher class the value of each individual was duly emphasized; especially in view of the great material privilege which rights of inheritance attach to every member of the family. This class of ties was so easily the most important that the relationship gradually modified the formal bonds in a feudal unit until a personal element imbued them all: at last, whether for better or for worse, legal and moral relations were transformed into personal relations by mere propinquity and community of interest. The relation of a man to his lord was often as passionate as the devotion of child to parent and sometimes as embittered as the hate between the nearest blood relations. The strong individuality of the feudal overlords was the quality which made them well-nigh incapable, so long as the system was vigorous, of subordination in an organism ; the dependence on them of other freemen cultivated in the superior a local feeling and a narrow patriotism utterly dissonant to larger citizenship. Gradually these same influences remodelled both the church and the society of the towns. In the church, however, learning found a refuge; and heredity, of course, played no r61e. The ecclesias- tical suzerain was generally a bishopric, an abbey, or a church organization of some sort. Its relations could not be as personal as those of man to man; and the constant study of the scriptures, both sacred and secular, kept awake the sentiment of respect for personal ability: the meanest man could rise to the 238 THE MEDIAEVAL STATE highest office in the hierarchy. The feudalism of the church, therefore, was on the whole formal, be- ing opposed to fixity of class within its own organism. In relation to the outside world the clergy formed an estate with the most powerful and extended landed and political interest: but within itself there was a fluidity, a transfer of men from rank to rank on the ground of intellectual or spiritual power which kept it from the downward tendencies of secular feudalism. The feudalism of the cities was even less com- plete. There were many towns in the southern strip of Europe which never felt its influence at all. The interchange of commercial relations between these and the towns of central Europe familiarized the latter with the commercial custom and law of the Roman empire ; and that familiarity, combined with interest, kept alive the fires of personal liberty on the hearth- stones of all the older cities. When the feudal lords found it to their advantage to surround their castles with a population of artisans, they could only attract them by liberal grants of privilege and thus even those cities which had their origin in feudalism were as tur- bulent, self-assertive and free as the others. The burghers were all divided according to feudal usage and model; into apprentices, journeymen, and mas- ters. But these were only different stages of ad- vancement for one and the same man, not permanent castes at all. Consequently, in the towns, capacity and wealth were the measures of influence. The forms of town government were largely democratic and as the interests of commerce and industry were often diametrically opposed to those of the agricul- tural aristocracy, they learned the principle of federa- tion quite as readily as the feudal princes learned how to acquire and hold the fiefs of the weaker sort among themselves. The only considerable number of human beings THE MEDIEVAL STATE 239 which under feudalism enjoyed no high degree of individuality were the agricultural laborers. These formed an enormous class: the villains and the serfe. The former fell in the social scale under feudal in- fluences, the latter rose but slightly. Their activities were controlled with an iron hand ; they were'deprived of all education from books, and the education from enterprise of whatever kind. Their personality was steadily diminished, their minds became sluggish, their discontent narrow and unreasoning. They suf- fered but did not know why; they labored, but with- out advantage to themselves; they degenerated into an estate so low that some generations of emancipa- tion have not sufficed to restore their manhood. It was not until the revolutionary period of the later eighteenth century that they began to enter upon any degree of liberty, and even then their long subjection made them unfit to use it. They either undervalued it or else, having no experience to guide them, turned it into license. The Russian anarchy of to-day affords a striking parallel. Even in England and the western continental lands they can scarcely be said to form an integral part of the people. What individuality the agricultural laborers possess is limited and ofttimes brutish. When we speak of the great revivals of the human spirit which occurred in the latter Middle Ages throughout the western world, the agricultural classes must be excluded almost en- tirely. There were exceptions: as in Scotland, Hol- land, and Switzerland. These revivals played a most important r6le in the evolution of modern individuality. They brought learning, morality, and liberty not exactly into European institutions, but to the doors of European men. The Califates, eastern and western, were the depositories of knowledge throughout the dark ages of Europe. With the fall of Constantinople the By- 240 THE MEDIAEVAL STATE zantine Greeks came flying into Europe. They brought with them their language, their books, and their scholarship. In the main the western Roman church had cherished Roman ideas along with the Latin language. Some traces of Greek learning there had always been in central and western Europe, but they were scant and few. The formalism of the scholastic philosophy had absorbed the mediaeval in- tellect. From the Arabs came stores of knowledge, from the Greeks a new method. The morality of Hellenism was a revelation to the western mind and in the examination of this novelty the scholars of the West started a movement which resulted in the complete emancipation of men from the bondage of formalism and authority. The tendency of this en- lightenment was toward reason as a principle of con- duct and away from unreasoning obedience to fixed standards. Almost at the same time there was the stirring of commercial enterprise. The Basques and the Norse- men had already stripped from the ocean many of its terrors. Portugal, hemmed in by Spain to landward, sought an outlet for her newly awakened enterprise in voyages of discovery and settlement. It was she who began the process which deprived Venice of her proud eminence; and Columbus, turning west- ward to knock "at the back door of the Indies, found himself at the front door of America." Eastward, southward, westward, and northward the ships of Europe began to sail. Trade and colonization were born again, the land routes becoming insignificant compared with those by sea. This display of energy in new channels seemed to open limitless vistas of space for the exercise of every man's powers and the resultant colonization of distant lands became a fore- most element in making man valuable for his achieve- ment rather than for his social relations. THE MEDIAEVAL STATE 241 The third of these new forces was seen in the new birth of the fine arts. The piety of Latin Chris- tianity had long made use of architecture, sculpture, and painting; but the fifteenth century added to the element of devotion that of beauty for its own sake. Here again was a boundless sphere of individual activity, opened by the touch of the "dead hand," as contact with the ancient, classical world has been designated. The society of the Italian common- wealths was particularly receptive to the new energy : but it permeated in time all western Europe, elevating artisans into artists, making the arts over into the fine arts, and turning practical writing into literature. There was a new class of rulers: those who swayed the mind of men by the power of the imagination, who erected ideals and gave new channels to the passions. The illumination was so brilliant that the worth of man came out as never before. There seemed to be nothing which he was forbidden to do if he wished to do it, and nothing which he wished to do that he could not do. We compare, and justly, the Medicean age of Florence with the Periclean age of Athens, or the Augustan age of Rome. Florence was a city of seventy thousand souls; but in two centuries it pro- duced seven men of everlasting fame : Dante, Giotto, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Ghiberti, Macchiavelli, and Michelangelo. The influence of such an astounding awakening of the human mind upon individual man was incalcula- ble. A radical and continuing change in the char- acter of feudalism exercised a powerful supplementary influence, resulting in the formation of larger and larger units within which authority was less personal, and much better organized. The monarchies thus established were persistent in their efforts to absorb the small oligarchical commonwealths; hereditary states struggled to supersede the elective ones. This 242 THE MEDIEVAL STATE they strove to attain partly by conquest : but marriage was a means quite as adequate and introduces into politics the new element of family or dynastic rival- ries. For a time these efforts checked the ravages of war; not merely Europe itself, but great portions of the globe were subjugated by peaceful means. Where formerly the only known and recognized relation be- tween political units had been war, now peaceful inter- national relations were at least recognized, although they were neither defined nor understood. With all these swift advances in secular life toward a complete individuality in men, the very organiza- tion which had for ages been in the van of the move- ment now fell to the rear. The church could not keep pace with the march of intellect for two reasons: in the first place, her head had become a secular prince ; in the second, her speech had become with time a tongue not understanded of the common people. Sec- ular literature was all written in the new vernaculars of Europe; the only portion of the ecclesiastical or- ganization which could freely speak with the common folk was the uninfluential parochial clergy. The regulars in their monastic clubs which were permeated by the exclusive feudal spirit kept to the common tongue of learning and the mass-book. Church law and church order, the regulative force of spiritual matters in detail became esoteric. In consequence faith, at last, had no other sanction than authority, habit, and superstition. Just in proportion as the process advanced the papacy grew more and more corrupt; emulating secular princes in its ambitions, its extravagant patronage of the fine arts, its luxury, its vices, its greed. The day of reckoning could not long be postponed when once intelligence really reached the masses. The storm, which had long been gathering force, finally broke at the close of the Middle Ages in the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. THE MEDIAEVAL STATE 243 This was almost the last stage in the evolution of individuality. The secular results of the Reforma- tion make it, of course, the greatest single political fact of history: but likewise the greatest single social fact. In the last analysis the movement was based, of course, not merely upon a religious doctrine, but upon a human axiom : that in ultimate things the in- dividual must be emancipated from all human tram- mels whatsoever. If every man could exercise his reason in the formation of his judgment and his choice in the conduct of life, he could do so even in the most solemn of all opinions and choices, those relating to his eternal welfare. Viewed from the philosophical, as distinguished from the theological, standpoint, the doctrine of justification by faith which Luther warned Melanchthon was the pivotal doctrine of the Reforma- tion can be nothing more nor less than the transfer of personal responsibility into the sphere of religion. This was the chief concern of the movement in its entirety and so far it was homogeneous throughout all the lands of northern and western Europe. Nevertheless, it took three general forms, which we may designate as the Anglican, Lutheran, and Cal- vinistic. We have already noted that each is char- acterized by the distance it fixed between itself and the established usage of Latin Christianity. But all are characterized by one identical element, the free Teutonic spirit seeking to secure a pure Christianity: the Anglican would do and believe all that had hitherto been done, so far as it was not categorically forbidden in the Scriptures ; Luther, taking similar ground, nevertheless changed what- ever he judged to be pernicious in itself or to exhibit dangerous tendencies; the Calvinist would do nothing for which he could not quote from the Bible a "Thus saith the Lord." They were all historical, for the Calvinist was as staunch an upholder of the idea of 244 THE MEDIAEVAL STATE a universal state and a universal church as St. Augus- tine himself, in many respects he was vastly the most theocratic of the three. With the essential merits of these three forms of reformed religion we are not concerned except in one respect: the influence which was eventually exerted upon politics, upon the rela- tion of man to the state, upon the various societies they permeated, and upon the essential qualities of the nation as finally formed. To this end we may fairly examine them historically. Within no very long period we see in Germany and the Scandinavian states that Lutheranism was su- preme and was everywhere accompanied by absolut- ism, monarchical and aristocratic. In France, in the Netherlands, in Geneva, and in Scotland, we find Calvinism absorbing the entire activity of the Ref- ormation: in France it was held by the Huguenots, who were largely identical with the lower aristocracy and the upper middle classes. In Scotland the aris- tocracy and the masses were in the main Calvinistic. A very few, as in England, rejected the Reformation altogether. In England some of the lower aristocracy and a large majority of the masses, especially in the eastern shires, were Calvinistic. " Calvin," says Ban- croft, "infused enduring elements into the institutions of Geneva and made it for the modern world the im- pregnable fortress of popular liberty, the fertile seed- plot of democracy. . . . He bequeathed to the world a purer reformation, a republican spirit in religion, with the kindred principles of republican liberty." The Reformation in England proceeded not from the bottom up, as in most lands, but from the top down- ward. There, it discarded neither royalty nor hier- archical church government; but Calvinism per- meated the articles of confession, thereby inspiring a large and intelligent element of the people, Puritans in England, Covenanters in Scotland, to the greatest THE MEDIAEVAL STATE 245 sacrifices for personal liberty which the world has ever seen. Moreover, they were practically efficient, because they have gone farther toward securing it than any others, and have served as an example to every existing free nation. To this important element of social and political reform the movement of the Reformation added yet another, an economic transformation which elevated and braced every Protestant country, while its ab- sence for a time enervated all Roman Europe and left it far behind in development and influence. Ma- caulay has with striking effect called attention to the economic contrast between Scotland and Italy, which appears to be in inverse ratio to their natural ad- vantages; to the steady descent of Spain, and the equally regular ascent of Holland; and in recent, al- most contemporaneous, times to the painful difference between Protestant and Roman Catholic communities in the same country [e. g., Germany, Switzerland, and Ireland], to the vast difference in the progress of the United States on the one hand, and that of Mexico and Brazil, on the other. The effort of Roman Catholic historians to account for this phenomenon is confined to a single allegation, which though con- taining a truth is insufficient : that in Protestant com- munities the diminution in the number of festivals and the absence of saints' days increases the days of work, just as the closing of convents adds to the number of laborers. For us the sufficient explanation is in the maxim that work is prayer: that personal responsi- bility in every act so dignifies that act, however menial, as to make it worship. It is persistently stated that the expansion of European , nationalities was the great immediate formative influence in producing the modern state. No doubt. But Portu- gal, after making an auspicious beginning in coloniza- tion, failed. So did Spain. France likewise. At the 246 THE MEDLEVAL STATE close of the colonization epoch but two powers re- mained with permanent acquisitions: England and Holland; lands both of which were distinguished by high quality in the instrumentalities they em- ployed; preeminent in regard to morality, economic management, and practical policy as things inherent in powerful personality. VIII THE MODERN STATE SOMAN AND TEUTONIC BRANCHES. RELIGIOUS LIBERTY — ABSOLUTISM AND ECCLESIASTICISM — CONFUSION OF POWERS DUE TO SURVIVALS — DYNASTIC POLITICS OPPOSED TO NATIONAL ELEMENTS OF A NATIONAL STATE — PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY AND THE PUBLIC GOOD ALLIANCE BETWEEN BURGESSES AND BARONS IN ENGLAND THE DEVICE OF REPRESENTATION — THE DEVICE OF PARTIES — THE BRITISH PEOPLE AND A PARLIAMENTARY KING LIBERTY AND PROPERTY. THE AMERI- CAN REVOLUTION — DEFECTS OF THE BRITISH SYSTEM. TAXATION — THE REVOLUTION OF 1 789 UNITY OF GOVERNMENT AND NATION — SOVEREIGNTY AND CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT — THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION AND DEMOCRACY WHERE SOVEREIGNTY RESIDES — DEMOCRACY DEPENDENT ON ENLIGHTENED CITIZENSHIP. From such considerations it is easy to see why no two writers can agree concerning the advent of modern times. In our discussion it is plain that modern times begin with the emancipation of the man from the power of society, whether tribal, theocratic, munici- pal, imperial, or feudal : not with the beginnings of the process nor with the end, for the end is not even yet ; but with the epoch when organized authority, finding that individuals have in personal development far outstripped the development of institutions begins, either spontaneously or under compulsion, to adapt it- self to the new social condition of which the recognized central fact is the worth of man. It is impossible, therefore, to identify the beginnings of modern his- tory with the Renaissance or the Reformation. For nearly two centuries after the latter the civilized world was so busy in securing its religious liberty and ad- justing the new international relations consequent on the division of the European state system into Teutonic and Roman branches that in politics ab- solutism of a most unyielding type reigned more or 24.7 248 THE MODERN STATE less supreme. The first successful effort of the in- dividual to express his personality in the state was the English revolution of 1688. That was insular in its nature and imperfect in its extent. The American revolution of 1776 was primarily a supplement to the English, being likewise purely constitutional in char- acter. The movement culminated on the continent of Europe in the French revolution as we so narrowly and imperfectly call it, which was both a political and social revolution. Its far-reaching character is even now but imperfectly understood, because of the vio- lence in France which checked and temporarily thwarted it. But from that day onward it has been dimly seen that the nations in the van of civiliza- tion have been chiefly concerned to give expression in their administration to some portion or all of the social elements contained within their borders. But with the settlement of the European state- system to which reference has already been made the essential qualities of the modern nation are clearly dis- cernible, when we examine the organisms from with- out: a considerable population, creating sovereignty over a large fixed territory, with unity of social pur- pose and identity of destiny, with a distinct separation between rulers and ruled, an imperfect representation of the latter in the sovereignty and an organic nature in the whole. If, however, we examine the internal constitution of the nations, we feel that in the mat- ter of personal development the individual has far outstripped the political institutions under which he lives and that while the nation is formed there is little or no correspondence between it and the state. Throughout the Reformation period and the two centuries following the chief concern of philosophy and religion was to find how the new national life might find free scope in politics. The new state, though formed, was essentially mediaeval because saturated THE MODERN STATE 249 with remnants of feudalism, partly, and thoroughly with ideas alike feudal and ecclesiastical. There was still a claim that kings ruled by divine right and that consequently many of the regulative principles must be theological in their nature ; that unity of creed was essential; that in the relations of church and state there was necessarily a conflict, with the advantage on the side of the former, as the spiritual body was the higher, having the right to control marriage, births, legitimacy, inheritance, and above all educa- tion. The spiritual and the temporal were hopelessly mixed. Politics were also confused in the twofold claim of the sovereign to be alike ruler and owner of the land, royal power being dynastic, that is of a family nature. In consequence there was no unity of jurisprudence, the king ruling one portion of his dominion by one feudal custom, another by another, and so on. Not only was law different in each fief, there was also a difference in the degree of power exercised by the sovereign. Both the feudal aristocracy and the third estate had in their oaths of fealty retained, in different places under varying contingencies, rights and privi- leges as various as the places. Hence, of course, the estates had no fixed degree even of the most imperfect representation in sovereignty which they enjoyed and no settled guarantee thereof. After the clergy se- cured recognition as an estate and all three were sum- moned, almost as a matter of course, intelligence and power assumed control : nobles and clergy considered leadership a prescriptive right, and both were thor- oughly feudal in temper. Nor had the modern state cut itself loose from the irregularities of mediaeval ad- ministration, within which the personal element re- mained so strong and the inherited tendencies so powerful that the peasantry secured no consideration whatever; national character was not embodied in 250 THE MODERN STATE the absolute king. In fact, absolute as he considered himself, the monarch was sorely hampered by the local and particularistic influence exerted by powerful families. Most of all this was understood by the advanced thinkers of Europe to be utterly wrong; yet, to have set everything right at once would have been to in- augurate anarchy. The intelligent middle and upper classes believed that man had worth as man, that neither slavery nor serfdom were consistent with that principle, that labor was free, and that the product of labor was the property of the laborer. They knew that the state could claim no authority over the in- dividual in spiritual matters: in religion, in science, and in art ; that man did not exist merely in or for the state, but had an independent personality developing itself from within; that even such sovereignty as the state possessed was not absolute, but limited and de- pendent on the representation of the citizens. This much even mediaeval society understood in contradis- tinction to the city idea of Greece and Rome. But modern thought went further and separated utterly, in theory, at least, the spiritual from the temporal organization, determining the character of the latter by experience and reason, endeavoring to comprehend the ways of God by his dealings with men in human institutions. The authority of the nation, therefore, is primarily derived from the people as a part of the general moral order: and, leaving to the church its own sphere, it aims to systematize administration and government in correspondence with national wel- fare, common wealth. Citizenship consequently is not dependent on worship or creed. Both are to be protected and all forms are either to be tolerated or considered as upon the same basis. The foundation of the state should be not dynastic but national, and its laws should have their basis in the equality of all THE MODERN STATE 251 men. The national spirit is to be embodied in a suitable constitution. From this it follows as a corollary that representa-i tion should be uniform and based on manhood, that the state should concern itself with the well-being of all alike. It must concern itself with political econ- omy, with education, with the administration of law, with culture in a large sense, with its own de- fense against external and internal foes; but not primarily with any one of them. Its chief concern is the minimizing of its interference with each and all of these to the lowest point in order that each in- dividual may suffer least for the common benefit and enjoy the most for his own, on his own initiative. Where private or associated enterprise is insufficient to carry out what is manifestly a public benefit it may be supplemented by public assistance. The inter- ference of this national state with other national states must also be the least possible in order that principle and reason may as far as possible control external as well as internal relations. Such were the convictions which were developing and spreading throughout the sixteenth and seven- teenth centuries, a period which is generally regarded with pity as an age when enlightened men were dash- ing themselves against immovable barriers only to recoil bleeding and unsuccessful. As a matter of fact they produced the sturdiest individuality the world has seen; clear convictions and the physical courage which accompanies them, a splendid self- reliance born of a willingness to take up and carry the burdens of personal responsibility for the public good, a just discrimination between what a man owes to himself and what he owes to others with no undue emphasis, perhaps, on the last. It is true that, for a time, when once religious liberty was secured and the civilized world girded itself to secure political liberty, 252 THE MODERN STATE that, for a season, humane considerations were held in abeyance, that pity was not sufficiently exercised, that the relation of organized society to man in guid- ing and directing him was insufficiently studied and understood. But as yet the mawkish sentimentality which substitutes pity for principle and endeavors to relieve the individual of all personal responsibility by merging his choice and conduct in the movement of society had not appeared. It is the problem of our age to hold the middle course between the two. The first stage of the fight was ancillary to the Eng- lish revolution of 1688. England by reason of her insular position had retained more of her primitive liberties than any other one of the sisterhood of modern states. She had also, through the Norman conquest, been more thoroughly feudalized than any other. In consequence of these two facts, when the Angevins mounted the throne as stark foreigners with greater dominions outside the island than in it and deter- mined to exercise an iron absolutism, a curious and exceptional social alliance was made within the na- tion — an alliance between the barons and burgesses for the'preservatiort of their liberties; on the continent of Europe the king and the burgesses contrariwise universally allied themselves to destroy feudalism, their common foe. In consequence of the baron- burgess alliance in England, the great assembly of the people never ceased to sit and, even in the most troublous times, to express, however imperfectly, the participation of the nation in the government of the state. For the same end, or rather to secure a more com- plete participation of the nation in the govern- ment, Simon of Montfort employed the device of having the plain people who could not find time and money to attend the meetings of the great assembly formally choose and send some one from among them THE MODERN STATE 253 to speak and decide on their behalf. This replaced the haphazard attendance earlier described and was the first introduction into political life of a twofold institution which since that time has formed the very most essential feature of the modern state. These representative persons sat by themselves and formed a house of the common people or commons; while the grandees, who still came in person to the general assembly of the nation, sat by themselves, as was the fashion of the estates, and constituted the house of lords. This two-chamber or bicameral system has since come to be considered the safeguard of the law- making power. At the close of the Reformation the occupant of the English throne held her place by a parliamentary title ; although her conduct was that of a purely hered- itary, absolute sovereign. With the advent of the Stuarts the principle of hereditary kingship was re- asserted and with what was considered its establish- ment an attempt was made to introduce ideas like divine and indefeasible right which were considered its necessary corollaries. Such propositions were by no means self-evident; bodies of men which had been formed and had gained cohesion in the long strug- gle for religious liberty found themselves divided in opinion; some supporting, some resisting. This was the appearance for the first time of another political device, that of parties. Not but that there had been divisions of political opinion, and consequently fac- tions long before: Guelfs and Ghibellines in western Europe; Greens and Blues in Byzantium, Red and White Roses in England, to name but a few. This division, however, was the only one, so far in history, between men sharing in the government of the state and carrying responsibility for the service of the state : the first step in determining the form of the British constitution. These bodies being first largely religious 254 THE MODERN STATE soon became religio-political ; and on the consumma- tion of the revolution, purely political. During the two first stages of their existence one of them was Calvinistic in the narrow sense; its successor con- tinued to be so in the political sense. By using these two new devices : representation and parties, the English people asserted as against the regime of absolutism that the state could not be a single man, but that the English people had the right to choose their own governors and the right to cashier them; in other words that the right to frame a govern- ment was inherent in the governed. This was, of course, a tremendous step toward realizing a true modern national state. Perhaps nothing more than the unhampered working of those principles was necessary to have produced the modern state. But they could not work unhampered in a society con- stituted as English society was. For a century and a half the system of representation continued in- complete, the participation of various classes in government most unequal; the conservative forces of absolutism were so powerful as sometimes to stop all development. The next stage of the great battle for liberty was the American Revolution. Among the British colo- nists of North America the principles of 1688 were hailed with satisfaction, not because they were new, but because they expressed political habits already formed. So far, the only important questions of their political life were those relating to trade and taxation. The cry of the English people at home had been Liberty and Property. Locke had laboriously proved that Property was antecedent to and inde- pendent of the state. Englishmen, wherever found, firmly believed that property was sacred and that the chief function of the state was to guard their natural rights, especially the natural right of property. In THE MODERN STATE 255 the colonies it was admitted that trade as an imperial affair might be regulated at Westminster: internal taxation must be, they firmly held, the business of their own representatives. So it was and so it re- mained until a new Toryism arose in England which asserted that absolute sovereignty resided in parlia- ment, not because it was a representative body, but because the nation had placed it there as a trust: the nature of parliamentary membership mattered not at all, each person sitting in it being representative not of a borough, locality, or constituency, but of every interest of the whole empire. From this it fol- lowed that the sovereign parliament might lay internal taxes on any part of the empire as well as regulate trade. Keen and logical reasoners like Townshend soon exposed the fallacy that any difference exists be- tween internal and external taxation ; and if they be identical, as they are, then parliament may lay one kind and the other. This reasoning had no appeal for the Americans: they believed it repugnant to the spirit of the British constitution, which, they were sure, contemplated actual and not apocryphal representation, specious as the Tory reasoning was. In any case they were determined that their direct taxes should be laid only by themselves; the plea of virtual representation was held up to derision and contempt as a manifest dis- tortion of the truth as revealed in the fair-minded study of English history. When, therefore, they con- vinced themselves that the distinction between in- ternal and external, direct and indirect, taxation would not hold, they changed the cry: No represen- tation, no taxation, into another, which was really revolutionary: No representation, no legislation. It was revolutionary because, under the English colonial system of that day there was no provision whatever for the representation of colonials in parliament. A 256 THE MODERN STATE war fought on the principle so squarely enunciated was a revolutionary war. According to the letter of parliamentary acts and judicial decisions from which the unwritten British constitution, based largely on precedent, was derived, the Tory view may not have been illogical. But the regular development of its principles and spirit in America was both logical and historical. Our fathers saw that absolutism was just as'dange'rous when resident in an unrepresentative assembly as when incorporated in the personality of a king. More firmly than ever before they took their stand on the rights of Englishmen as then understood. Further, they unconsciously felt the rights of man, English or other, and reserved them in their minds from the aggression of all constituted authority. This could only mean that the American state was to be the servant of the man. In time also the Americans faced the facts in regard to representation, and based it on manhood. Through their system of presidential and congressional government they threw down the gauntlet to the other form of constitutional nationality — the parliamentary. By interaction between the two the latter has been transformed into an instru- ment in many respects more modern than our own, and admirably adapted to express political democracy. If anything, it has become too quickly responsive to popular clamor. The movements whereby England and America secured the embodiment of the national spirit in a political constitution left the continent of Europe virtually untouched. Continental thought, however, was in the main more radical than the thought of either England or America. The tension, therefore, was terrific and when the equilibrium was disturbed at last, society disintegrated in a crash. The violence, confusion, excesses, and impiety, which accompanied the convulsion awakened a just indignation among THE MODERN STATE 257 all English-speaking peoples; but, nevertheless, be- hind the horrors, were exactly the same principles as those behind the English and American revolutions ; except that now they were more perfectly understood and more thoroughly applied, momentarily, at least. What we call the French Revolution should really be called the revolution of 1789, because it was coter- minous with western Europe. Unless the histories of Spain, Holland, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, artd Germany are read in the light of that fact they cannot be understood. For a time the revulsion of feeling against the in- cidents of this revolution was so powerful that its permanent results seemed nil. But a century later we discover that it was quite as fruitful as the other two. All governments now profess to exist for the welfare of the people: law, administration, personal right, and local responsibility, have been unified in scientific systems. France, where the consequences have been the most complete and logical, as its suffer- ings were the most terrible, is now a centralized, homo- geneous state, which is the nearest approach to an organized socialism in existence. In her there is a remarkable correspondence between government and nation. Just as what has been called "the organic arrangement of sub-ordinary authority" has secured for France the most perfect system of continental government, so the most scientific code of law — civil, criminal, commercial, constitutional — thus far con- structed, was the product of that revolution and has been everywhere copied throughout civilized Europe. Along with these reforms went others equally im- portant: reforms of finance and customs dues, of educational systems, and penology. The Roman Catholic Church of to-day in France, when compared with the Roman Catholic Church of the old r6gime, is not recognizable. 258 THE MODERN STATE This is a very broad outline of the process so far completed whereby the individual man has struggled to express his personality in the state. The result has been the modern nation. The phrases, popular and constitutional, are now virtually identical. The con- stitution of a nation is the body of rules which con- cern its political structure. It may be either written, like our own, or unwritten, that is, based on precedent, like that of England. But in either case it shows us where the sovereign power resides and how it has been constituted by the people; what are its means of ex- pressing itself and of enforcing its commands? A constitution is in no sense a contrivance, a piece of human ingenuity designed to effect good government: it is the crystallized effort of the collective people to that end, and is sacred only in so far as it is histori- cal. The English constitution is a mass of fictions, names adopted when they expressed a certain device and were adequate designations of it; and these have been persistently retained, from a historical con- servatism, long after they had lost their original significance. Whenever a similar growth becomes impossible in the United States we shall have serious social discontent. The electoral college for choosing a president, though not utterly discarded, we have turned into a mere formality: and rarely, if ever, do we think of senators as State-ambassadors? So far our chief remedy for easing organic rigidity has been the constant and regular revision of the State consti- tutions. The fathers certainly contemplated the occasional revision of the federal constitution as well; and that by constitutional convention. For this we have as yet felt no necessity. The method of amend- ing the national constitution which they provided was long considered too complex and cumbrous. Yet during the century from 1789 to 1889 it had been amended fifteen times. Since then, cumbrous as THE MODERN STATE 259 the method of amendment is, it has been in almost constant use, almost to the verge of constitutional revolution, and the end is not yet. However, the elasticity of American policy must not be judged even by the comparative ease with which we amend the federal constitution: to understand what radical changes in the point of view our people have under- gone during four generations we must make a com- parative study of our state constitutions. Under them our democracy has become even more socialistic in certain important respects than that of Great Britain. The modern state, formed and re-formed, one vitally important question still awaited settlement: the re- lation of the individual to the sovereignty of which he is both a part and the partial creator. The answer must depend very largely on the nature of the sover- eignty. If it be the same old absolute, external power, as so many lawyers indicate and believe, the question of state interference is just as important as it ever was; and the degree of such interference is the problem still as ever importunate for solution, because all sane men admit that some is necessary. If on the other hand the sovereignty could be simply the expres- sion of popular self-control, then its exercise would be nothing else than individual self-discipline. As yet we have advanced only a certain distance along this line; but we have advanced. Human nature is not quite so unregenerate as it was; but it is far from per- fect; the increase of population crowds the desirable portions of our globe and nations struggle for pref- erence within them. Wars grow more and more barbarous in their conduct. Sovereignty is prone to be imperious and autocratic alike in foreign and domestic affairs. The problems of the national state appear in its relations to other national states and to its own citizens more intricate than ever; and for that 260 THE MODERN STATE reason more difficult of adjustment than any which have presented themselves to previous generations. But appearances deceive. Of one thing we have at last become absolutely certain, sure as we never were before, that only a good man can be a good citi- zen. The collective force of goodness cannot be evil. Private, personal, virtue was never in the world's history at such a premium as it has been and is to-day. We have come to understand that it concerns not merely the man himself, but the society of which he is a part, the race to which he belongs, as it never could before. The modern nation is large; that is, it in- cludes great numbers who have no other tie than a common citizenship. The larger the number of men the smaller the common interest in religion, morals, thought, and occupation; that is, provided their per- sonality in these respects remains strong. The sphere of organized authority and organized society must correspond to this common interest either coercively or directively. The larger the number of good men the greater the shrinkage of the coercive sphere. In an ideal state with ideal citizens, humanly speaking, the state, so far as it expresses the personal self- control of its members, will do comparatively little, leaving the most activity possible to persons or to voluntary associations of persons. IX THE NATION AND ITS HOME EARTH AND MAN — INFLUENCE OF THE PEOPLE ON THE LAND — NATURAL BOUNDARIES AND SURVEYORS' LINES THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY — SOVEREIGNTY DEPENDENT ON TERRITORY — REACTION OF THE LAND ON ITS INHABITANTS — THE LAND AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS INFLUENCE OF NATURAL RESOURCES — FORMS OF LAND TENURE — LANDLORDISM AND SMALL HOLDINGS — THE METAYER SYSTEM IN AMERICA COLLEC- TIVISTS AND JOINT OWNERSHIP — NATIONALIZATION OF LAND: FREE- HOLD OWNERSHII> — RELATION OF THE STATE TO LAND TITLES — THE LAW OF DIMINISHING RETURNS — DWELLERS ON THE SOIL IN RELATION TO ITS FULL DEVELOPMENT. Inasmuch as man is unthinkable without the earth upon which he dwells, it is clear that both collectively and individually man has the closest possible rela- tion with the land. The nation in the first place can- not exist without the territorial sovereignty over a certain definite portion of the earth's surface: and as for the individual, the land, either by what it pro- duces on its surface or by what it gives forth from be- neath, furnishes both the material of his sustenance and the products upon which he expends his labor. In the long struggle by which the modern nation has been created, the land has been the stage; men the actors upon it. Just as our constitutions are the ex- pression of a long bitter experience in elevating the individual, just as the nation is the result of common suffering, common effort, by men capable of choice and free to exercise it, so the relations of man an«j; men to their home is the outcome of the same inces- sant, never-ending endeavor to make the person freest while making the nation strongest to secure the liber- ties, not of one, but of all. Moreover, no one any longer doubts that the nature of land has much in- fluence on the character of those who dwell on it. It was maintained by Buckle in an epoch-making 261 262 THE NATION AND ITS HOME book that this influence was purely physical ; and de- terminative, according to an assumed uniformity of nature which is styled law. A decreasing but still numerous body of writers follow his lead. But the facts of history utterly refute this doctrine. We may conceive of a low human type almost entirely depen- dent on its physical environment, but there are no instances of such as a historic force. What we know from history is that in the very dawn of civilization man had a mastery over nature which enabled him to spread over the globe, and not remain confined, like the anthropoid apes, within a very narrow habitat. He already crossed mountains and streams, sailed the seas and used the winds, compelled the forests to give him shelter, and the beasts to carry his burdens. And as we follow him but little further we find him better and better equipped to cope with any conditions in which he finds himself; what seem obstacles are really nothing but incentives to action. The actual influence of nature upon man lies in the effect upon his spiritual being produced by climate, and the general characteristics of that part of the earth in which he lives. He may be enervated by heat and moisture, stimulated by moderate severity of climate, depressed by the disproportionate dimensions of mountains and seas about him, or nerved to his best exertions by the sense that, though mighty, they can be overcome. The rains from heaven may be refused to the crops he has planted, can he supply their absence by irriga- tion? Distances are long, communications are dif- ficult, can they be overcome by ingenuity? It is self-evident that in the advance of man his ability has been directly proportionate to the task he has felt he must perform. Vice versa, in countries where life requires but little exertion and no ingenuity at all, the inhabitants appear to put forth neither the one nor the other. THE NATION AND ITS HOME 263 These facts have greatly modified the relations of a nation to its territory. In our day that relation has been fixed, first for the lands and peoples of the tem- perate zones, and then, with the expansion of those nations, transferred to the whole earth, a few portions of Europe and Asia being now the only exceptions. Everywhere else there are or are intended to be fixed boundaries settled by natural configuration or the imaginary lines of the surveyor. So completely is the enclosure dominated by the nation and the nationality, that the land itself is often styled a sovereignty. Now sovereignty is the exercise of an absolute, perpetual, political power. There is no authority above it: but it has relations to its subjects and to other states which determine its character. It is the fulness of collective power, one and supreme, yet constitutional and popular. We commonly say that sovereignty be- longs to the people: We, the people, decree and de- clare, etc., etc., and yet "We, the people" are very little concerned to understand what that means. The Rousseauists believed that the sovereignty of the peo- ple was resident in atoms, one in each citizen, that each might delegate his share for a purpose to the general assembly of the whole people, but only for that one purpose; that he might withdraw it at will and make anarchy when he chose. Our forefathers were accustomed to an assembly of equal citizens where each man gave expression to his opinion; and the general will was expressed by the majority. This idea, if applied to large numbers, de- feats itself; for the masters of the great concourse are the orator and the demagogue. It was Rous- seau's idea of popular sovereignty which in 1792 in- troduced the theory on which the French Convention acted. It was in a sense a representative body, yet it was the worst tyrant known to French history; and justified, in word and act, the Red Terror, model 264 THE NATION AND ITS HOME for the Russian "Terror" masquerading as a govern- ment, the orgy of massacre and robbery which suc- ceeded the overthrow of a debilitated autocracy. In every true democracy of national dimensions, whether direct or representative, the supreme power must be exercised by one or more officials, that is indirectly; officials, therefore, being but comparatively few in number, the minority in actual practice rules the ma- jority, for in theory rulers and ruled are equal. This seems to explain why the discontented are always appealing to reason and justice as against the sover- eign : and why they feel that the nation as an organ- ized unit can alone develop the concept of sovereignty which is unfolded in the state; and why also we now generally prefer the expression national sovereignty to any other. In every constitutional society there is a first citizen, president or king, who with the repre- sentative assembly exercises, for a longer or shorter time, sovereignty as the concentrated power of the people : sovereignty expressed in the law, sovereignty expressed in administering the law. The distinction is evasive and very fine, but none the less real and important. Thus is created an organism which in the last analysis is dependent on territory. The majesty of a sovereign virtually consists in the sovereign's independence of other sovereigns: in there being a large population able to exist on its own territory and defend itself; able above all else to determine its own form of government without the intervention of any external power. If a change be necessary the organ- ism which framed legislature and administration can, under most conditions, change both without revolu- tion, that is by reform, according to the spirit of the constitution. Here again there can be no question of intervention, no trespass on the land, no compulsion by foreign force. Sometimes, however, changes can THE NATION AND ITS HOME 265 be effected only by revolution, that is by the violation of public law and the overthrow of constituted au- thority, by framing a law new in form and in spirit,, and by the choice of new men to administer it. Here again the question of territory is determinative. If the revolution be so complete that it amounts to dis- solution, the foreigner must step in both in his own interest and in that of mankind, including the revolu- tionaries. But if it be a revolution such that any one party to it can assert and maintain the territorial rights of the nation, either by preserving a certain degree of order within the territorial boundaries or maintaining a force sufficient to defend them, the identity of the nation, though enfeebled, continues to exist. We may conclude therefore that as regards the nation its very existence in a constitutional sense depends ultimately upon the land within which its personality, as expressed by the prevalence of its laws, can maintain itself. The nation is in this re- gard like the man: he is unthinkable without a stand- ing or "stamping ground" and without a certain num- ber of cubic feet in space which he occupies to the ex- clusion of all others. A nation cannot exist without defined relations to a definite territory. When such a territory has been secured the reflex action of the land upon the people begins, or rather two processes which have to be considered apart, begin a coincident interaction. The physical geogra- phy of our own land shows us four distinct districts: the Atlantic coast, the Mississippi valley, the Rocky mountains with their foot-hills, and the Pacific coast. The nation was at first confined to the first of these districts and, such were the conditions of settlement as autonomous colonies, that we had a great struggle to secure even partial union within its limits. But the increase of population threw large numbers of kinsfolk into the Mississippi valley, which is naturally 266 THE NATION AND ITS HOME so constituted as to be incapable of division and at the same time of beneficent occupation; especially as when in early times the river-system formed its great highways. Social and political union of some sort having been thus fixed, it was more perfectly con- solidated by the introduction and extension of rail- roads. These being in large measure independent of natural configuration welded the bonds firmly and permanently as far as union was then possible. This done, we proceeded in our restless way to secure the high plains and peaks of the Rockies ; a dry and arid land, but responsive to irrigation for agricultural pur- poses and abounding in mineral wealth, as a field for further enterprise. The next step was to follow the Columbia river to its mouth and to secure the easy prize of the Pacific coast almost without a blow. No wonder that we believed in manifest destiny. Meantime the question of African slavery had be- come acute within the land earlier united under one national sway. This tension was due in almost equal parts to territory and human ingenuity. Climate made the negro comfortable in the southern belt of territory and made cotton grow abundantly therein: human ingenuity created the Whitney cotton-gin, which made cotton-raising profitable. Slavery died a natural death in the North, it throve like a rank weed in the South. The consequence was civil war: and the outcome of that awful struggle was largely determined by the Allegheny mountains, which pro- jected their high plains down into the very heart of the warm lowlands. On these was a large popula- tion which, neither owning slaves nor tolerant of slav- ery, heartily disliked the seaboard planters and had no sympathy with their ambitions. The absence of a transverse mountain chain kept the path open for the invading armies to whom they were not seriously, if at all, hostile. THE NATION AND ITS HOME 267 Our subsequent history has in part been determined by the locality of our three great sources of natural wealth: lumber, mining, and agriculture. The last has given its specific character of buoyancy, hope, and enterprise to the middle west, because of the un- exampled fertility of the soil. The mining interests of the silver states have at times seriously influenced our currency problems. The eastern states and the great cities scattered far and near have cherished manufactures and commerce so as to create another class of interests. With a great uniformity we have thus secured enough diversity to prevent stagnation. The physical boundaries of our realm are two oceans and two comparatively feeble land powers, so that the question of foreign relations on this continent has scarcely arisen to disturb us. With Europe and South America we have had a continuous reciprocity of relations and also with the farthest east; but the broad oceans on either hand have given to these a character separate from those between European na- tions. There being no possibility of doubt as to the influence of its homelands upon our own people, it is almost superfluous to say that other nations have found their habitat and its boundaries enormously in- fluential in shaping their national character and the destinies of their people. One example suffices, ours is not an exceptional experience. Having thus outlined the relation of the nation as a whole to its territory, we must turn to see what that of the individual to the land is, or ought to be. The history of land ownership is well known : first the tribe, then the village, and finally the individual. Some appurtenances of the land are still held in com- mon: fisheries, the shore as far as high-water mark, ferry privileges; even the game which ranges inland except so far as the owner of the land may defend himself against trespass by special legislation; and 268 THE NATION AND ITS HOME above all the right of eminent domain exercised by the state for the general good. Of village tenure ihere are still perfect survivals in Ceylon, in Russia, even in the canton Valais in Switzerland and in the Ardennes forest of Belgium: of manorial rights there are numerous shreds embodied in our own laws. As population multiplied the village retained its posses- sion of what could most profitably be enjoyed in common, pasture and forest, for example; assigning to families a fixed share in the arable soil. With the still further increase in population either the com- munity sought broader possessions and emigrated or it divided and a portion went elsewhere ; or else many being left with no share of tillable land, private owner- ship ensued, and the rest worked for hire. This was the state of things in England just prior to the Nor- man conquest. William the Conqueror virtually claimed as his own, under the twofold right of con- quest and feudal suzerainty substantially all the land of England. Eventually every land-owner in England came, according to the theory of the law, to hold un- der the king as tenant and in Scotland as vassal. The English law-makers have been busy for centuries breaking down the feudal fictions and at last they have secured for owners the indefeasible right of ab- solute ownership either by freehold or'copyhold. The former traces title to the crown, the latter to the lord of the manor; in both, slight services, fixed either by custom or by statute, have to be rendered on occasion. Nevertheless the large estates of feudalism survived and through a system of entail have continued to exist. On them were men who are styled tenants at will, holding under the owner's pleasure, subject to his caprice or interest in the matter of ejectment from their farms and dwellings. This class long resided unmolested, but when in the fourteenth century, owing to the development of THE NATION AND ITS HOME 269 manufactures, wool became the staple of England, the landlords turned their ploughed fields into pas- tures and dismissed their tenants. This created great distress and destroyed the invaluable middle-class of English yeomen. Remedial legislation was attempted, but in vain ; and thenceforward the tendency has been for the great proprietor to round out his estate by the purchase of small freeholds until now about one per- son in a hundred owns an acre of land. The system, therefore, is essentially one of landlordism, and for reasons which we have no time to trace the same thing occurred in both Scotland and Ireland: to a worse degree. Such were the scandals of absentee landlord- ism in Ireland that forty years ago a process of ad- mirable reform began which is still under way. There has been slowly created in that island a large class of prosperous, small farmers owning their own plots and thriving admirably. The feudalism of England being purely artificial, was more complete than in either France or Germany, its natural home. In both those lands it was possible for reforms to be made which in- creased enormously the number of freeholders, a class which, there, had never entirely ceased to exist. In the greater part of continental Europe, therefore, while there are many large estates there are many more small ones, cultivated by the owner and his children; the surplus of population has so far been disposed of by emigration. Small estates are also far more numerous than large ones, both in the Brit- ish colonies and in our own land. Until very re- cently "Uncle Sam was rich enough to give us all a farm" of 160 acres provided we agreed to bring it under cultivation within five years, according to the homestead laws. The supply of our best public lands is now virtu- ally exhausted: desert, stumpage, and swamp there is in rich abundance; irrigation, drainage, and the 270 THE NATION AND ITS HOME * "caterpillar" stump-puller will eventually make that enormous acreage available for homesteading in small estates, likewise; we may expect the prevalence of small and smaller holdings for generations to come. There is a similar situation in Canada, Australia, and the Cape colonies of South Africa. We have hitherto had no acute land question such as disturbs western Europe : with energy and foresight we may escape one for some generations. But there is already a menace. The earlier homesteaders now rent their fertile lands to later immigrants of a distinctly lower social type than themselves. This metayer system is not only unthrifty, but creates a class of semi-serfs dangerous to our republican-democratic system of government. The real American frontiersman, finding himself on the verge of a rainless belt, has been stunned and amazed ; he first called in the quack rain-maker, then he set his hopes on the occult influence of newly built railroads as producers of rain, then he practised "dry- farming" to suck its little moisture from the thirsty air, and then he dug irrigation wells, dams, and ditches, a costly resort. Not one of these shifts has entirely met the situation; population grows apace, and a serious land question looms darkly on the American horizon. Furthermore the overcrowding of our great cities either by the rush of country population to share in their mercantile and commercial prosperity, or else by the deposit in them of human dregs from European immigration, has tended to intensify interest in the land question of cities; it is the chief cause of the swift appreciation of values in some districts and the slower but sure depreciation in others: that "un- earned increment" which has so occupied economists of the single-taxer type. The equally undeserved decrement in land values has not interested them. We find ourselves, therefore, an integral portion of the great social movement of the world, no longer as THE NATION AND ITS HOME 271 a picket or an outpost, but as a part of the main column. Agitation, constant agitation, as to the re- lation of the individual to the land is one of the fea- tures in our own modern national life, as it is else- where. Every extreme of theory, together with all possible intermediate doctrines, concerning the power of the nation to use the land for the common good is now held by various groups in the United States. The most imaginative and sanguine speculators see the approach in the near future of a time when each man shall be, not for himself, but for others, and all for the nation: under some form of coercion, it must be remarked, moral if possible^ otherwise legal and forci- ble ! These are the collectivists, as we generally style them, who demand a joint ownership of all land or its equivalent; and expect the land to bear most if not all the burdens of organized society. They would return to primitive conditions as they claim: but in reality they are not reactionists at all. In their ex- treme development they substitute visions of what they want for something in the past which was quite different. Their communism is based upon a human perfection in self-restraint not yet attained but which they expect to reach by the compulsion of what they designate the social conscience in stern control of the individual conscience. The nationalization of the land is a proposition based on the false assumption that the land either once was, or has by the force of organic effort become, the property of the community as a whole. This purely fictitious common right must, according to the anarchists, be asserted either by force, and, if need be, the destruction of organized society: or else, ac- cording to the nationalists, by purchase, or a radical change in the system of taxation. Difficulties there are to be overcome : adjustment of price or real value to the capital and labor essential to make the purchase 272 THE NATION AND ITS HOME a good bargain, and continuous readjustment accord- ing to the capricious movement of population. These difficulties once overcome some nationalists would re- lease the land to its former owners and apply the rerj- tal to extinguishing taxation. Others seeing the mani- fest injustice of preferring one class to another in be- stowing such a privilege would create the largest pos- sible number of very small farms or peasant holdings. Unfortunately for such a plan, small farmers are al- ready well supplied and there is no class in sight which desires to become peasants. Even our immigrant metayers of the middle west cherish as their one am- bition freehold ownership of the land which they till on shares. There are also the apparently insoluble questions as to the relative value of farming on the large or small scale, which enter in to complicate the problems of the compulsory purchase or confiscation, and the redistribution, of the land. It is not unnatural that in view of such chimeras there should be a class of hard-headed, common- sensible people who go to the opposite extreme. They have observed that Aristotle's dictum: "Care- fulness is least in that which is common to most, since men take thought in the chief place for their own and less for the common stock," is just as destructive of communism in land as of every other form, except the communism of friendship and philanthropy. Private ownership of land increases its fertility, since it is the interest of the owner to make it yield the greatest return both to himself and his family. Robbery of the soil, that is, stripping its fertility in order to secure immediate returns beyond its regular capacity, is a procedure only too common among renters and com- munal tillers. Since the soil yields the food, clothing, fuel, and raw materials of manufacture to the nation, the more it is made to yield steadily, year by year, the more the nation thrives. This is the conservative THE NATION AND ITS HOME 273 conclusion and therefore the nation must not interfere with private ownership. This view has in the United States led to many wholesome measures, making the transfer of land by legal process both easy and cheap ; and creating an intense jealousy about the exercise of eminent domain, as a public right. It is* neverthe- less, true that whether we think of property as ante- cedent to the state and of the state as existing for the purpose of safeguarding it; or, whether we think of property as possible only through national association, in the last analysis we admit that property is somehow dependent on the state. In consequence of this fact the state has from immemorial times interfered with private ownership and will continue to do so in the interest of itself and the individual. Who supports a title derived from occupation ? The state. Or a title derived from labor, in that the regular desired suc- cession of personal property is guaranteed? Again the national state. Apparently within such limits as public opinion will permit, the national state in its authorized sovereignty will continue to lay hands on private ownership in land, as likewise in chattels goods, and the like, for the benefit of the public. Between these two perfectly simple views the econo- mists have interjected a third class of considerations, based on what they call the law of diminishing returns in land, or rather of diminishing production from land, viz., that every successive application of capital to land must be less productive than the former. If this be true, it is, of course, an end of nationalization ; for nationalization would mean national bankruptcy and suicide. But it is only true provided knowledge and skill do not increase proportionately: the ap- parently sufficient refutation lies in the fact that with the advance of knowledge and skill proportionate to the advance in society, capital can be as remunera- tively invested in land as in any other enterprise 274 THE NATION AND ITS HOME and that probably this will continue to be so. This would assure stability in private tenure of the soil and only this. If the law were a law, in time there would be no capital to invest in land and the land would refuse to perform its functions either for the person or for the nation. The only remedy would be the restriction of population. The result of human experience, so far, seems to be that the least possible interference with private ownership, including both the unforeseen decrement of land values and the unearned increment as well, the surface and mineral resources also, is the strong- est guarantee for the present stability and future advance of society. Further, that those who live on the land should develop and till it; and not employ uninterested labor or supervision: that the nation should, with needed and rare exceptions, discourage large estates, in order to secure a proper proportion of man to the soil, both as owner and tiller: or, if that be difficult, at least to secure that the owner should have a joint interest with the tiller in the capital in- vested. The curse of the small farmer is the money- lender; the mortgageor is more soulless than the landlord. The latter is at least a man, the former is too often a corporation. There is already in opera- tion a system of state loans on the security of land, the "credit fonder," corresponding to the "credit mobi- lier" or loans on chattels and personal property. The tendency is to extend it. Why ? The law at present favors equal subdivision of land among children and reprobates the appropriation of great tracts for pur- poses of luxury: government guarantee of land loans runs counter to this wise policy. X THE NATION AND THE PEOPLE HETEROGENEOUS ELEMENTS IN THE MODERN NATION — ENORMOUS TERRI- TORY AND ENORMOUS POPULATION DESIRE FOR LEAST GOVERNMENT, UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE, AND STATE INTERFERENCE POPULAR SELF- CONTROL BY A PEOPLE'S OTHER SELF — ABUSE OF STATE PROTECTION BY POLITOCRATS RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION PROTECTION AGAINST DEGENERACY CONGESTION OF POPULATION CHARACTER OF IMMIGRA- TION NATURALIZATION LAWS REFORM DEMANDED, NOT REVOLUTION — IMPROVIDENT MARRIAGES — THE MORAL REMEDY FOR THREATENING DANGERS THE MENACE OF EXTREME SOCIALISM AND ANARCHY — THE SPHERE OF STATE INTERFERENCE IN SOCIETY — LEGISLATION AS AN ART DIFFERENT FROM THE SCIENCE OF LEGISLATION — RELIGION AND THE MODERN NATION REMEDIAL AND DIRECTIVE LEGISLATION. The inhabitants of a civilized land in modern times have not of necessity those connections of real or imaginary kinship, near or remote, of common super- stition and common faith, which once entered into the constitution of a people. The common interest, ma- terial and moral, has come to be understood as the bond of nationality, just as a common spiritual in- terest unites its members in the same ecclesiastical organization. The national interest can only exist in a propinquity sufficient to create human relations; and where that propinquity exists, it sooner or later takes the place of every other tie which binds men together. Our double duty is to God and our neigh- bor. One of the essential qualities of modern life is its scope: the increase of interests through the print- ing-press and the ease of communication, the enlarge 1 - ment of territorial dimensions through the expansion of enterprise in the interchange of products, the en- largement of wants and consumption by the individual, with the wide-spread distribution of commodities, the swelling dimensions of population within national 275 276 THE NATION AND THE PEOPLE limits: not only the size already attained, but the persistent tendency toward aggrandizement, the eager- ness for influence and territory. So it has come about that birth, blood, and religion have constantly less and less importance in the make-up of a people and that the heterogeneous elements among any given people attract less and less attention by their presence as the demands occupy more and more the thoughts of their rulers. While land and capital sufficient for their sustenance are abundant it never occurs to any one to object to the presence of civilized men of any Caucasian race or speech. It is evident that any organism, especially a political one, will express the characteristics of those who made it and for whom it exists : it is also evident and clear that its relations to the people under it, more or less numerous, more or less extended, are in proportion to the homogeneity of that people. Diversity in occupation and interest must also arise in a high degree just as the advance from simplicity to complex- ity goes on, even within the most homogeneous peo- ple; and the larger the territory in extent the more this divergency will be accentuated. It seems therefore as if within the modern nation the greatest possibility of individual variety were included and that there- fore the action of the national state must be limited within the smallest possible sphere. We invite the largest conceivable population by emphasizing the virtue of large families, by protecting the young, the feeble, and the incapable, against suffering and death; and until very recently by putting a premium upon immigration of the most stupendous dimensions. This population we provide with a home containing 3,000,000 square miles and about as diverse in climate, physical configuration and productive quality, every way in fact, as we can well imagine. What is to be the relation of the national state to this people which THE NATION AND THE PEOPLE 277 has constituted and supports it? If the ratio of in- crease in our population continues another century will see it numbering 350,000,000, about that of China; with only three-fourths of the area. Can the modern nation retain its characteristics and contain so many persons ? While as a people we are not given to political theor- izing we have undoubtedly acted upon certain pre- sumptions which are peculiar to ourselves. Being at the outset a nation of political and religious dis- senters, that is, in the main composed of those who were avowed enemies of traditional views concerning church and state, we brought with us little respect for the ancient constitutions of either, ecclesiasticism be- ing our greatest bugbear and absolutism corres- spondingly our scarecrow. As a result we have never stood in awe of the state nor attributed any sacrosanct character to its officials. We predicate certain rights and live under a constitution which expresses our historical experience in safeguarding them. Office is merely a trust, officials of every description are dele- gates or agents, and local self-government is the de- pository of most which concerns our daily lives. Only those functions which can best be exercised by state and federal governments are entrusted to them. Since we have no other means of reaching a decision the majority rules and the only right which a minority has is to turn itself into a majority. The less govern- ment does and the more individuals do, the whole- somer and the saner will the nation be. This state of things is partly the reason why individuals have so long continued to wish the least interference with their affairs; but the fact that we have such independence of spirit as individuals is the very reason why we created such a state of affairs. The man and his environment react upon each other. Under this sys- tem we have increased self-knowledge in politics, 278 THE NATION AND THE PEOPLE trained the individual into finer perceptions and given such resources of comfort and even luxury to private life that public life is at a discount; and cultivated men, for the most part, desire seclusion rather than the distinction of public life. Public spirit is a peculiar thing : it seems to flourish exuberantly in small aggregations because it is diffi- cult to feel personal relations to millions. The larger the nation has grown, the more public spirit has de- clined; and with that decline has gone hand in hand a corresponding one in local pride and enthusiasm. At the same time there has slowly occurred a trans- mutation of religious conviction. The old bitterness and exclusiveness of the Protestant sects has nearly disappeared and is apparently to vanish utterly at no distant date: the relations between Protestants and Roman Catholics have, in spite of all obstacles, grown steadily more tolerant and even intimate. This is partly due to a change in the spirit of the age, chiefly, however, to our institutions, which make one vote as good as another, no matter who casts it. We have in compensation a quickened personality in all direc- tions, intellectual and emotional, possibly even spirit- ual. Practical Christianity, as it is called, is sum- moned to supplant doctrinal : the welfare of humanity is to concern each of us quite as much as the salva- tion of our individual souls. We claim, therefore, to be vastly more sensitive than ever before, to feel a greater responsibility for each other, to have a quick- ened sense of pity, to exert ourselves strenuously in charities and reforms. Having secured our national state as the guarantee of our personality, and identity as expressed in our rights, of our freedom, our personal initiative and enterprise, with all the avenues to it wide open, there has rather suddenly appeared a sentiment, rapidly hardening into conviction, that we may now venture as never before to entrust many THE NATION AND THE PEOPLE 279 things to the state for the amelioration of the de- graded, vicious, and paupers, which can be more quickly done by the public as a whole than by the slow-moving processes of natural evolution working through the patience and self-reliance of individuals. In Europe the doctrine of state-interference has been preached because men believed in the mysterious power of the state to regenerate the many as it has the few; we are beginning to preach it because we know there is no mystery in it, because the state is ourselves, and because it is a corporation ready formed; able swiftly under our own guidance to re- generate the few who require it and to counteract imperatively the evil influences of other corporations organized solely for private ends and to promote selfish interests. This notion of popular self-control through the people's other self is radically different from the no- tions of state socialism prevalent overseas. It has been a spontaneous growth in America and has mani- fested itself for a long time in various ways. There was and is a perfectly sane theory of economic Pro- tection, which, proceeding on the ground that the duty of the modern national state is not merely to exist, but to live and live nobly, declares that for self- protection and self-respect everything necessary for human life should as far as possible be produced within its own borders and that as much as possible should be done toward making the whole country a fitter place for noble living. The general view of those who hold this theory is that the necessary revenue should be raised by the protection from foreign com- petition of struggling industries until they are able, full grown, to enter into a fair competition for existence. Such necessary industries as are not yet in existence should be created and cherished by the same means. The idea of the state as a protector easily broadens 280 THE NATION AND THE PEOPLE into wider horizons : those who have suffered to keep the country from shame and sorrow should themselves be kept from shame and sorrow by receiving moder- ate pensions; local enterprise in improving the means of communication and transportation should be sub- sidized, and to every child should be given the mini- mum of instruction necessary to the fulfilment of his civic duties. The element of sentimentalism in this is plain and craftiness has shamefully abused it. Regarding the outrages perpetrated in its name, our political parties are hopefully at variance. The peo- ple have time and again risen in reprobation not so much of the doctrine as of its perversion. The state should not interfere to create wealth for one class by taxing another directly or indirectly ; it has no call to pay annuities to every man who has served his coun- try in war; it may not squander millions on public works in order to make "jobs" wherewith to reward petty politicians ; it shall not multiply appointive com- missions in order to expand an already menacing ex- ecutive patronage; and we have forbidden it to sup- port eleemosynary institutions under the control of a single religious sect. In the modern nation there is somewhere resident an enlightened public opinion and an appeal to it based on facts "elicited by a fair public investigation," is never in vain. It now seems clear that no modern nation will tolerate, willingly and continuously, that degree of state interference which in material gains benefits a part of itself, rich or poor, and not proportionally the whole people. There appear to be two ways in which the state may interfere to benefit everybody. In its coercive sphere it may limit the size of the people by restric- tion of immigration and in its directive sphere it may create alike a sanitary physical environment and a pure moral atmosphere. It is a focal truth, now be- ginning to be more widely recognized, that for the THE NATION AND THE PEOPLE 281 latter of these two purposes a substantial degree of moral homogeneity is essential if there is to be hearty and fairly unanimous action: the notion that there should be a limitation both in quality and quantity to the population which even a fruitful land can safely undertake to support is entertained by an ever in- creasing number of Americans. We have restricted to the extent of exclusion the importation of Chinese and Japanese: we have modified the Mormon ini- quity: and there is a wide-spread demand for the restriction of European immigration. It is emphatic- ally proclaimed that our institutions are strained in the struggle to assimilate so many human beings of such diverse and low civilizations at one time. There is, therefore, the twofold effort to improve the quality and restrict the numbers of the people as a whole. The latter object has occupied the attention of publicists for a long time. Sparta stringently reg- ulated the number of her inhabitants, and savage tribes still do it by the perversion of natural genera- tion. Aristotle declared that population must be restricted if necessary by the exposure of children. Writers of all ages have noted the lavishness of na- ture, which provides thousands of vital germs for one which survives in both vegetable and animal life ; and it seems certain that if there were no disturbing causes the population of the globe would double itself in less than twenty years. Lands which teem with millions furnish a meagre sustenance for each one of the mil- lions and with the decline of vital energy in the man comes a corresponding decline in the mental vigor and general quality of the race. As long as the war- fare of Rome, of the middle ages, and of absolutist Europe raged, not only were men slain by the tens and hundreds of thousands, but inattention to the arts of peace permitted pestilence and disease to decimate the people and prevent a surplus. With the advent 282 THE NATION AND THE PEOPLE of the contemporaneous national state the era of peace was proudly announced. The dream has been sadly troubled. Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries there have been bloody and ruth- less conflicts, the latest the bloodiest and most ruth- less of all. And yet the population of the world entire and of the civilized world in particular has steadily grown in numbers at its normal rate, in Russia even faster. The increase has been alarming because there has been a corresponding degeneracy in quality. In India under the enlightened and civilized administration of Great Britain the native populations increase in num- ber at a rate which is even more disastrous: Hindus neither can nor will emigrate, and grow more and more docile in exact proportion as they are less and less nourished. Decay in the higher qualities of man- hood is pitiful. Famine performs in both Russia and India the dread and inevitable work of restricting population; but even that does not suffice. With undue overpopulation the force and energy of civiliza- tion has hitherto spent itself. But with due and care- ful foresight there is not now and will not be for ages the slightest necessity for congestion of population. In all the six continental masses there are vast tracts still unsettled, which are abundantly able to support great populations of men in a high state of civiliza- tion. Even China still possesses untold resources of lands and minerals ; barely explored, much less settled : as for Europe, smallest of all the continents, bad government and iniquitous land laws have kept in wilderness enough fertile districts to support double its present population. It is no longer doubted that men of a very high type can live and preserve their standard of high living even in the tropics, such are the incredible advances of sanitary science : and as yet the resources of the tropics are virtually untouched THE NATION AND THE PEOPLE 283 by civilized man. Should our modern national states perform their duty in combatting the congestion of population in cities and favored lands we may look in security down the long vista of the future, undismayed by the prospective swarms of humanity. It behooves the national state, nevertheless, to occupy itself with the inertia of man as he is and create in him an adventurous spirit quite different from that which he now possesses. Even the haphazard emi- gration of the immediate past has done little to solve the problem of overpopulation. For long it was the morally and mentally fit who emigrated from the older countries to the new : capable, energetic, earnest men and women, with fine initiative and high princi- ple; in their train went considerable numbers of the class which emigrates from mere unrest, an imitative sort, useful in their way. To adjust the balance European governments began to export the criminal, the vicious, and the pauper. On the whole the newer lands have by vigilance turned back the polluted flood, and numbers of those who came from idle curiosity have returned of their own accord. More- over, the homing instinct of the semi-civilized from Mediterranean lands has led thousands and thousands to accumulate petty fortunes, large enough in the ag- gregate, and return to a smug, insignificant life in their native land. Emigration and immigration of these types, too long continued, sap the life-blood of both the lands concerned. In the language of the econo- mists there is a steady loss of both capital and labor. To such an evil, drastic remedies must be applied: and the remedies are not to the taste of those Who have to take them. The silly optimism of Rousseau and his followers called for ever increasing numbers to enjoy the benefits of a new regime, encouraging free movement for all to all parts of the globe with no restriction as to destination. Bounties were to be 284 THE NATION AND THE PEOPLE paid for large families and all doors everywhere would be found wide open for the reception of all comers. The flood began, continued for a time and was halted by older countries, only when disquieting phenomena of crowding and lowered standards of liv- ing became manifest. In America an over-generous hospitality has continued down to this moment: we considered our country a limitless refuge and asy lum for the unhappy of all lands. They flocked to us, millions on millions, and in the abundance of their untutored energy and unskilled labor our shrewd self- seeking "empire-builders" found their account. Hence our insufficient naturalization laws with allur- ing welcome and slack enforcement, hence the swollen steamship monopolies of foreign countries with their unprincipled lobbies at Washington, hence the for- eign disdain of our public morality which for certainly the first decennium of the twentieth century and probably much longer made our land a seed-plot of foreign intrigue and conspiracy. Thereby too we created an altogether revolutionary view of citizen- ship, enabling the individual to transfer his allegiance with flippant impulse from nation to nation; and to demand in turn the protection of each according to his domicile. This was a keen cutting weapon through- out the enemy machinations of twenty years or more, and finally led to the officially expressed contempt for the naturalization oaths of Americans, originating in all the enemy lands. It has been a rude shock to sentimentalism and will be still more rude for the soul- less importers of ignorant labor when, roused to a sense of our dignity and duty, we take in hand, as we speed- ily will, the radical revision of our immigration and naturalization laws. We dare no longer risk a popu- lation too large for our territory and so heterogeneous as to endanger our institutions. Not that we dare be rash. The period of obser- vation and agitation has been none too long: the THE NATION AND THE PEOPLE 285 period of construction should also be protracted, in the interest of simple justice. National obligation in such a matter cannot be settled either by an appeal to principles of absolute right or by a consensus of international sociability such as determines the pre- cepts of international law. The solution of the problem must be tentative and gradual, each step being taken separately and under the stress Of stern necessity only. All nations should improve and enforce their rules re- garding emigration, immigration, and naturalization: we, being slack above all others, should begin, and that right speedily. As just remarked it is we who need the most radical reform. Improvident marriages are another source of popu- lation trouble: the pupils of the common schools, even in country districts, afford to our census-takers a shocking percentage of underfed, anaemic and poorly clad children. Medical science works miracles in diminishing infant mortality; but the malnutrition of the saved has become a grave public question. This fact has opened a wide field for the overstrained sen- timentalists who discourse ignorantly about eugenics, restraints on the procreation of criminals, and the sexually diseased. Extremists defeat their own ends, such agitation leads to contempt. There can be no question but that marriage should not lightly be en- tered upon and that the lessons of thrift, self-restraint, and high moral purpose should seriously be inculcated on all who enter the relation. Laws regulating the reciprocal relations of parents to each other and to their children as well as of children, younger and older, to their parents should be put upon the highest plane and rigidly enforced. But beyond such reasonable and sensible regulations modern civilization cannot go : the interference with personal liberty is too danger- ous. Only by the purging of personal moral sense can reform be made even partially complete. The day is gone when men can be made virtuous by 286 THE NATION AND THE PEOPLE ' law or when by rigid legislation walls of any sort can be erected in any land, when exclusion can be based on force and arbitrary enactment. It is just as true now as it ever was that civilizations of widely varying degrees in perfection are coexistent and always con- tending somehow or other for self-preservation: it is equally true that the higher is bound further to con- tend for the mastery. Warlike invasions, military, diplomatic, or commercial, must be repelled by war- like means. On the other hand the peaceful advance of barbarous hordes, however gradual and insidious, gives an opening for the use of moral weapons which must be seized. Only when moral means fail can we have recourse to the force of the state. As yet the intelligent masses of no state can be brought to believe that the moral armory has been exhausted, least of all the people of the United States, who have suffered, whenever they have suffered, from indifference rather than from defeat in a struggle. There must be a real struggle, and a sense of absolute necessity before the nation will have recourse to direct repressive measures. More than half of our difficulties in these days con- sists in the unfortunate but general acceptance, even by the intelligent, of certain untruths which have so long been dinned into the popular ear by agitators that they have become trite and unquestioned. One of these is that overpopulation has already become an intolerable evil in the older countries of Europe: an- other is that the rich are growing richer and the poor poorer: another lies in the terrible phrase, wage- slavery, as if the state it depicts were general and characteristic of the age. These notions were dis- seminated, perhaps honestly, although it is hard to believe it, in the interests of anarchy, in the effort to prove that conditions existing at the time were incapable of reform and must be destroyed root and branch before the foundations of a new social structure THE NATION AND THE PEOPLE 287 could be laid. Now, as a matter of fact, since the days of Marx and Lassalle such changes have been wrought in England, the land from which they drew their descriptions, as to make the laboring artisan or wage worker unrecognizable, with their texts as a guide- book. This has not been brought about by the diminution of population, but by the increase of capi- tal and the extension of private enterprise. The splendid transformation was the work of philanthropic agitation, followed by an expression of the new moral sense in the legislative suppression of abuses and monopolies, by financial and far-reaching social re- forms. The exhaustion of this remedy for the undue, or the apparently undue, increase of population has not yet been reached in any land, least of all in our own. It really means that instead of limitation by legislative enactment the emphasis should be put on quality of increase and on a degree of creative exertion not yet reached either by the nation or its people. It is generally conceded that one of the. causes of overpopulation is the reckless child-getting of misery. Can the nation control this or can the people compel itself to lift all humanity up to a higher plane of ma- terial comfort ? At first blush there would appear to be only one possible answer, the affirmative. If the state were, as Gladstone, Arnold, and many admirable men, have contended, a normal person, its manifest duty would be to improve itself, for its action would be regulated by conscience and its religious obligations would be identical with those of the individual. But we have seen that while the state is a moral, respon- sible organism it is very abnormal as a person and that its appropriate sphere of action is much more limited than that of the individual or the nation. The moral sense of the nation, when ascertained, must eventually be expressed, though generally it is not immediately so, in the legislative action of the state, 288 THE NATION AND THE PEOPLE not in the conduct of any individual. The nation commits to the state the functions of legislation, judicature, and administration. In the judiciary the people are assured of a steady, regular, reliable, in- terpretation of the law and administration of justice. This is entrusted to a highly trained class of men and their labors are as remote as possible from the question of how far the nation may restrain or direct the individual in the interest of society. But in matters of legislation and administration it is quite otherwise. The art of legislation is the prac- tical adaptation of statutory enactment to the moral sense of the nation: the science of legislation, as in Filanghieri's great work, is really a complete cyclope- dia of human nature. The notion of limiting legis- lation at all is essentially new, being possible only in constitutional countries. Locke limited govern- mental scope to that for which government was ori- ginally called into being: the protection of life and property. For generations our shibboleths have been "the rights of man," "the sanctity of property and contract," "the rights of conscience" and so on: all of which imply that the business of the people is sternly to repress any encroachment on these by the state. The Whig and liberal view was that the nation might be a moral person or not, but that the state, being its agent, certainly was not and that while government may from motives of expediency promote the good of society by encouraging religion and education and the arts, it must not do so to the injury of its primary business: the promotion of material prosperity, the protection of the individual's goods and person. Mill, on the "laissez faire" theory would have the state interfere only where a thing admitted to be use- ful and desirable cannot be brought about by volun- tary agency, as for example education or the regulation of the hours of labor. We can only rely on public THE NATION AND THE PEOPLE 289 opinion to secure "the absolute and essential develop- ment of humanity in its richest diversity." Spencer condemns "all religious establishments, all state reg- ulation of commerce, all government relief of the poor, all state systems of sanitary superintendence," even the state currency and the post-office, because they are not in the nature of protection. The nation, he thinks, should confide to the state merely the pro- tection of life, liberty, and property. All these theories have had more or less influence. Certainly the national state deals as little as possible with matters of religion, striving to draw the line be- tween what is irreligious and what is immoral. It strives as far as possible to ignore ecclesiastical organ- ization, except as a form of voluntary association. Moreover, taking the civilized world as a whole, there has been a tendency to meddle less and less with men's private affairs in respect to contracts; it up- holds almost without any limitation any bargain or agreement except those for manifestly immoral ends. On the other hand there has been a steady increase of state-action in regard to education: a certain de- gree is made obligatory, while the most elaborate and expensive establishments are maintained free for all who care to use them. There is also a steady increase of legislation regarding the labor of women and children, a constantly growing restriction of danger- ous trades and employments. The plea is the inability of certain classes to protect themselves ; protection be- ing better than punishment. On the ground of public convenience there is a tremendous growth of regula- tive legislation: the post-office being to that end a pure state monopoly, as is also the manufacture and control of currency. All means of transportation, too, are carefully regulated and protected. The learned professions, except the clerical, and certain forms of business which most affect the prices of necessities 290 THE NATION AND THE PEOPLE [stock and produce exchanges] are threatened with government regulation. We have laws to prevent gambling, to regulate or prevent the liquor traffic, and to preserve game. If philanthropists had their way we would have many, many others. We may therefore conclude that in the modern national state, public opinion favors a high degree of regulative legis- lation both for the material and moral elevation of the people, the classes, and the individual. XI THE NATION AND SOCIAL CLASSES SOCIAL CLASSES IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY — FRENCH SOCIALISM — ST. SIMON, FOURIER, BLANC — THE BURGESSES IN POWER — MALTHUS AND OWEN: MAURICE AND KINGSLEY — THE NEW ELECTORATE AND THE LABORING CLASS — MARX, ENGELS, AND WOLFF — PROPHETS OF THE SOCIALISTIC STAGE OF GOVERNMENT — LABOR AND WAGES — COOPERA- TION IN PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION — THE BASIS OF MARXISM. THE PROLETARIAT — REFORMS ACCOMPLISHED, BUT DISCONTENT GROWING — REFORMERS AND REVOLUTIONARIES DEMAND STATE CONTROL — THE APPEAL TO FORCE — FALLACIES OF SOCIALISTIC REASONING — THE SOCIAL CLASSES AND THEIR ORGANIZATION — THE LOWEST CLASS AS A BENEFICIARY OF SOCIETY — IMPOSSIBILITY OF A PURELY ECONOMIC STATE. The revolution of 1799 was a staggering blow to the feudal distinctions of society. Stratification of the people as to social rank, political privilege, and, if we may use a word little understood at the time, economic advantage, was denounced as a thing ac- cursed, losing much if not all of its rigidity. With the establishment of democracy, in theory at least, as the essential underlying principle of constitutional government and the national state, there arose a feeling of optimism. There was a general conviction that man, having been emancipated in both his poli- tical and religious relations, an age of enlightenment had dawned which would see him moral, intelligent, and prosperous, as well as free. The new conditions of living, the training and environment of men would of necessity make them, all alike, both reasonable and unselfish. Simultaneously, however, the entire civilized world began to feel an impulse communicated by the emancipation of commerce and trade. The industrial energies set free on the close of the Na- poleonic wars suddenly gave an importance to manu- 291 292 THE NATION AND SOCIAL CLASSES factures not hitherto seen. An unsuspected power for the accumulation of wealth was found in the con- tinued improvement of machinery driven by steam. The progress of applied discovery went forward until the industrial revolution began to appear as important as the political revolution had been. Saint Simon with Fourier in France, and Owen in England, set going an extravagant, Utopian, agitation of the most un- scientific and dangerous sort. Serving no good end, it merely exasperated the conservative and well-to-do, by threatening the foundations of society in regard to property and the family. The two Frenchmen were really embattled against the revival of absolutism which occurred in their country after Waterloo. To them succeeded Louis Blanc, who was more a politician than a philosopher. His was a demand for the complete democratic organ- ization of the state. This accomplished, the social regeneration necessary for the utter eradication of feudalism must, he thought, follow: on the basis that "the lot of all would be morally and materially improved by the free cooperation and fraternal as- sociation of all." To this end the state should estab- lish national workshops and drive the private manu- facturers from the field. Such shops were actually opened, in 1848: but they were intended to give em- ployment to unskilled labor in unremunerative work, by those who organized them; exactly the opposite of what Blanc claimed that he had intended. Such an absurd and fatal misunderstanding illustrates only too perfectly the wavering impracticable nature of the man's mind, which displayed itself in everything he undertook. It was his ill-directed agitation which resulted in the terrible and bloody insurrection of June 26, 1848,, suppressed by Cavaignac with an iron hand, that brought in Louis Napoleon. The memories of that day, on which more Frenchmen perished than THE NATION AND SOCIAL CLASSES 293 in any battle of the first empire, combined with the fact that the leaders were among those who died, served to keep the agitation down throughout the second empire. It only emerged again in the horrors of the commune after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. The movement of Owen, in England, had been free from the political complications which checkmated Blanc, in France. It dealt with the condition of English laborers and artisans, which, in consequence of the stagnation produced by the Napoleonic wars, had sunk to the lowest depth. Through the Reform Bill of 1832 the same class came into power as that which the revolution of 1830 [The July Revolution] made the masters in France, viz., the great, enter- prising, thrifty, comfortable conservative middle class. Against them the workmen turned in the Chartist movement, which was primarily a struggle for politi- cal power: a power, however, which they hoped to use for the improvement of their condition. This movement, for the first time, brought out into clear prominence an economic doctrine. Every one had long since been convinced that property was based on labor. "The Wealth of Nations" taughtnothing less than that. But the logical conclusion was now for the first time enunciated ; that the property produced by the laborer belonged in its entirety to the laborer: the whole matter really seemed so simple as that to the agitators. For a time the general temper of England was as pessimistic as it had been optimistic. Malthus, a clergyman of the English church, a high-minded, sensible, man propounded the idea that caution, fore- sight, and thrift in the marriage relation were essen- tial in times when so many human beings were clamor- ous for sustenance; and made clear that the world owed no man a living except as he gained it by his own 294 THE NATION AND SOCIAL CLASSES exertions. This notion was caught up by wild theor- ists and expanded into a so-called Malthusian doctrine : to limit population. It was Owen's merit conclusively to refute the Malthusians, so called, by proving that owing to the ingenuity displayed in new and better machinery the question of overpopulation was not yet imminent : the wealth of the nation had increased far beyond the increase in population. After Owen and the Chartists came the Christian socialists, Maurice and Kingsley, with an able following, who displayed a sincere and helpful sympathy with the workers and in their militant interest waged war with the so-called Manchester school. They set forth that society could exist only on moral and spiritual bases, not on the ground of wages given and received ; they taught the weak how to associate themselves for protection, how to cooperate for improvement. Co- operation for distribution has been fairly successful; it has been a bitter disappointment that coopera- tion for production has been a comparative failure. Workingmen with organizing and financial ability soon rise to a higher social sphere and cease to be hand workers. No sooner had the political power of both France and England passed into the hands of manufacturers, traders and the employers of labor generally, than the friction between employers and employed, between burgher and proletariat, began to grow fiercer and fiercer. The new electorate used their political power almost entirely to their own advantage and, as the laborers believed, for the further oppression of the real producers of national wealth. The distrust and hatred of the wage-earners for the great proprietors and landed gentry was almost completely transferred to what was long styled the "bourgeoisie"; and in- tensified to the highest degree. Indeed something approaching a political alliance between the top and THE NATION AND SOCIAL CLASSES 295 bottom strata of society to dominate the middle stra- tum has been discernible in many lands of Europe and America ever since. For long the helplessness of "labor," the working masses, was such as to create among them a hopeless apathy, and that condition lasted nearly twenty years, until about 1852. In that year a new influence was introduced from central and eastern Europe. Out from Russia poured the lurid light of Bakunin's gospel of chaos. Substantial im- provement in the condition of the working men there had been, but it had been bestowed as a boon from the enlightened selfishness of employers. Not only was there no gratitude, but there was actually in- creased resentment. Labor must assert as a right its full share in the product of labor. In this general view both German agitators and Russian anarchists were fully at one. The latter denied all possibility of reform in the existing social order and preached the total overthrow of all social institutions, in order to write new order on a clean slate. Marx and Lassalle, the German leaders, sympathized with Bakunin to some extent, as was shown in their effort to identify themselves and the "International" association of their followers with the Paris commune after the suppression of the revolt by the hated "bourgeoisie": but unlike Bakunin they had a constructive system to substitute for the old. The leaven of their doctrine worked in England, where Marx had long resided, permeated Germany, and found a warm reception in France. From that time we have become familiar with a new set of terms: classes and masses, capital and labor, socialism in all its various degrees, and all the phrases of the modern agitator. Marx was a Jew of good family and excellent train- ing, with a powerful mind and determined character. Associated and identified with him were Engels and Wolff; and closely akin in their doctrines were Las- 296 THE NATION AND SOCIAL CLASSES salle and Rodbertus. They styled themselves social- ists, and proclaimed a new era for the principles of which their advocates must fight exactly as men had fought previous revolutions in behalf of religious and political liberty. The coming revolution was to be fought in behalf of social and economic liberty. The prophets accepted the highest historical ground of succession in social states, of history as "a succes- sion of orderly phenomena controlled by natural laws." By the laws of social evolution society must pass, they declared, from the state of political de- mocracy to that of economic democracy. Constitu- tional government having been established as the ex- pression of the popular will or rather national will, it was long controlled by the aristocracy; these in time lost their hold and were succeeded by the people, but by that portion of the people which had risen to the estate of holding accumulated capital both in land and personal property. This portion of the people were just as inimical to the expression of the national" will for the improvement of those who had nothing, as the aristocracy had been for the sake of the "bourgeoisie," and therefore the next evolutionary stage must be the complete democratization of the state as a political organism. Further than this freedom in politics cannot go. But though the toiling masses find themselves free at the end of this process, they are still miserable in spite of the political evolution; no better off than before. They are still miserable because no more than before do they secure the full return of their labor. To slavery succeeded serfdom, to serfdom political liberty, to this must succeed economic liberty. So far, the free laborer secures as wages from his employer, from the capitalist, that is, only what is necessary for the subsistence of himself and his family; the capitalist appropriates to himself the THE NATION AND SOCIAL CLASSES 297 "surplus value" and is, therefore, constantly growing richer. Labor is the source of all value, but since by the fall of feudalism the laborer is utterly cut off from the land which has been appropriated in bygone ages and is not in possession of capital : which is either the accumulated labor of generations which have passed, or the accumulations of robbery on the fall of the Roman Catholic church; those who have both are enabled to establish a new slavery, that of wage la- bor. The only persons who can freely struggle for the increase of wealth are those who already have land and capital. This domination of capital is a stage in social evolution and like other preceding stages will pass and be succeeded by a socialistic stage in which "private competing capitals will have been trans- formed into a united collective capital:" [Schaffle] "associated production with a collective capital with the view of an equitable distribution." This proc- ess is inevitable, but like others it can be assisted and its theories must be propagated by agitation; realized, if necessary, by revolution. What man desires has value for his use. Any ex- ternal object adapted to human wants is a com- modity and this adaptation gives it a use value, which when accumulated is wealth. These use values being in the modern world chiefly employed to supply markets are transformed into exchange values which vary according to the proportionate supply and prop- erties of the commodities. Hence any commodity is as valuable as any other if only you have enough, and since commodities exchange according to the most different values it is clear that their value depends not on their physical qualities, but on the labor crystallized in them. The measure of value there- fore is labor-time. This is to be reckoned as the time of normal labor, neither skilled nor unskilled, under normal social conditions. Under the modern or 298 THE NATION AND SOCIAL CLASSES . capitalistic regime, the aim of the capitalist is identical with that of the feudal suzerain or the slave owner: to appropriate for himself the results of other- men's labor, except so much as is necessary to support present, and secure a future, supply of labor. The workman sells his labor-force at what it will bring; namely, his wages. This is so regulated that the capitalist secures over and above his entire outlay, viz., his interest and his payroll, a profit which is really the earnings of unpaid labor; the surplus value, which really belongs to the workman and must be secured by him. Under the present scheme certain tendencies have developed which show its rottenness. Production is secured by the division of labor and association in great factories; its results are appropriated by the individual capitalist. These contend for the market and financial crises due to a sheer plethora of wealth occur periodically, a proof of the utter anarchy in the system of distribution. These crises produce such irregularities that the workman, besides being cheated out of the surplus value which justly belongs to him, has not even the regular enjoyment of his wages. The result is misery and uncertainty in the whole of so- ciety. The "bourgeoisie" has shown itself as utterly unfit as the landed proprietors were to rule, the work- man must take the task in hand. To this end he must radically democratize the national state, get rid of all checks on the exercise of his power; and then the power once obtained use it to secure association in capital, in production, and in distribution. Such is in outline the doctrine which has brought the modern national state face to face with the most curious prob- lem ever presented to organized society: how to meet a formidable attempt to transform the structure of law, politics, and eventually of both philosophy and religion, onto an economic basis. The system be- THE NATION AND SOCIAL CLASSES 299 gan where it seeks to end, In a view of the universe based on pure materialism, on the physical, atheistic evolution of history as a merciless process independent of volition, human or divine. It has created a term- inology all its own which by sheer persistence it has in- troduced into ever widening circles of use: a set of terms neither definite nor based on fact. They are not consistently used by those who uphold the doc- trine and still less so by the great numbers who have a vague second-hand acquaintance with the reason- ing on which they are based ; who possess a still dim- mer conception of the truth or rather lack of truth in the account of historical progress upon which the whole argument rests. The picture which Marx drew of the hand workers in England during the half century following the Na- poleonic wars is in the main a true one. The results of a pitiless application of the dogma [laissez faire] which left every man to his own resources were de- plorable. Employers were greedy, unprincipled, and without compassion, violating every precept of Chris- tianity in subservience to what they chose to call the law of supply and demand. Filthy tenements; un- principled employment of infants, children, and women ; neglect of sanitary laws ; preposterous hours of labor; they left nothing untried which in their fierce competition for markets throughout the world would increase and cheapen production. Evils of quite another sort, incident to a revival of feudal absolutism, survived during the same epoch in France and Germany to intensify a misery which was only partly due to the same causes as were prevalent in England. But in general throughout Europe the political millennium had not produced and was not accompanied by the material amelioration of men which had been expected from it. Thus there was formed a proletariat: a vast number of human 300 THE NATION AND SOCIAL CLASSES beings living an existence largely animal, destitute of most human qualities except passion and composed of the most varied elements: the agricultural laborer and serf, the skilled artisan and unskilled laborer, together with the idle and vicious of all classes in town and country. The name was borrowed from that of a similar population which had existed in imperial Rome. To the proletariat the rest of society stood in glaring contrast: the refinement of education, the luxury of wealth, the ostentation of newly acquired fortunes, the keenness of intellect untempered by pity, the general attitude of selfish independence which pervaded the whole, all these were observed and their meaning distorted, with a spite and bitter- ness which sprang from unreasoning discontent. This state of things has not been entirely remedied, although it has been vastly improved; so far in fact that the descriptive portions of Marx's book published in 1867 are no longer even approximately true. The factories and mines of the whole world have been ex- amined and reformed ; the humane spirit of Christian and pagan philanthropy has been aroused to gigantic efforts; the material condition of hand workers has been improved beyond recognition by the regulation of trade, the passage and enforcement of factory and sanitation laws; their wages have been increased and they get more comfort for their money. This increase has gone so far indeed that labor confiscates capital to a considerable degree, not merely accumulated wealth, but the capital of native ability for organiza- tion, production, and distribution, which is both under- paid and overtaxed. Two elements enter into this new situation: organized labor with its tyrannical and merciless demand alike on the workman and his employer has been highly successful; the force of an awakened moral public opinion, lavishly extending the suffrage, has opened wide the field for its operations. THE NATION AND SOCIAL CLASSES 301 As yet, however, there is no perfection: there are still greedy and unprincipled employers, the very men who but yesterday were "wage-slaves" themselves; there are grasping and lawless corporations; the working man in overwhelming majority is unintelligent, violent, and unthrifty. Much, therefore, very much remains to be done. Inasmuch as public opinion was deter- mined to undo the worst wrongs without delay, it made use of state action; within thirty years state interference has increased tremendously. This les- son has not been lost on the socialist : if there be any- thing he fears it is the reform of the present system far enough to destroy his ammunition. He has seen great associations of manufacturers and traders use the state for their own purposes and he understands that in an organized society where votes are the last appeal, he holds or can hold the supreme power; by their use he can destroy the oppressive corporations of capital and form the one all-inclusive corporation in which he has a share; he can then supplant the individual and corporate capitalist altogether. Thus it comes about that both reformer and revolutionary are now clamorous for the extension of state influence 60 as to regulate every social class in all its interests. There is a manifest danger in this rising tide of sentiment: whichever succeeds first the result will be disastrous. The revolutionary will always over- throw society momentarily, and temporarily undo all that has been gained: the demagogue and the senti- mentalist will bring that which is just and creditable into disrepute by impatience. The overwhelming ma- jority of Americans are not profoundly impressed by the Marxian, socialistic gospel ; still less so by the sen- timental philanthropist. The duty of sane humanity at such a crisis Is simple enough, and is on the whole squarely faced by the high-minded. Their procedure in the present crisis must be marked by gravity and 302 THE NATION AND SOCIAL CLASSES wisdom, by patience and careful study, by the same fearlessness and tenacity of purpose as that exhibited by those who would turn the world upside down and throw all the painfully accumulated gains of historical experience into the rubbish heap. In the first place we should propagate the antidote and scatter it broad- cast, even more assiduously than the poison has been bred and scattered. In the second place we should be just as ready to make the last solemn appeal through suffering to force, as are those who strive to prove the earnestness of their convictions by their desperation and blood-thirstiness. It is a vastly sadder spectacle to see all mankind levelled down than it is to see shift- lessness, unbelief, intemperance, and immorality un- dergoing the purification of suffering. There is a way, through the further dissemination of piety, morality and intelligence among all classes, to relieve the worthy poor and regenerate the unworthy strong without punishing the worthy people of industrious habits and the worthy rich who are the great bene- factors of society. In the first place then the fallacies of socialistic reasoning are easily understood and when understood almost ridiculous. Labor is the source of value, but there is brain labor as well as hand labor. In other words it is ability of both kinds which puts value into commodities. In the second place, both historically and theoretically, it is simply a lie that capital is robbery. Robbery there has been in every transi- tional epoch of social movement: there was robbery in the slave trade, robbery when absolute monarchs granted colonies to be administered for private in- terest, robbery and corruption in the settlement of land questions in Europe itself. But such ill-gotten gains have for the most part long since been dissi- pated. The capital now in existence is not in any sense the accretion to such fortunes of surplus value. Its natural history is entirely different: the capitalists THE NATION AND SOCIAL CLASSES 303 of to-day are the children of men who profited by none of those processes so graphically described or else they were once poor themselves. The founders of present-day fortunes were men of ability both of hand and brain; they received the current rate of wages, the beginnings of their wealth were savings due to personal self-denial, the accretions were the just re- turn of their enterprise, their ingenuity, their manage- ment. This has been the normal process. The devia- tions from it by dishonesty may have been numerous ; but they have been reprobated severely and the dep- redators punished in a moral and often in a legal way. Moreover, if free exchange of commodities and value be the basis of our industrial regime it is no sin to take interest for the use of a commodity loaned; and money is a commodity as is also credit; nor for the borrower to use the power thus acquired to secure a still higher return, which is simply the wages of that form of labor which we call ability. Furthermore, we must reiterate what was said in another connection. There are no rigid classes: there is no fixed proletariat. It is not long since a benevolent person in London gave a sixpence to each of six sandwich men; of these, four turned out to have been clergymen ! Political liberty has secured not human perfection, but the free exercise of human capabilities. The true method of reforming social abuse is moral and not political. Nor is it true that the rich are growing richer and the poor poorer. Men fix their eyes on baubles, as children do; and we have gazed on the comparatively few great fortunes in the few great money-centres until we are dazzled and dazed. Statistics are far from having the value which the physical school would attach to them. They themselves have of recent years become so wary that they posit a statistical science to guard the foot-steps even of the learned. If we admit that at any given moment there are 304 THE NATION AND SOCIAL CLASSES the three social classes: rich, middle, and poor, we find that those who were poorer yesterday are richer to-day in large majority: while only a few have sunk into greater poverty, and on these few we fix our eyes for purposes of generalization. We also discover from dispassionate examination that the dimensions of fortunes exist largely in our imaginations, that both capital and income shrink when examined dis- passionately, while the rate of interest is daily dimin- ishing. Statistics also prove that as between these three classes society at large contributes far more to the lowest class as a whole than to the other two com- bined. If robbery there be, it is the proletariat which has learned how to use the state to deprive the other classes of their property. Finally socialism proves conclusively that to create a purely economic state is to destroy the highest form of human association, viz., the nation. In fact this is its proudest boast. Our conclusion must necessarily be that while sin is a fact, adroit sinners will abuse every form of association, even the nation and far more the economic state. Sinners will suffer both here and hereafter despite every safeguard of law and poli- tics. Undue emphasis on economic questions and state interference with private concerns and with the social classes of an hour, will not merely rob us of all our ancestors have secured but open new and far more inviting avenues for the idle and stupid to prey on the able and industrious. XII THE NATION AND THE INDIVIDUAL THE FREE MAN THE ULTIMATE FACT IN SOCIAL EVOLUTION CHRISTIAN SOCIALISTS AND SOCIAL DEMOCRATS — THE SO-CALLED IDEALS OF AN- ARCHY — THE TRUE IDEALS OF CHRISTIANITY — DANGER IN WEAKENING PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY — THE MENACE OF CORPORATE ASSOCIA- TIONS — THE HISTORICAL SCHOOL OF SOCIALISTS DIRECTIVE POWERS OF GOVERNMENT — THE SOCIALIZED NATION A PROBABILITY — THE SOCIAL ALLIANCES OF EXISTING GOVERNMENTS — INTERRELATIONSHIP OF NATIONS AND PEOPLES — RESTORATION OF CHECKS AND BALANCES DE- MANDED — TAXATION, EXTRAVAGANCE, SECTIONALISM — HIGH COST OF LIVING IN A FEDERAL DEMOCRACY — LEGISLATION CONTROLLED BY MEDIAN NOT AVERAGE WANTS, THE INTERACTION OF PRIVATE AND PUBLIC VIRTUE. There is always serious danger, when we use the enemy's terms, lest we also admit his false premises. Emphatically,' therefore, we deny the existence of classes in that sense of caste which socialism attaches to the word. Just as social chaos or anarchy as a permanence is totally out of date and intolerable even to those who create it temporarily for the sake of robbery, just as communism is also an anachronism like feudalism, ecclesiasticism, and all the other rem- nants of bygone systems which have drifted like the derelicts they are down the stream of time to clog the current of modern events, so we should constantly remind ourselves and make it pellucidly clear that the individual free man is at last the ultimate fact of society; that his associations are now no longer forced but voluntary and that the only barrier to the gratification of his yearnings is his individual capacity, the nature which makes him by its limitations neither beast nor god; a creature formed in the image but not in the proportions of his Maker. No doubt the 30s 306 THE NATION AND THE INDIVIDUAL germs of every coming state of society exist in that which is present and passing; no doubt also they are difficult to discern and that the philosopher should be on the watch-tower. But progress is a new condition and not an old one returning : the remedy for the evils of existing industrial association is not another and intensified association, compulsory at that, which would so far intensify capitalism and industrialism as to make the friction between them the one all- absorbing fact of the world. History proves that the progress of the individual has always outrun the prog- ress of society: there have always been forerunners, what reason have we to expect that the order of nature will be reversed and society outstrip the man in progress, dragging the individual at her car, espe- cially when her progress is purely material, turning dis- contented, ambitious, struggling men into sleek and sleepy, contented animals ? It seems probable, therefore, that the germs of the coming social state now resident in the existing one are in the efforts put forth to ameliorate the man, each individual human being in his or her sphere of action. The relations of men to each other will neces- sarily be more perfect just as the individuals are better men and women. The great problem of the organized national state is its individual citizens, as they are, and their now existing relations to each other; what we call justice. Its secondary problem is these same persons as they are becoming and their possible rela- tions to each other; what we may style reform. Since the hearts of men are inscrutable, reform is always tentative and more or less theoretical: while justice, the cornerstone of all society, approaches the absolute. Socialism in the sense of improvement is primarily the affair of whatever deals with the springs of in- dividual action and it is a sound instinct which prompts the church to deal with sociology: with the THE NATION AND THE INDIVIDUAL 307 conditions of social unrest in order to ascertain how by saving men's souls their present life may be im- proved and vice versa, how by improving this present life an assurance of the life to come may be obtained. The Christian socialists of the English churchmen created the still rising tide of philanthropy in their country and ours, a tide which drew into it the humani- tarianism of all schools, and made cooperative distri- bution a success and stimulates the persistent efforts to find a path to successful cooperation in production. The Roman Catholics of Germany under von Ketteler [Die Arbeiterfrage und das Christenthum] bitterly attacked the "let alone" school and advised forming voluntary associations for cooperative production with capital supplied by Christian men. The Schultze-Delitsch movement for self-help was at bottom an effort of Protestants in the same direction. This reasonable ground was soon abandoned by the Protestant participators who went over to the enemy and declared that liberty, equality, and fraternity were scriptural, as indeed they are when properly understood, that competition was to be condemned as un-Christian, and that private property must be destroyed by conversion into public property, that is by its socialization. The Jew-baiting of Stoecker was a part of the same movement, aimed at the most perfect representative of the private capitalist who could be found. Out of that agitation sprang two associations: one of the sympathetic well-to-do; one of the laborers themselves. Both were hated and feared by the social-democratic party. A similar movement has been inaugurated in America. It re- veals less strength now than it seemed to have twenty years ago under the leadership of a now forgotten Iowan evangelist; but the numbers of evangelical Christians who are socialistically disposed is very large and they await an organizing leader. What are 308 THE NATION AND THE INDIVIDUAL known as "parlor socialists," a few opulent young persons who toy with socialism as an exciting amuse- ment, but hold fast to their private fortunes while aping in speech the dead-in-earnest agitators, are quite certainly the worst enemies of moderate and constitutional socialism. Curiously enough anarchy claims to have the same ideals as Christianity: "a condition of human en- lightenment and self-control" in which the individual shall be a law unto himself and in which all external authority shall be abolished as a despotic interference with personal freedom. "In a word," says Bakunin in his "Dieu et l'Etat, " "we object to all legislation, all authority, and all influence, privileged, patented, official and legal, even when it has proceeded from universal suffrage, convinced that it must -always turn to the profit of a dominating and exploiting minority against the great majority of the enslaved." This means that there shall be no organized society, that there shall not be even a minimum of coercive author- ity, no directive authority whatever. Bakunin's doctrine is really identical with that of Proudhon, the French anarchist, demanding insurrection as the last right of slaves. It is what animates the brutish as- sassins of France, Italy, and Spain; of a Czolgosz im- ported to bur own shores; men who are the logical product of teachings intended totally to destroy the present social organization. Note well that it offers not a trace of suggestion as to how men are to be turned into the ideal creatures who can exist without restraint or guidance. Christianity is the very zenith of this nadir, in that it is purely constructive. Its ideal is the prod- uct of a long evolutionary construction: it is satu- rated with the promise of a gradual approach : it does not demand immediate realization. It proposes a natural, wholesome growth, and not a violent impossi- THE NATION AND THE INDIVIDUAL 309 ble reconstruction. As this growth takes place in the man from stage to stage, the constitution of the national state may be revised so that in turn it may further the process. National action must repress only what interferes with this ameliorating process; the rest, the constructive element, should be left to the operation of the means of grace in the hearts of men, cherished and quickened by the church. The regeneration of man and the regeneration of society should thus go with fairly equal step, one supporting and sustaining the other. This process is not now to be inaugurated, it has been going on throughout the Christian ages. It must not, however, be checked by undue conservatism nor weakened by undue liberalism. To this end the forces of Christianity must be unified, organized, and used. The one central function of the church is to save souls; along with that the accom- panying energies must be directed to the improve- ment and conservation of Christian society as the nec- essary earthly environment of Christian men and women. It will not do, however, for either the nation or the church to assume the obligations of the individual. Self-help is the first thing to be inculcated on citizen and saint. Enforced self-help, like compulsory ar- bitration, is a contradiction in terms, just as in the sphere of morality habit can not replace the regular, systematic exercise of choice. Social habit is a fine incentive to personal respect, but if the latter dis- appear the other will perish along with it. The man's first duty is to himself, his duty to society is subse- quent and ancillary. Whatever, therefore, the nation does which diminishes personal initiative is just so far a wrong. We have abundant historical and present illustrations of what is called state socialism; which means nothing more or less than national action on behalf of the poor. The English poor-laws were 310 THE NATION AND THE INDIVIDUAL intended to ameliorate the poor man's lot : they de- graded him into a professional pauper, at least that was their tendency, and they increased the evil they were designed to destroy. Some of our own systems of poor-relief have had a similar effect. Poor-laws to be effective require exactly the same personal, min- ute attention as does the dispensing of private charity. There is no mystical power in the nation, not even in voluntary charitable organizations, to set on foot a self-running system: the machinery of charity re- quires constant attention and constant adaptation to new conditions. In Germany the state-socialism of Bismarck went further, proposing as a positive mea- sure for the good of the workingman a compulsory insurance against accident, sickness, old age, and in- ability to work from any cause. This measure was put in operation. It was further proposed to organize the life of the people in the form of cooperative associa- tions under the protection and furtherance of the state. Paternalism could not well go further. The social democrats were only roused thereby to fresh activity and the power of the state spoken of so jauntily as virtually inexhaustible proved to be already exhausted in its measures for military offense and defense, not to speak of the expense of repressing inner turmoil. Those who have observed what evil has been wrought by "corporate associations under the protection and furtherance of the state" for ourselves in times of profound peace and the greatest material prosperity with no undue expenditure for standing armies and war fleets are not very enthusiastic about such forms of state interference, even under the guise of state benevolence. For well nigh two generations we paid the civil war pensioners, who largely belonged to what is called the proletariat, more than the combined charges of the French and German military services: we groaned under commercial monopolies of many THE NATION AND THE INDIVIDUAL 311 sorts, we were oppressed by the corporations "pro- tected and furthered by the state." Productive asso- ciation with state help proved a delusion, in such matters as sugar and silver especially. The attempt to determine the relation of the na- tion to the man having failed at both extremes of economic doctrine; that of the free-trade school and that of the socialistic school, even when assisted by Christian sentimentalism : and the via media of state- socialism being neither successful nor even partially satisfactory to any concerned, still another type of reasoning has been evolved from the necessities of the case ; that of the so-called historical school. They incline to discard the adjective from the phrase political economy entirely and emphasize the moral element in economic study, dividing the inquiry into three categories: private economy, dominated by personal interest; compulsory public economy, dom- inated by national interest;, and the caritative sphere in which pity and benevolence are paramount. Dis- carding the jus natures of the physicists and also the intuitional view of personal freedom and of prop- erty, they base the relation of man to property on the contemporary concept of rights as a historical product, and wed jurisprudence with economy, evolv- ing a new conception of the relation of man to society in general. For them the one essential thing is to strip political economy of its predominance in the political sphere and reduce it to its place in a general scheme of social studies. They then proceed to mediate between the two ex- tremes: that which would minimize national action to maintaining order and securing justice; that is, freedom, and safety to the man; and the other which would use the nation both to destroy itself and the man. They seek to minimize the coercive functions of the state as instrument of the nation, but they de- 312 THE NATION AND THE INDIVIDUAL sire widely to extend the directive state functions. The organ of the nation must do what is admitted to be generally desirable but which is not possible by voluntary action, personal or associated. What is done must be done with caution after the fullest dis- cussion of the merits of the case itself, and of the na- tional ability to do it as determined by the national development, that is with careful examination of the relative advancement of individuals and of the society they constitute. It is no longer doubtful that the general interest in production and distribution and also in the public health should be secured by laws reg- ulating these matters. When the aged, the destitute, and the otherwise weak, such as women and children, idiots and insane, are bereft of natural guardian- ship in the family, they should be the care of the state. The workman should be allowed free play both for personal and associated initiative, should be compen- sated for injury not due to his own negligence and his savings should be guaranteed in state savings-banks. The state should likewise provide for education and museums of the fine arts. This position having been outlined and defined al- most entirely by university professors, who held a congress at Eisenach in 1872 for the purpose, was at once stigmatized by the old school as a new form of socialism: and nicknamed the socialism of the chair. Without cessation its doctrines have ever since been discussed, expanded, and partially applied. Its ad- vances in England, Germany, France, and Austria have been rapid. Even the stiff Ricardian economy has been restated and remodelled by its adherents [Sidgwick, in 1883] and no one any longer feels the bondage of what may be called the classical political economy which professed to have spoken the last word and strove to stifle all further discussion. The general attitude of reasonable men to-day is that if the state THE NATION AND THE INDIVIDUAL 313 is still further to be made national and turned into an all-comprehensive organism by thoroughly socializ- ing it, the process may, as indeed it must, go on: that if this process be normal and gradual no particular or special wrong will be done to any individual or any generation and that ample time will be given to Chris- tian men to exert themselves for the perfectibility of man and society on Christian lines. If it be true that economy cannot be studied in a single nation, but must be a subordinate branch of general social science, then the transformation of economic into political principles implies that such political advance must be general. Antecedent to the great war of 19 14-18 we were rather inclined to feel that our nation might remain external to the gen- eral movement: that we could reiterate the Monroe Doctrine and stem the world tide. Amid peace and plenty we were mildly concerned with superficial self- examination. Were we still on the ground of Adam Smith in politics and of the Ricardians in political economy? Were we slowly becoming social demo- crats or were we more disposed toward socialism of the chair? Of one thing we were confusedly aware, that we were not standing still. There was peace, there was general prosperity of a material kind: but spiritual concern was virtually non-existent and the prickings of conscience were easily stilled. In a leisurely way we were examining in detail our entire social system and smoothing out the crumpled rose leaves which somewhat annoyed us, always from the standpoint of apartness. We were transforming a system largely agricultural into a mixed agricultural and industrial one. Labor agitators had kept alive a social democracy which at times menaced our social repose. A vast imported proletariat was unable to distinguish between its conditions here and those in the country of its origin. To them there appeared 314 THE NATION AND THE INDIVIDUAL to be an alliance of government with plutocracy which was a standing threat to the license they were seek- ing under a democracy. Roman Catholicism, in prin- ciple anti-socialistic, had increased enormously in mass though not in proportion to the whole, and was dis- playing a prominent activity, on the surface very striking, yet manifestly futile in opposing the labor movement. The growth of free-thinking and of tolerance was making sceptics and infidels more de- fiant than ever before and the most sacred things were widely, freely, and profanely discussed. Being in a condition of social transition we were in a ferment of social discussion and in the examination of social foundations were in a fair way to undermine them. Forced by the German outrages into the war, we suddenly discovered in the mass what the elect had long since perceived: that we were not apart from the general movement at all. For two and a half years we struggled to keep the old aloofness, but the effort was a dismal failure. At the moment when the fearful hosts of darkness held the western powers in a strangle- hold we were transformed and almost transfigured. Theories sought a hearing in vain: our ordered de- mocracy delegated all its powers to its own chosen rulers for the purpose of securing instant efficiency in offensive warfare at a distance of 3,000 miles across the Atlantic. Our decision and promptness saved the day for the right and saved likewise our own self- respect. By this fact the European world has been revolutionized as never before in history. Human beasts have seized the power in Russia and thrown the reins on to the back of anarchy's wild steeds. In Germany, Austria, and the Slavic lands populations with no political training at all and a very primitive social organization are groping for orderly government with little success. What styles itself socialism makes up for its own dissensions and helplessness by a noisy THE NATION AND THE INDIVIDUAL 315 and pernicious activity in all lands, west and east. Over-hasty optimism concludes that there is a new heaven and' a new earth: a new internationalism and a new social order to be evolved. Perhaps: but perhaps not. The ^experience of the past remains the only guide. We are all heartily sick of the su- perman of Germany: how can the realms of inexperi- ence, ignorance, and selfishness produce a better ? The quiet and determined millions are all alert, the more so because they are not noisy. That the world of politics and economics will be different after the new situation has clarified itself is unquestioned; but the differences will emerge along the lines of experience and history. In the meantime the guiding classes have been tak- ing stock of whence we have come and whither we are going. In America the people were heard almost before the clash of arms had ceased in a clear, loud demand for the restoration of a balance of powers between the legislative and executive such as had been suspended for war, to be reestablished for peace. It was refreshing to hear a war-weary executive call for the plenitude of private initiative to restore condi- tions disturbed temporarily in order to concentrate national power for speedy victory. No important or influential voice suggested the abolition of any single one of the checks and balances or compromises of the Constitution. The American people ceased to swim in the tide of unreasoning, indifferent optimism from which for fifty years they had viewed afar off the troubles of Europe. It had not forgotten its disgust with degrees of state interference which slowly and pitifully reduced the man to the condition of a petty state functionary; destroying all opportunities for personal enterprise. The freedom of choice in the selection of any career whatsoever proves to be one between some dozen state-regulated treadmills. An- 316 THE NATION AND THE INDIVIDUAL other of the lessons learned was the relative importance of local and general government. Most Americans discovered that their interest had been largely re- stricted to federal and town or city government, the State which in reality controls our most vital domestic interests had, by and large throughout the Union, been utterly reckless in its meddling with private life. The legislative halls of the State capitals had been the sporting places of theorists and faddists: the volume of legislation was such that most of it fell into dis- repute without the formality of repeal and we were a people of law-breakers in what seemed a harmless but was really a very dangerous way. There began immediately after the armistice which closed hostili- ties a careful scrutiny not merely of what the federal government must relinquish for the restoration of former checks and balances, but of what the State governments must not be and do. At the root of all well-ordered and permanent government, essential to the life and prosperity of the nation, is the question of taxation and the public expenditure. The war aroused all the western na- tions, including America, to the inequalities and in- consistencies in existing systems of taxation and to the reckless expenditure of public moneys alike in war and in peace. The federal system lends itself to a mischievous concealment of raising funds by manifold forms of taxation, and to an unfair distribution of the burdens. It is too easy to arouse a sectional or local feeling antagonistic to the welfare of the people as a whole. Nothing short of such appalling outlays as were made for the prosecution of war and reconstruc- tion could bring the world to its senses regarding im- perative reforms essential for the protection of the individual in the national state against overzeal of rulers untrained to meet such crises. The federal state has merits far transcending those of centralized de- THE NATION AND THE INDIVIDUAL 317 mocracies, but it also has its weaknesses. The dis- crepancies in the divorce laws of the various American states make the Union a byword among nations. Under certain legal conditions a pair married in Maine and crossing the continent, may be from the mere fact of crossing one state boundary after another mar- ried and unmarried several times ! Worse than this wrong and absurdity, such a discrepancy has the tendency to discredit and disintegrate the most sacred of all institutions, the family. The same thing has long been true of the bankruptcy and exemption laws for the protection of the bankrupt, a fact which puts such a premium on dishonesty as nowhere else exists. To fix the responsibility for legislation is very difficult in a federal democracy: we at least have had a fairly long experience in working free institutions, but the European populations so cheerfully contemplating the formation of federal republics as a remedy for their ills forget how totally unpolitical are the people who will have to exercise the duties entailed on them; ex- asperating is the disappointment of unfulfilled hopes. The buoyancy of our western folk, its self-reliance, and the simple way in which human society, a most delicate and complex organism, is regarded by it have led to extravagance and trifling in adjusting the rela- tion of the man to the state which borders on madness. The United States has long been the most expensive place in which to live and that in spite of its abounding resources. By various means the state expropriates for public purposes one-third the total revenues of all property. This, moreover, is in addition to a volume of charity which takes from the individual for the bene- fit of the needy sums impossible to calculate, but which are unparalleled in any land. On the average each productive person pays two-fifths of his gross income to church, state, and charity, before he enters on the enjoyment of his own for himself and his family. A 318 THE NATION AND THE INDIVIDUAL i socialism so complete, practical and extensive, it would be hard to find elsewhere. When it comes to state intervention for the positive advantages of a single person, we are likewise far advanced. While, as was said, we protect the debtor by laws of exemp- tion which in many states are fantastic, leaving to him his homestead and all the necessities of life, his im- plements of trade and in some states a certain sum of money, houses, lots, and horses, until he is able to laugh at his honest creditor, in other respects we limit the producing individual in very stringent rules of conduct. We forbid him to acquire water-rights, we regulate traffic easily capable of abuse, or forbid it altogether, as we are now doing with the liquor traffic, we compel employers to provide seats for their shop- girls, we give workingmen a lien on the property which their employer as contractor is creating with the owner's money, we provide not only free common and secondary schools, but universities, we give free seeds to farmers, guarantee the consumer against adultera- tion, analyze soils gratuitously for land-owners, give bounties on cane and beet root sugars, coddle the miner, and nurse the tillers of the soil as if they were sickly children. We tell inn-keepers who they shall receive, force insurance companies to take unwelcome risks, create boards of arbitrators for trade disputes, and determine by law the length of a working day. The list of such palpable interferences with personal freedom on behalf of the general public, already long, is daily growing longer. Perhaps every such measure is just and legitimate ; but, if so, why not many others ? The wrong is that under our haphazard system such laws are passed for local reasons without the super- vision of enlightened public opinion; and there is no recognized principle on which to proceed. In conclusion it is evident that any rescript which merely reduces to writing a settled habit, is no re- THE NATION AND THE INDIVIDUAL 319 straint for those who habitually so behave, but be- comes a severe penalty for the rest. To secure the easy execution of laws we must make the habit they represent as wide-spread as possible. The degree of legislation, therefore, may be determined by the homo- geneity of the people and may be voluminous without being burdensome. But where is the independent thinker to find room ? still more the man whose con- duct is eccentric? where shall the reformer abide? It seems manifest that actions not criminal in them- selves or destructive of society shall not be drawn within the legislative sphere, that the different actions which may prove harmful in a certain degree shall be as little regulated as possible and that immoral actions shall be ruthlessly repressed. The only absolute principle that can be laid down is that we shall not take the second step until we have taken the first. The present state of society should be strengthened and purified by the exercise of private and public virtue with a minimum of both coercive and directive state action upon the individual. This being done we shall see where we stand and not take a leap in the dark. The historical economists will have then done their work in the examination of tendencies and if we must have a socialized state we shall be able to give it the character it ought to have: that of a moral, responsi- ble, Christian personality. Ill THE STRUGGLE FOR PEACE THE IDEA AND PHILOSOPHY OF PEACE STATE FEDERATION AND WORLD PEACE — HERO AND PROPHET WORSHIP — WAR AND HISTORY — THE PEACE IDEA IN EMBRYO THE HEBREW VIEW — THE SECULAR CONCEPTION WAR AS A CONDITION; OR A CRIME — THE FIRST TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF PEACE. KANT THE WAR CODE OF THE JEWS — THE GREEK ATTITUDE TOWARD WAR — THE STRANGER AS AN ENEMY AND AS A FRIEND THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF PEACE THE SECOND DEVELOPMENT OF THE PEACE IDEA — THE INAUGURATION AND EVOLUTION OF PEACE SPECULATION — CRUCE, OR DE LA CROIX — OUT- LINE OF HIS PLAN — THE THEOLOGIANS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY AND WAR. The highest form of organized human society so far secured being that of the nation, among the various types of national organization the most efficient is that of federal representative government. It is not wholly satisfactory because while emancipating the noble energies of its citizens, it also liberates the ignoble impulses of designing self-seekers. More- over, it has proved to be dangerously expensive; even when, as is rare, office-holders are economical with citizens' money. The servant of the community has a low sense of responsibility to his multifarious em- ployer. But with all its faults and dangers, some in- herent, some due to civic profligacy, a federal republic approaches the ideal of the free democratic nation more closely than any other form. In consequence, many wise and good men believe it possible so to ex- pand the idea as to create a federal republic of many nations and nationalities in order to secure and enforce a world peace, sufficiently enduring to be considered perpetual. Since men were men there has been a desire for lead- ership; often shamefacedly concealed, but for all 323 324 THE IDEA that, real and importunate. With hero-worship all are familiar; but there is a tendency to forget that prophet-worship has been even more wide-spread. The hero is the warrior, more or less happy and venerated, but the human storm-queller; a personage associated with organized power and constructive statesmanship; a personification indifferent to moral sanctions of individual conduct, except as they are ancillary to the compulsion on which he relies. His philosophy is that of original sin and total depravity. The prophet is the idealist, the seer of human per- fectibility, the preacher of righteousness, of equality, of pity, and of love for all mankind irrespective of condition or origin. His concept is one of least government, least law, of individual self-determina- tion: theocracy, if he be religious; anarchy, if infidel- ity give vague forms to his impractical philosophy. Yet he has done and is doing his full share of the world's regenerative work, quite as much as the hero. The perverts among his followers constitute, however, the most serious menace to progress. To the followers of both hero and prophet, to all thoughtful men, killing a fellow man is murder, a crime ; to the former war is a necessary and mysterious absurdity, to the latter a criminal primitive curse, a blot to be erased from the garb of humanity. Primi- tive man as a communal group and as a part of the physical world knew nothing except conflict as the condition of existence. Emerging into prehistoric and arrested organization the life of his community was dependent on bloody struggle. In classical an- tiquity the supreme virtue, manhood, was physical bravery, military superiority. The mediaeval world of feudalism had its being in violence, in private feuds and robbery by force. Early modern history enlarged the scope of warfare. Later, the word pacificism ex- pressed the superlative of scorn; particularly among AND PHILOSOPHY OF PEACE 325 French and German writers who for a generation past have thought in no other terms than those of friend and enemy, implacably antagonistic one to the other. Self-protection and the mythical cult of courage wor- ship have, throughout the past, established war as the sole medium in which noble living was possible. In the words of Joseph de Maistre it is the "law of the world," and Brunetiere warps the notion into the form: "a condition of humanity." Nevertheless, throughout the entire historic period there have been voices crying aloud, sometimes in the wilderness, sometimes on the housetops and in the market-place, that man is a moral being capable of choice, apart from physical nature and lifted high above it; that the state he has created has likewise a moral quality, however imperfect; that the relations of races, peoples, and nations are not necessarily those of hostility. Through the teachings and warnings of such emancipated souls, from the days of Thucydides onward an embryonic philosophy of peace can be discovered. Embryo it has remained despite the various, sustained, and pertinacious efforts to develop it into a convincing doctrine. Down to our day through twenty centuries a succession of writers describe the morality of man as predatory, that of the wolf. Such goodness as they think is inherent in humanity exhibits itself only within a narrow patri- archal society. With this doctrine of a cabined and confined morality we are only too familiar, Hobbes and Spinoza being its chiefest prophets. Locke and Montesquieu declared man, in any and every environ- ment, to be a reasonable being, endowed with an inner light. The third and truest doctrine has been that of Aristotle and Grotius, that man is a social being, endowed with the counter instincts or antinomy of self-ism and other-ism. Care for himself, care for the rest; egoism and altruism. 326 THE IDEA Yet all of these in a sense predicate the inherent weakness of human nature and regard war as a means to peace. The Sophists alone considered it as an end in itself. Parallel with these speculations ran the moral and religious doctrine of individual worth and the brotherhood of men. And from the latter spring naturally the concepts of equality and of brotherly love; in particular of love for your neighbor; better translated, the other man, even the stranger. The Jewish prophets thinking in terms of one only true God, thought also of one humanity, one law, and one equality before the law. Love your neighbor as your- self. They did not regard the stranger as a foe; to him as to the widow and orphan all kindness must be shown. This is Isaiah's most inspiring theme. For ages and ages, the splendor of his teaching was re- garded as the rhapsody of a poet. Yet the elect heeded ; his was an earthly millennium, not a heavenly; it was a literal sword which was to be beaten into a literal ploughshare. At all times and everywhere there have been pacifists basing their hopes and exer- tions on his philosophy and his inspired vision. Their fatal errors have been haste, overhaste, and bad workmanship. In particular they have scorned and weakened the state, the one and only organization through which the desired goal could be reached. And why ? They argue that because the state alone can wage war and does wage it, no good can come out of it. In antiquity the state was the be-all and end- all, for which humanity, personal and collective, existed. Medisevalism, with its longing for a catholic state as well as a catholic church, looked on a national state, based either on feudal aggregation, on unity of race, tradition, institutions, or on common welfare, as the spawn of the devil. It required the new birth of classical learning in the fifteenth and following cen- turies to found the modern state in the new knowledge AND PHILOSOPHY OF PEACE 327 of law as the basis of order. Rights were thenceforth a combination of reason and morality in the secular sense. The Stoic and Aristotelian philosophy of man as a social being underlay, thenceforth, the social order of the state and later of the nation. In this lies involved the status of peace and not of war as normal to the existence of humanity. War, followed by the tyranny of barbarism, by chaos, by the migration of peoples, by medievalism and ecclesiasticism — war with all its concomitant atrocities had devastated the civilization of the entire Roman world, the world of law and order, of learning, art, and refinement, Christian Rome. The greed and frivolity of peo- ples, and of leaders after their own heart, risked on the spin of fortune's wheel a splendid civilization slowly, painfully, constructed by the ever weaving human spirit, and lost everything; measure, propor- tion, order, learning, and beauty. Our world, therefore, entered on its career with the conviction that the whole philosophy of world life was that of peace, that war was an evil in itself; some holding that it was a necessary evil for the defense of a higher civilization against the perpetual encroach- ments of a lower, others convinced that it was an un- necessary crime against the commission of which a remedy could be found; and a few, still committed to the doctrine of predatory warfare as a "condition of existence." While each of these three classes pro- pounded its view, a true philosophy of peace was slow in emerging. Hegel's so-called philosophy of war and history, "whatever is is rational," exhibits a pure utilitarianism for the Prussian monarchy; the panthe- ism and determinism of Spinoza are the negation of all choice in the matter of peace and war. Neither sys- tem has any place for will or morality. With the out- standing exception of two giants, Maupassant and Victor Hugo, French romanticism, mysticism, and 328 " THE IDEA ./■ sestheticism In the persons of their greatest writers are all supporters of the predatory idea in some form. So, too, with pessimism. Schopenhauer sneered that, according to his opponents, God created the world only for the sake of peace. Without faith in the be- yond, in justice, and in compensation there can only be one maxim for worldliness, pure and simple; that might makes right. For the materialist and infidel to cry out that might must be transmuted into right here below is futile when no earthly reason can be given for it. Neighbor love goes a long way, but your Marxist scoffs because of its utter failure to reliever physical misery. The first appearance of a true philosophy of peace is to be found as we shall see later in the writings of Immanuel Kant. Indeed, modern philosophy in general dates from him; what was before him among moderns in the line of pure speculation, was but a pseudo-philosophy. The Greeks were the construc- tive thinkers of the ancient world; the post-Kantians like their leader exhibited the fallacies of the British school and laid firmer foundations, drawing their in- spiration largely from the Greco-Roman sources. From the conquests of humanity over material na- ture had been wrung a series of proportions and rela- tions which are the substance of a true philosophy. Science thinks about things, philosophy about those thoughts. Of such abstractions the foremost is jus- tice in a new sense, a guide for conduct based in pure reason, fitted for use in the practical reason, and moderated by the faculty of j udgment. Self-preserva- tion and the will as the master faculty of the mind are the cornerstones of a peace philosophy. Of course, the idea of peace is totally different from the philosophy of peace, as radically different as the means and character of peace from either and both. It is as old as self -consciousness, this idea, ever present AND PHILOSOPHY OF PEACE 329 in the earliest imperfect civilizations of China and India; peace under compulsion and by habit. In both it was a mere theory as indeed it was in Zoro- aster's teaching; his merit was to deny that both good and evil emanated from the Creator; that light and right alone were the divine ideal: an ideal to be real- ized when a vaguely foreshadowed Messiah came. To the clashing, disastrous dualism of heathendom, the monotheism of the Hebrews and its corollary, the unity of man, stands in sharpest contrast. We think of the Jews as a warlike folk. So they were; but their military code was very stern. To the vanquished they were to give in return, not merely civilization and humanitarian law, but likewise in waging war they themselves must render absolute obedience to the seven Noachian laws ;* in forming their treaty of peace their strictest code was rigidly enforced. No battle or siege could be initiated without an offer of peace; trees and springs in enemy land might not be injured; perfect cleanliness and rigid observance of the Levitical rule in camp was a stern duty: and nothing short of the moral degeneracy and indulgence in unrestrained, unnatural, vice as obscene, unclean, and a menace to all righteousness, justified the crushing out of the Canaanites. War in this as in all cases was consid- ered the scourge of God; in all Hebrew literature the song of Deborah is the solitary instance of a vindictive hymn of triumph. Their prophets and poets speak of God's enemies as scattered, foreseeing a totally new earth in which peace and good-will prevail. Judaism is in the highest degree saturated with the idea and ideal of peace, as a thing to be realized not in heaven alone, but on earth. For this the basis must be the absolute equality of peoples and states, among whom *The Noachian laws are seven: they forbid idolatry, blasphemy, murder, robbery, and adultery, likewise the use of meat cut from a liv- ing animal; and command the establishment of courts of justice. 330 THE IDEA there can be no question of superiority or inferiority. The Greeks share with the Jews in the marvel of an inexplicable cultural force which elbows its imperious way down through the ages. They were relatively few in number, but they Hellenized both Rome and the Orient and the culture of to-day is the reciprocity of Hebraism and Hellenism. Like the Jews they spent ages of warfare in elaborating and establishing the idea of peace; five centuries elapsed between the dawn of their history and the age of the great pacifist Isocrates. Jewish influence was sadly obscured by qualities of the race repellant to outsiders; that of Greece was so supremely inherent in its little peoples as to create the almost impassable gulf between them- selves and the world they stigmatized as barbarian. Their own city-states differed so widely in culture that their solitary bond of union was far more religious than political. Yet from the Amphyctionic league they finally developed the federal idea and created the federal state before their separate history ended. Of equality among men and states they knew nothing at the outset, and their one further advance in that direction was Plato's concept of fraternity in the " Re- public," a most seductive Utopia which his fertile brain constructed to illustrate his philosophy. In that wonderful dream commonwealth there is barely a glimmering of the peace idea. Aristotle was frankly the apostle of war. His state must be organized for peace, but its business is war, defensive and offensive. The Cynics in retort sought to undermine the very concept of patriotism; and the Stoics alone reached the full conception of every man as a friend and not an enemy. Like Plato they would intrust politics to the sages. Greek poetry from Homer and Hesiod on- ward is rooted and grounded in the peace idea, and their historians denounce the efforts of any single Greek state to rule the rest. War to that end is AND PHILOSOPHY OF PEACE 331 abominable and finally, as was said, in the great orator Isocrates the peace idea finds its full expression. Between the mental attitude of Greece and Rome toward the outsider there is not a single difference. The contempt of Greece was intellectual; that of the Romans was both intellectual and physical because the Romans were a conquering, warrior people, sub- duing to their sway, slowly and completely, the whole Mediterranean world. They were even more; they were lawyers administering subject peoples under the Draconian laws of Rome, modified only for their own advantage to make peaceful and lucrative inter- course with the outsider possible. Yet among even them the Greek philosophy of the Porch wrought mightily and with its aid there came at last to that lawyer-warrior people a sense of what has been called the immanent justice of things. Through the com- pelling charm of their Virgils, Ciceros, and Senecas, arose a sense of human solidarity, and of peace as the essential condition for the highest life, spiritual, in- tellectual, and above all, physical. There is but one Horace, to adorn with supreme genius the common lot in a world at peace: the elegant ease of the opulent gentleman and the exquisite gratifications of scholarly Epicureanism. By the Romans was evolved at last in the Augustan age the concept of perpetual peace. Thereafter their literature revels in it; peace in the Roman form under the world sway of Rome. The historians, even the bellicose Tacitus, dally with the thought and the philosophers, especially Seneca, would abolish all inequality between peoples and men. No slaves, no subject citizens, or peoples. With Christianity was added a third ply to the strand of civilization. Its author and his religion being alike outcasts and pariahs in the Roman world, its organization was totally apart from the existing so- cial and political combinations. Its central teaching, 332 THE IDEA moreover, was immortality and its kingdom was in the world beyond. The distinction between church and state was therefore sharp and the friction between the secular and the ecclesiastical orders is the sub- stance of mediaeval history. So futile and embittered was the struggle that it engendered the secular state as we know it, a political system hostile to all the claims of ecclesiasticism ; though careful in the ex- treme of religious liberty, considerate of all conduct proceeding from conscientious conviction. For one purpose and one alone the Christian might be a war- rior, for the preservation of himself, his faith, and his Christian civilization. Throughout the writings of the church fathers there is in consequence an apparent antinomy. According to their temperament each emphasizes what attracts his thought. The Roman virtue of physical courage and defensive war are not forgotten, but for most of them Jesus Christ is the prince of peace, not only over them in the future life, but here and now. In fact, doctrine exerted but a slender influence; persecution was rife and the ecclesiastical wars of that age were well nigh as bloody as the secular ones of our own. It is estimated that 10,000,000 human lives were destroyed by them. As early as the twelfth century, however, was sown the mustard seed which four centuries later developed into the Reformation. Turning in despair from the ineffectual leadership of the hierarchy, a merchant of Lyons, Waldus by name, sought his rule of conduct in the Bible. His followers survive as a sect into our time. With naif literalness they have refused all service for war, have denounced capital punishment in every form, would swear not at all, vowed them- selves to poverty, and called themselves the "poor in spirit." Their pacifism was extreme, like that of the Cathari, an unimportant sect of social fanatics; but it was a pacifism which through Durant led to founding AND PHILOSOPHY OF PEACE 333 the first peace society in 1182, and inspired the Quak- ers at a later date. So horrible was the disorder of the feudal world that churchmen began to talk of peace and justice in the secular sense. To the rob- bers' and murderers the church refused its redeeming ceremonies. Bounds were set to private wars through the "Truce of God." The idea of peace never slum- bered, but its paths were devious and lost themselves in the sloughs of rapine and murder. The dawn of modern, clear-cut, many-sided intimations of peace- value cannot be found until after the fifteenth cen- tury. The rise and consolidation of modern nations put humanity into such a stride that the good and the wise seemed to behold however dimly the goal of earthly as well as heavenly peace; perpetual peace, far off to be sure, yet no chimera, a realizable possi- bility. The humanists were its most ardent sup- porters as essential to the welfare not alone of collec- tive man, but of individual man. Thenceforward both the idea and the philosophy of peace have a continuous evolution. There are fairly definite conceptions of law, national and international, of sovereignty, of rights, of duty, of morals, and of justice; basic to all is the nation. The sanction alike of habit and force is the state. Machiavelli may stand for the apostles of war, Erasmus for those of peace. By the close of the sixteenth century the ar- ray is ordered, and the question of perpetual secular peace squarely stated. Thenceforward at fairly reg- ular intervals were written and published treatises on perpetual world peace, more or less elaborate; a series of proposals culminating in the contemporary effort of to-day at realization. Of Queen Elizabeth's "Great Design" for a federated Europe and Henry IV's somewhat elaborate plan for a Christian Republic of Christian States, nothing is to be said in the genetic record of peace philosophy because both were feints, 334 THE IDEA a dalliance with indefinite, popular pacifist yearnings for military and political ends: to thwart Spain and Austria. The list of writers with serious purpose is as follows: Emeric Cruc6 or De la Croix (1623); Grotius (1625); Locke (1690); William Penn (1693); St. Pierre (171 7); Rousseau (1754); Bentham (1786); Gondard (1752); and Kant (1795). Each of these may be said to have had a school, that is, a group of minor writers accepting their premises, but modify- ing method and aim in some particularistic sense. Cruc6's treatise is contained in a small volume now very rare, though at the time of its publication it must have had considerable circulation. Other pub- licists of the same epoch appear familiar with its contents, especially Grotius, whose famous discussion of public law was published only two years later. But of this there is no evidence whatever, and in a sense, Le Nouveau Cynee (The New Helmet) of Cruce" must be regarded as one of the Utopias, an en- tertaining and instructive, but ineffectual, essay with minimal influence on thought, speech, or conduct. As a monk, a Christian, and a Frenchman he dislikes and distrusts nobody. Non-Christians are in God's hands, even on them he will not sit in judgment. With such tolerance the obstacles to peace disappear, those alike of nationality, of confession, and of race. His peace union includes, therefore, all peoples. Un- less a man work he shall not eat, therefore the pro- ductive men alone may be represented in peace plead- ing before a court which they alone create. Doctors and accountants practise a productive science, but jurisprudence is a mere jargon of thought-confusion; and lawyers merely thwart the common sense of plain men. Those responsible for war are the princes and theirs alone is the accountability. Let the tribunal sit in a neutral city like Venice and its members be the pope, the sultan, the emperor, and the kings of AND PHILOSOPHY OF PEACE 335 France and Spain. These five shall select a sixth member, perhaps the duke of Muscovy. All other monarchs may ask for representation, but not de- mand it. In the neutral city which is chosen as the seat of the court shall reside a representative of every peo- ple: principalities, kingdoms, empires, and common^ wealths; a plenipotentiary ready to present the case of his government, whenever friction may arise, either in case of administrative reforms, which above all others are urgent, in connection with international trade and ocean commerce, or in matters of infringement upon sovereignty which might lead to war. The foremost duty of the court is to prevent war at all hazards. Should the court be unable to reach a decision, then shall the popular representatives be adjoined to it as a tribunal of appeal, and the common sense of the plain people representing the republics be the ultimate arbitrament; the pope and the king of France are to take the initiative in constituting this court. Ap- pealing to the brotherhood and solidarity of mankind Cruc6 believed a moral sanction would suffice to en- force the behests of his peace court, but should any one prince, republic, or people prove recalcitrant, the others were to devise means of making their displeas- ure, or their anger, felt by the transgressor; in the last resort, though he avoids or rather glosses the notion of physical compulsion, the united powers would of necessity enforce the decision of the appellate court by some form of police power. For the conception, even, of a proposition so broad, catholic, and at bottom, democratic, had Human- ism and the Renaissance prepared the way; the ultra theologians, like the Roman Bellarmin, and the Re- formed Calvin, were still, Catholic and Protestant alike, stout defenders of war as essential to establish- ing the kingdom of God upon earth. Whether the 336 PHILOSOPHY OF PEACE sayings of Christ and the Gospel were advisory or mandatory was a matter of secondary importance, the deepest concern was the destruction of heresy and paganism, by the power of the material sword in the hands of princes obeying the behest of the spiritual sword. Secular thinkers, their contemporaries, be- gan on the other hand to hold and propound doctrines which would secure peace by peaceful means primarily. II SUGGESTIONS FOR ENDURING PEACE THE SECULAR PRINCIPLE OF RIGHT. GROTIUS — LOCKE AS A PEACE SUP- PORTER THE QUAKERS. PENN AND BARCLAY — BOSSUET, FENELON AND ST. PIERRE — THE PLAN OF ST. PIERRE AND ITS INFLUENCE — ROUS- SEAU'S "EXTRACT" FROM ST. PIERRE AS A NEW CONTRIBUTION — THE SCHOOL OF ANGE GONDARD — BENTHAM's JURISTIC PLAN — THE GER- MANS BEFORE KANT. LESSING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY EAGER FOR ENDURING PEACE — KANT'S PEACE PHILOSOPHY OF LAW — KANT'S PEACE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY — HIS SUMMARY IN THEORY AND PRAC- TICE HIS ORIGINALITY AND ADVANCE — FUTILITY OF EARLY NINE- TEENTH-CENTURY IDEAS — THE BETRAYAL OF KANT IN GERMANY BEGUN BY FICHTE — SCHELLING AND HEGEL COMPLETE THE PROCESS. Few names are of such world-wide renown, past and present, as that of Hugo Grotius. Though a man of profound piety he saw the absolute necessity for clear definition between revealed and secular law; and it was he who first set forth convincingly a principle of right as the cornerstone of society and government entirely separate from Church and Bible. Since his day religion and law are two. For him as for Aris- totle and Thomas Aquinas man is a social being and it is the law of nature which sets them in societies. The validity of this law is independent of all interference or superior authority. Convincing the world of this truth, primarily by his colossal erudition, but almost equally by the elegance of his diction, he then ad- dressed himself to investigate the horrors of war as waged in a manner quite as bestial as that so mourn- fully familiar to the twentieth century. The age of Gustavus Adolphus and the Thirty Years War; of Shakespeare, Milton and Bacon; of William of Orange and Mary Stuart; was an age of tumultuous contradictions, and Grotius's treatises, especially the monumental one on the law of war, exhibit puzzling 337 338 SUGGESTIONS FOR ENDURING PEACE inconsistencies. Establishing the foundations of so- ciety in nature and peace, he was yet an advocate of war; war to extend and establish the reign of law, the law of man's nature. That his war-code, like that of the Jews, accomplished much, is true, but enduring peace could never come while there was personal and social lust for expansion and gain. While Grotius lays little stress on the contract theory of government, yet Locke seems to have ex- tracted his form of that theory from Grotius's secular exposition of law. Happiness and the pursuit of hap- piness is the goal of both individual and collective man. What the individual possesses in the way of rights he can bestow on the state, no more. The moral man may engage only in a just conflict and the state can do the same, no more. "I may compel the thief to restore my purse, but I may not take his without becoming a thief myself." So with the state, at the victorious close of a just war it may demand nothing except a modest money indemnity. While such a position may appear casual yet it puts war as a condition of human nature utterly out of court and had a great influence, in its moderation and sanity, throughout the English-speaking world, whose leaders, then as now, are more moved by suggestion and practical com- mon sense than by elaborate systems based on ideals. Indeed all of Locke's writing was in a sense casual, intended to explode some specific fallacy or solve a case of experience. Hence its tremendous appeal then as now. Against the murky background of predatory war- fare and ruthless atrocity, of scepticism and decadence, presented by the seventeenth century, the adroit and keen reasoning of moralists and jurists afforded only a dim taper of illumination. It was the sect of the Quakers which lighted a brighter candle and by an almost ferocious devotion to their pacifist tenets com- SUGGESTIONS FOR ENDURING PEACE 339 pelled an attention which had far-reaching results. In one sense, they took a backward step because they returned to a religious basis for political practice ; but on the other hand, they forced upon an indif- ferent world a conception of pacifism as an essential political doctrine in the solution of European troubles, then as now embittered and menacing on the humani- tarian and social, as well as the political, side. The substance of William Penn's essay "Towards the Present and Future Peace of Europe" (1693) is very simple. As men have submitted themselves to governments, so let governments submit themselves to a sovereign state of Europe. To its Diet shall be submitted all differences, by that Diet shall all de- cisions be reached; the last resort to enforce its de- crees is physical compulsion exerted by all the other governments against any member having recourse to arms. There were to be thirteen members of the federation and ninety delegates, with twenty more should Turkey and Muscovy be admitted. There was to be open discussion, but secret voting; and a three- fourths vote was to be required for a decision. His firm conviction was that wars were the conflicts of princes, then as now a fallacy. No slave is more abject than the crowned head, absolute or otherwise, when the behests of the masses are perceived. This was the political contribution of the Quakers, their foremost theologian Barclay supplemented it by a series of postulates drawn from the Scriptures which were even more influential throughout the English world than the plan of Penn, for which public opinion was far from ready. Simultaneously Bossuet was preaching war, and Fenelon peace. The former was a court satellite, mellifluous and honeyed as were his periods; the latter was a philosophical historian, a scholar, and a lover of his kind. With Fenelon began a superb peace 34Q SUGGESTIONS FOR ENDURING PEACE movement in French literature and in Germany Leibnitz, setting forth his doctrine of evolution and perfectibility, exhibited a movement of society which could only result in peace and put an end to all war. But like Fenelon he formulated no plan; first approv- ing and then rather captiously criticizing that of the Abbe 1 St. Pierre. The philosopher of movement could not work in harness with the ecclesiastic whose thought was all of equilibrium and stabilization. They had really but one purpose in common, the annihilation of Islam; neither conceived of mankind as a unit. The Thirty Years' War left Germany in a condition border- ing on barbarism and the Treaty of Westphalia at its close, in 1648, definitely split the European state system into Protestant and Roman Catholic. The conflicts of Great Britain and France were momenta- rily appeased by the Treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, sixty- five years later, to the decided advantage of the for- mer. Among the French plenipotentiaries at the Dutch city was a man whose renown as the author of an Utopian design for world peace, and as a stern, un- yielding critic of Louis XIV, is really greater than his constructive ability. This was the Abbe of Tours, Charles St. Pierre, who published at Utrecht in the very year of ratification, a project for perpetual peace, expanding it finally into three volumes (1717). It was written under the influence of Henry IVs Grand Design and contemplates, as has been indicated, a confederation of Christian sovereigns. His "Proj- ect" is verbose and dull. But so pure and spot- less was his Christian character, that he was beloved by all his high-minded contemporaries. Even Vol- taire respected and visited him. To the friends inquiring how he felt on the threshold of departure for the last journey, he replied: as if I were leaving for a trip to the country. For the publication of ail elaborate and destructive attack on the king's SUGGESTIONS FOR ENDURING PEACE 341 policies he had been expelled from the Academy, but his conduct under obloquy turned the shame to glory. Accordingly posterity has considered his loftiness of purpose and purity of soul as entitling his work to far higher consideration than inherently it deserves. It provides for a diet of plenipotentiaries representing the Christian sovereigns, sitting in permanence, guar- anteeing the sovereignty and territory of each existing state, preeminently supported by proportionate con- tributions, whose decisions shall be enforced by an international army and whose rules shall be the con- stitution of a European republic. Cardinal Fleury said he had forgotten to provide for an army of mis- sionaries to persuade the hearts of princes. Leibnitz remarked that while rulers were protected against their subjects, the latter had no redress against the tyranny of rulers: and Rousseau, at a later date, made the same criticism his own. These subversive reflec- tions were sufficient, of course, to exhibit its visionary character. But the ancillary suggestions made a deep and lasting impression. In the sessions of his Diet, supposed to be sitting at Utrecht, there should be used the everywhere prevailing language, French; there would emerge a common system of weights and measures, a common calendar and coinage and good order would at least prepare the way for further advance. St. Pierre particularly emphasized in Henry IV's design the administration of justice, the regenera- tion of international finance, the uniformity of militia and police systems. To all critics he replied that his plan was no chimera, and in regard to the unification throughout the civilized world of sentiment regarding administrative law in international affairs, time has justified him. Treaties have long, in theory at least, taken precedence over municipal law. And the de- mand that the pen shall be mightier than the sword is now universal. Probably St. Pierre's influence is 342 SUGGESTIONS FOR ENDURING PEACE strongest in Montesquieu, Condorcet, and Thomas Paine, but the peace lovers of his century with no exception were powerfully influenced by him. Rousseau's contribution to peace Utopias is in the form of an extract from St. Pierre's voluminous work, and commentaries on his various positions. Firmly convinced that the golden age of the past when men were good and free must come again, an enthusiastic optimist and ardent apostle, fiery in thought and lan- guage, Rousseau was the popularizer of St. Pierre's ideas; to such an extent that his forerunner's dulness was virtually forgotten in his brilliancy, and in total disregard of his own explicit statements the " Extract" has been thought an original contribution. What he did enforce as his own was the content to St. Pierre's rather empty form. War cannot be eliminated by violence, i. e., by war. There must be a general unity of will among all peoples, and within each state a harmonious life between rulers and ruled. Natural boundaries like the Pyrenees or the Rhine are ob- stacles only in so far as on both sides are cultivated divergent interests. War and tyranny are indissolu- ble and autocracy must cease forever. Moreover, a federation of states can of itself never bring or precipi- tate peace. Henry IV's Great Design was really a design for war, he explained; to overwhelm two despotic states. Nevertheless, while the minds of princes and peoples must be ploughed, harrowed, and sowed in patient preparation, there can be no peace without a federation. With some modification of St. Pierre's list of member states he heartily approves the general plan; when the hour has struck. In a briefer essay written twenty years later, on the eve of the European revolution, he adds to what he had written earlier a clarion call for liberty, first and al- ways, as the condition of peace. Of economic peace there is no suggestion in Rousseau or in contemporary SUGGESTIONS FOR ENDURING PEACE 343 European writings except in one of Diderot's political fragments, where he predicts that in the future trade will occupy the thoughts of men far more than war. This element was largely furnished by Ange Gon- dard, whose "Peace of Europe" was published, to be sure, two years before Rousseau's " Extract." Never- theless logically, and through its subsequent influence, he and his school are the successors of the Geneva romanticist. While there are current several details of a biographical sort about Ange Gondard, they are almost certainly fictitious and the name is a pseu- donym for some unknown scholar of marvellous erudi- tion, and keen discernment, a constructive, philosophic thinker. To what had gone before in suggesting plans for world peace, he added after a masterly historic review two fundamental ideas. First, a long armistice of thirty years, as the indispensable preliminary to forming a league: and second, a substantial, if not a complete, disarmament. For him war is not a neces- sary evil; the basis of peace is ethical and only in- cidentally utilitarian. St. Pierre had proposed a federal army to punish any recalcitrant prince; Gondard suggested a fine of 40,000,000 livres to be collected by moral force under the ban of all Europe. So important is this suggestion, that it makes a double appeal of sound sense, which has ever since been ring- ing in the ears of the wise; that for rest and serenity, as a condition antecedent to forming a commonwealth of Europe, that for such a diminution of armaments as to discourage all thought of war. In the long line of British men of letters the praise of peace is a favorite theme, but the first to elaborate a formal plan for national federation to enforce peace was Jeremy Bentham, the most famous of the utili- tarian philosophers. It was a portion of an essay on international law and his introduction is a care- ful analysis of what has hitherto produced war. There 344 SUGGESTIONS FOR ENDURING PEACE appear to him several forms of dynastic short-sighted- ness and selfishness all of which arise from the mis- management of domestic affairs in politics, religion, and trade, and the insincere disregard of what is due in like matters to foreign nations. It is not the par- ticular, but the general, utility which must be con- sidered. To this end, begin, he says, by codifying existing usages in international relations and make specific those still indeterminate; then we may in- augurate further international legislation. To avoid misunderstandings of any rule or rules, carefully edit every sentence with a view to absolute clarity. Further; minimize armaments and emancipate all colonies, the safeguarding of which by fleets and garrisons is intolerable in cost and is a perpetual invitation to international exasperation. But the indispensable guarantee of peace is an impartial tribunal, a congress to pronounce judgments and en- force them by putting any recalcitrant prince or peo- ple under the general ban. As a sanction he believes public opinion to be amply sufficient without a federal army. His historical instance is this. In 1788 the king of Sweden declared war on Russia, and both army and nation refused compliance; by the sheer strength of national opinion the fate of war and peace was decided. Bentham's ' ' utility ' ' in the field of public law, it may be remarked, is after all identical with justice. His contribution to pacifism lies almost en- tirely in his plea for an incipient codification of public law and his forceful statement of ideas less clearly and systematically stated by his predecessors. It was, perhaps, the irony of fate that on the very morrow of his death international law should, for nearly a genera- tion, have been scorned and scoffed at in the Revolu- tionary epoch; but that very fact stiffened and strengthened his doctrine in the succeeding generation. The most terrible crime of German desperation has SUGGESTIONS FOR ENDURING PEACE 345 been its betrayal of its greatest prophet, Immanuel Kant. Before his day German thought was largely concerned with peace from the viewpoint of ideas and humanity. So far did the humane consideration, the oneness of mankind, outrun the rest that in a strange confusion opposite camps were formed in the dispute as to whether a patriot could be a cosmopolitan or vice versa. Lessing alone maintained convincingly that you could be, indeed, must be, both; at one and the same time. A retrospect exhibits four types of peace plans, founded respectively on practical politics (St. Pierre); on philosophical history (Rousseau); on utility (Bentham), and on an alliance between religion and politics (Penn). Every one of these elements is combined in the peace plan of Immanuel Kant, both at the opening of his treatise on ethics and juris- prudence, and at the close of his philosophy of history. What makes Kant so prominent a landmark in the history of thought is that he routed all the forces of empiricism and inaugurated the absolutely new critical method in philosophy, a method which cannot per- mit the examination of facts as such without a search- ing analysis of the transcendent faculties by which we know facts. Exactly as he was the mediator between positivists, sceptics, and pessimists, so was he the superior of all his predecessors in the field of pacifism. With current events Kant struggled manfully to have no concern lest they becloud a mind that was fully ripe and at the height of its productivity during the revolutionary epoch; in 1789 he was sixty-five years old, but hale, observant, and keen. About one thing the eighteenth century appeared to be seriously concerned, the foundation of a system to establish and preserve peace. And the plans we have briefly passed in review, though falling among tares in a world of dynastic turmoil, one and all, with no exception, fell among fertile and receptive minds 346 SUGGESTIONS FOR ENDURING PEACE in the world of thought. Everything was ready for the advent of Kant's mediatory work. Yet, as in the case of Bentham, it was the irony of fate that the stress and tension of social and economic iniquities throughout Europe were so overstrained that the crust burst and the volcano of discontent became active at the very moment when his plan was ripe to prepare the way, peacefully, for every needed reform. Rock- fast on the theoretical side, the elderly man, human through and through, was, in spite of his futile at- tempts at aloofness, shaken by the convictions of the epoch ; and on the practical side he is not infrequently contradictory in his precepts. In the course of his discussions he condemns all standing armies, but pleads for universal military service in a national mili- tia; intervention by one state in the affairs of another is the very essence of peace federation, but he con- demns it as incompatible with autonomy. In one place, he pleads for passive obedience to constituted authority, and in another, recognizes the right of rev- olution in the interest of progress. For such venial inconsistencies the mad, headlong rush of revolution is a sufficient excuse. He did have the perspective of space from quiet Konigsberg to the day of his death in 1804, but he did not have that of time, and both, though useful forms, essential forms in thought, were after all forms and nothing more; with no reality or content. Since he could not secure both he veered first one way, then another, a pardonable error. The first Kant on the shores of the Baltic was a Scottish immigrant who seems utterly to have failed in improving the material conditions of his family, for his son was a humble saddler in Konigsberg; but his grandson, a physically frail, hollow-chested, almost deformed little man five feet tall, was yet the intellectual giant whose work is justly held to have been as epochal in the world of opinion as was the SUGGESTIONS FOR ENDURING PEACE 347 Revolution in the sphere of history; he was in his sim- plicity of habit, his clarity of exposition, and his in- tellectual bias far more Gallic or Celtic, at least in heredity, than Teutonic. Central to his philosophy of law, for example, was the doctrine of natural rights, innate and inherent, not inherited. "To limit thine own freedom, that the freedom of all others may be consonant therewith in accordance with a uni- versal law," was his formula and the basic principle of his jurisprudence. Right reason is the source of all law, and the state exists, not for the promotion of happiness, but for the conservation and adminis- tration of justice. Pure practical reason is his def- inition of the will, which as such is self-determining and autonomous. The moral law and freedom are one, a unity which is the condition of being and also of knowledge, the link between the inner and the outer worlds. The individual life is consequently conduct; the collective life is history — present and past, social and political. The realization of the per- son and the people is the goal of peace. Kant appro- priated Rousseau's form of the contract theory as the origin of the state, but not concretely as did the Genevan; only as a starting-point and as a purely regulative idea. To banish license and realize justice is the agreement of citizens in the state, and if civic relations within it are the sole care of the state, how much more essential is it that the relations of such states to each other should be controlled by justice. If international justice be administered and enforced by an international court, then disappears from on earth the worst possible form of license, the sum of all bestiality and iniquity : war. As men have devised the state to secure law and order, so they may hope and labor to devise a republic of states to secure inter- national law and order and relegate war to oblivion. To Kant it was further manifest that the philosophy 348 SUGGESTIONS FOR ENDURING PEACE of history pointed to the same goal as the philosophy of law. In this Kant divorced himself from Rousseau, who believed in the actuality of a bygone golden age and its complete restoration in the future. Man as conceived by Kant is not inherently good; on the contrary, he is prone to evil. The short life of an individual may suffice for regeneration, redemption, and preparation for immortality, but not for the per- fectibility of mankind, a species on the face of the planet which, for an indefinite duration of time, con- tinues to live and expand upon it. Its history is the story of the human spirit, active and passive. The moment man recognizes liberty of act and choice, in the exercise of reason, he severs connection with physical nature, and becomes a moral being; launched on a moral, social, political evolution, the path of progress, the advance from simplicity to complexity, but not necessarily to confusion. Disdaining stagna- tion and pessimism as unthinkable he sees a continuous movement through numberless stages from the good to the better. The proof of this was for him the gen- eral enthusiasm with which the German people had hailed the eighteenth-century revolution. Progress, he thought, with Vico, the great Italian, might be interrupted, but never stopped. The autonomy be- tween liberty and social control he fully recognized in his famous simile of the trees in the open and the trees in the wood, the former in a state of nature crooked and arbitrary, and of little worth, the latter, tall and straight and useful. He further confesses the conflict in the double human nature of every one, the longing for solitude, the longing for society; necessity mini- mizes the former and strengthens the latter. When liberty and law, self and society, pass onward from mutual enmity in the natural state to harmony in a human world, then, and then only, can the reign of law supplant the upheavals and disorders of force. SUGGESTIONS FOR ENDURING PEACE 349 These doctrines, found measurably in his ethics, more fully in his criticism of Herder's philosophy of history and still more fully in the theory of law, their author collected into a tract which he published in 1795. While there is no conclusive evidence that this sketch was his confession of faith, a creed in the possi- ble realization of which he fully believed, yet the gen- eral tone which he employs in the treatment of the theme whenever he touches it, leads to the convic- tion that the articles enumerated by him were those which he believed could be rendered operative rules of national conduct, at least, when a world exhausted and panting from revolutionary warfare should come to its senses. That his doctrine of perpetual peace is soundly, reasonably derived from his philosophy as a whole, and not from philanthropy, sentimentalism or pietism gives it a quality which no other possesses and tends to prove that he himself considered it no dream. The probability amounts to conviction when we read the concise, clear, convincing statement of its terms, which are six in number. I. There can be no peace with a nation harboring the least purpose of renewing war; II. No existing state, small or large, can be acquired from another by inheritance, exchange, or gift; III. Standing armies are to be totally abol- ished; IV. There shall be no public loan concerned in any way with war or peace in foreign affairs; V. No intervention by one state in the constitution or govern- ment of another; VI. No state at war shall engage in any atrocious practice which might disturb reciprocal confidence at the conclusion of peace; no assassina- tions, poisonings, violence of terms of surrender, or of armistice; no conspiracy within the enemy state. These six points are a preamble ; the actuality of peace, its form, is contained in three paragraphs, the first, reiterating its legality; the second, outlining its con- stitution in a league, not of states but of peoples, un- 350 SUGGESTIONS FOR ENDURING PEACE der an international law, not of war but of peace; and the third, emphasizing world-citizenship or the right of every peaceable burgher to go where he likes and enjoy the protection of the laws. Since man alone of all sentient beings can live everywhere, it is his destiny to cover the earth. Peace once established, the manifest advantage in all the interchanges of human life everywhere will sufficiently guarantee its perpetuation. It is in Kant's fifth article, which posits non-inter- vention, that the climax of his argument is reached. Monarchy has been concerned to subjugate other states in order to increase the number of its subjects, to secure more soldiers and more funds for further in- crease of men and money. Such contests ended, every state becomes of necessity a commonwealth, and a people's league a certainty. The federal union will include all states and the federal peace be enforced both morally and physically, compulsion being pri- marily legal, but ultimately material in some form, but sure to be minimized to the vanishing point with the cultivation of the mind and the consequent advance in the arts of peace. It is the mechanism of regenerate human nature on which reliance must be placed for the perpetuation of that environment in which it struggles toward perfection. Like every trained work- man Kant took his matter where he found it. But St. Pierre he outstrips in ethical emphasis, Bentham in legal stress, and Rousseau in that of reality and form. Finally, unlike all other pacifists, peace is for Kant an end in itself and not a means toward an idealistic, unrealizable golden age of stagnation. If there is to be peace on earth, and there can be, beyond that goal is an endless vista of generous rivalry and invigorating contests for the brotherhood and freedom of men. Of happiness and an unobtainable equality, equality in any respect except opportunity, there need SUGGESTIONS FOR ENDURING PEACE 351 be no discussion in accents of a sweetish, cloying, sentimentalism. The French radicals proved so intolerable in their exaggerated bombastic verbiage and in their atro- cious behavior that Napoleon, the storm-queller, the tamer alike of anarchy and hereditary autonomy, rendered all sane discussion of general and lasting peace hollow and empty throughout two generations, as far as the masses of Europe were concerned. St. Simon and Fourier were visionaries, Marx proved a demon of errors. The whole romantic movement in letters, art, and thought was bellicose, with rare ex- ceptions like that of Victor Hugo; the words of Bourgoing and Anacharsis Cloots were dismissed as ravings. But under the aegis of the Hohenzollern dynasty there began in practice and in the academic chair a subtle and sly subversion of Kant's peace gos- pel, a betrayal of the master which lasted until the torrents of German violence burst upon the world, in 1914. The ruse by which Prussia evaded the limita- tion of her standing army and introduced universal military service is well known; and in practice she continued from the moment of her deepest humiliation the policy of military preparedness inherited from her long line of fighting princes. This was no betrayal, merely a reversion to type. It was an otherwise ad- mirable man, a keen dialectician, who distorted Kant's clear peace policy just enough to lower the path from the causeway into the bogs. This was Fichte, a man of seductive charm in word and deed. His was the influence back of the sorry professional manifesto, in 1 9 1 4, and it was the signers of it who had long planned to erect at Berlin a Fichte House for graduate students, as a memorial to his leadership. Foreshadowing a league of peoples as the outcome of public law, Fichte taught, however, that the state, based on contract between citizens, exists for their 352 SUGGESTIONS FOR ENDURING PEACE well-being and the protection of their property, a purely subjective purpose for which recourse to war is necessary and right, and the decision of war, being final, is also right. His proviso that the other state can be attacked only when it refuses a guaranty of security to the menaced nation, is so feebly stated as to have had no influence in his system or on his many, many followers. For his philosophy the uni- verse is one long conflict of the ego with the non-ego, a struggle without ethical guidance between sense and conduct. - From such a basic concept springs no peace and no pardon; his international tribunal has no con- cern with justice, but only with precedent and prac- tice. Claiming to be a lover of peace he yet inter- prets history solely in terms of natural law as opposed to moral law and that, despite all vain extenuation, is war. Schelling exactly reversed the logical order of Kant; at a certain stage of progress there would arise a federation of states to regulate by persuasion or force all their relations, and from these regulations each member would be trained to a sweet reasonable- ness in time. He was as illogical as Rousseau. Finally, it remained for Hegel, in whose philosophy being and thinking are identical; and so exclude the nature of duty, utterly ; to read the temper of Prussia and its rulers with clear comprehension and fearlessly to express it. Like Hobbes he announces the wolf- theory, "homo homini lupus," as finality. War is legitimate, necessary and desirable, the indispensable condition of "Kultur." Legality is the essence of politics. To this the burgher must be compelled. So also must other states, the relations between which are fixed by treaties which should be observed, but cannot be enforced except by war. There is no "must" in international law, for there is no praetor. Lasting peace is degeneracy, men and states alike reach their true station only in war. Whatever is, SUGGESTIONS FOR ENDURING PEACE 353 is reasonable, what is reasonable exists. War is neither unreasonable nor evil. There is, of course, a pure philosophical side to his speculations, but his so-called philosophy of history sees the Prussian monarchy as the one aim of the divine purpose from all eternity. In his betrayal of Kant's positions, his place is that of the arch-fiend in the perversion of German thought throughout the nineteenth century; in the consequent bursting of the dykes and the flood- ing our western world with blood. Like every intellectual leader, Kant was both in- tensely local and broadly patriotic in temper. He never left his native city because thence he had an unclouded view alike of Prussia, Germany, and the Western World. Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel lived in the turmoil of national life, and being sensitive to its currents, reflected national passion in the systems which undermined Kant's influence, and prussianized all Germany. The succeeding periods of German history were those of liberation from the French yoke, the reconstruction of the Prussian monarchy, the federation of North Germany, the wars for hegemony on the continent, and the empire. During the cen- tury between the Congress of Vienna and the Con- gress which has been sitting at Paris, there was but a single cult in Prussia, that of the hero warrior, and by 1914 it had become universal throughout German- speaking lands. This cult has had a succession of apostles, or rather of apologists, not one of whom has had a philosophic mind, though posing and strutting in the mask of historians and philosophers: they merely marked time with the dynastic politics of suc- ceeding periods. The so-called Holy Alliance was a pietistic disguise for a league against France and all liberalism of a revolutionary type throughout Europe. Its succes- sive congresses lost in efficiency and prestige in exact 354 SUGGESTIONS FOR ENDURING PEACE proportion to the growing bitterness between Austria and Prussia until the league, distorted out of all shape and meaning, became a farce : and its author, the Czar Alexander I, a well-meaning idealist, died of a broken heart. The Revolution of 1789 and the dissemination of its teachings by the Napoleonic wars far and near over Europe affected all Germany profoundly, especi- ally the Rhine lands. From the German princes was demanded constitutional free government. They spent the whole dismal period down to 1848 evading engagements wrung from them by their subjects. The effect of this was to create among the people a passion for German unity. The French revolution of 1848 gave the German people, the burghers, a golden opportunity but they frittered it away in con- ventions and debates of interminable verbosity, until it grew manifest that individually and collectively Germans possessed not one scintilla of political ca- pacity. When German unity did come it was a unity forced by Bismarck upon unwilling princes. The Hohenzollerns were not slow to seize the opportunity. Convincing themselves that the European lands on which Germans lived were menaced by implacable foes on every hand they proclaimed themselves the pro- tector of Germany and sought to prove it, partly and mainly, by their astounding military system on land and sea, partly by such a shrewd development in agriculture and manufactures of economic resources, commercial and mercantile, as made every German comparatively opulent. Disclaiming utterly the policy of imperial expansion with their lips they began an economic penetration of every portion of the globe, linking it closely with a subtle political propaganda in the countries of Europe, America, Africa, and Asia, which amounted to conspiracy against the free govern- ments of the whole world. It is an exceedingly nice question as to whether SUGGESTIONS FOR ENDURING PEACE 355 in the periods of historical acceleration thought follows fact or whether opportunism reigns supreme in moulding thought and formulating precept. In the latest period of German history the choice between the two is unimportant and we are too near the times for a decision, in any case. It must suffice to state briefly the wide divergence of the German prophets from the sound positions of their giant forerunner. How ponderous and cumbrous the monster system of Hegel was is shown by the fact that after his death in 1 83 1 his followers split into three schools, a right wing maintaining his war doctrines on a conservative basis, but without energy or zeal: a centre, devoted to securing some balance between the extremes of his teaching: and a left wing, frankly radical, almost revolutionary, and very enthusiastic in the applica- tion of his war doctrine to politics. The younger Fichte sought to counteract the Hegelian current, but his political philosophy tended to reverse every prac- tical precept of Kant. Dwelling insistently on God as love he saw a harmony between religion and the science of his day which harder heads could not find and in the debates he discovered himself as a spine- less pantheist. His influence was insignificant. The single eminent philosopher of the epoch proved to be Schopenhauer, whose one important contribution long antedates the times in which attention was drawn to it. Claiming to be a pure Kantian, his speculation is unimportant, but his style and graphic power are unsurpassed. For him history is but a record of hu- man misery. Earnest and morally sincere, he scathes in scornful pessimism all the dark aspects of life, single and collective, and leaves his sympathetic readers in blank despair. Hartman is in some sense inspired by Schopenhauer, but believed himself to have reconciled his master with Schelling, Hegel, and even Leibnitz. From Goethe onward all German writing was satu- 356 SUGGESTIONS FOR ENDURING PEACE rated with Weltschmerz and these two masters of dis- couragement, the latter addicted to Darwinism as a possible explanation of the universe, confirmed their peoples in the desperate conviction that since an Unconscious Will had laid on human shoulders a cross too heavy to be borne, the struggle for anything de- sirable must be unbroken and ruthless. German science and German imaginative literature, that of their one greatest poet in particular, Heine, are red- olent of the deadly Upas odors. Leaving aside the question of religious faith and confession, the consequences of that betrayal of Kant which began with Fichte and ends with Nietzsche, lie on the surface, revealed to a world which long weltered in anarchy, carnage, and a pseudo-autocracy which posed as the regenerator of society. While the order it sought to subvert was recognized by Kant as imper- fect and requiring renovation, and while for a century that order has been perverted into something very like decadence, yet it was an order and not a chaos, the only order of which enlightenment had some control. It was not the witches' sabbath of social demons, the devil's spawn: and it had in it, as Kant clearly saw, the elements of a further development to secure and conserve all that answers in the affirmative the im- portunate question : Is life worth living ? Ill AMERICA AND THE PEACE: OUR CONCEPTS WAR THE ACTUALITY OF HISTORY. PEACE THE EXCEPTION AND IDEAL STABLE PEACE OBSTRUCTED BY THE STRATIFICATION OF MEN IN CIVIL- IZATION — LASTING PEACE POSSIBLE ONLY IN THE CONSIDERATE TREAT- MENT OF THE PARTIES, WHATEVER THEIR CULTURE DIFFERENCES OF SANCTION BEHIND MUNICIPAL AND INTERNATIONAL LAW. MORAL FORCE STRONGER THAN PHYSICAL FORCE — PRECEPTS OF WISDOM BE- HIND ALL LEGISLATION; TO BE EXPANDED IN INTERNATIONAL RELA- TIONS — OUR PARTICIPATION IN ACTUAL WAR BECAUSE THESE WERE OUTRAGED THE PUBLIC LAW OF EUROPE TRANSFORMED BY THE AP- PEARANCE OF AMERICA AS A WORLD-POWER — THE OLD INTERNA- TIONAL LAW IN SEVEN STAGES — WHEATON'S DEFINITION THE MOST VALID SOVEREIGNTY, INDEPENDENCE, EQUALITY: A GRAMMAR OF POLITICS, WHOSE RULES ARE PROVED BY EXCEPTIONS — THE XIX CEN- TURY CONCEPT OF PEACE. KANT'S UTOPIA — SOME ELEMENTS OF THE UTOPIA REALIZED. SOCIAL JUSTICE — EXPANSION OF THE CONCEPT HOSTILE TO IMPERIALISM, TO SECRET DIPLOMACY AND TO A DOUBLE STATE SYSTEM OF ALLIANCES — WAR OF THE PRESENT TIME TO SECURE HEREAFTER CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED IN BOTH EXTERNAL AND IN- TERNAI, MATTERS. THE POWER EMPHASIZED INTO A NOVELTY — IS PEACE POSSIBLE ON THE BASIS OF LEVELLING? HOMOGENEITY IN POLITICS DANGEROUS EVEN IF POSSIBLE. ALL LIFE THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN DIVERGENCIES THE CONDITION OF STABILITY IN PEACE THAT EACH PEOPLE SHOULD HAVE COMFORTABLE INSTITUTIONS — ONE TYPE OF INTERVENTION DISCREDITED, ANOTHER ON TRIAL. To a generation which has seen forty years of peace in Europe it seems impossible to realize that war and not peace is the habitual state of mankind. During seven hundred years before Augustus the temple or arch of Janus was closed but twice, he closed it a third time; and during the so-called imperial Pax Romana of two centuries there were fewer than forty years when there was peace even within the empire. There- after there has not been a moment when some empire or other, the Holy Roman, the Spanish, the British, the French, the Russian, the American, or the Ger- man was not at war somewhere in some degree. From the earliest dawn of history, through the oriental and the occidental ages, there have been at least five 357 358 AMERICA AND THE PEACE: ideals of empire, the theocratic, the cultural, the mili- tary, the ecclesiastical, the political, and the emanci- pational. In each were the elements of the others, but in turn each ideal has asserted predominance. The struggle of to-day began as a contest for markets, masked by ideals of democracy, a mask which in the moral order of history has become a real face. It seems Utopian to talk, therefore, of permanent peace. Yet nevertheless we may hope for a stable peace, a peace to last longer considerably than the; latest one of forty years; perhaps indefinitely longer. The civilization we have had was undoubtedly moulded in all its larger outlines by war ; the civiliza- tion we want must be moulded by the arts of peace. So we hope and so we trust and so we confidently declare. We assert that the interchange of relations in rivalry must give way to the interchange of rela- tions in cooperation among nations as among individ- uals. We are not hoping for homogeneity and conse- quent stagnation, for the levelling down as well as up which would create a social swamp. There will be and must be various forms of refinement, culture, and goodness ; while there are everlasting, immutable, absolute standards of justice and truth, it still remains a fact that they are difficult of application and will be, until we reach an approximate perfection of human nature everywhere. The absurd Utopia of one place and one generation may be a hopeful, useful, ideal in another at the very same moment. In the present there is always the past; to another form of this tru- ism we must refer later. At this hour there are men alive and active who live in every single stage of cul- ture from, and including, the old stone age to the high- est practice of the present day in European lands. Great Britain has kept the peace in her retarded possessions by adapting perfect principles to imperfect practice. When Lord Lawrence received a high judi- OUR CONCEPTS 359 cial appointment under the Indian government to ad- minister the laws of primitive hill tribes, of the Brah- min code and Manu ; and of Islam as well as Christen- dom, he drew back dismayed, but Jessels, master of the rolls, said: "Go, hear attentively, consider and give your verdict, but never, never append your rea- sons." It was a counsel of perfection and led to high achievement. If we are to have a lasting world peace it will have some such principle as that for a corner-stone. Hiss- ing and hurtling through space have been bombs and shrapnel of hate and spite talk, of charge and counter- charge which nullify every principle of Christianity and humanity. For the most part they have brought moral devastation and intensified spite, making the task of the peacemaker immensely difficult. But they have also brought the blush of shame to nobler minds and created a repentant band of guardsmen whose banner bears the fine old Anglo-Saxon device of fair play, men who will stand in serried ranks to uphold the right. Peace came with so overwhelming a victory that the conquerors have to create and maintain new states on which to impose their dictated, unnegotiated terms of relationship, a dangerous situation. There is very little originality and no monopoly in thought. The thought is the property of him who expresses it best, that is in the form with the widest appeal. Municipal law is very largely the creation of the text writers, that is, of the men historically and philosophically trained who know just how far moral right can be transmuted into legal right, how far prin- ciple can outrun practice, without creating contempt for law through a total inability of the community to put the sanction of force behind legal precept. Some- thing of this sort, too, must be done regarding inter- national law. The masses of humanity are having it dinned into their ears that they must learn to think 360 AMERICA AND THE PEACE: internationally. I fear this injunction is more sapient than wise. Throughout the long ages the state and its relation to other states, "the mystery in the soul of state " are Shakespeare's words, has been the riddle of riddles, deeper than that of the goddess Neith. Our only hope lies in the few who are not sapient but saga- cious, a trusted few who can look beneath the surface, examine the foundations of international law, and dis- tinguish between moral precepts which can be turned into law with a universal moral sanction, and those which outrun the general custom, which are still ideals and cannot be made operative by force or suasion. The thoughts of the wise clearly expressed will in time become axiomatic. Without clarity there is no truth. We say of a proposition that it is manifest, or clear, or plain, or "of course," or common-sense — and that is enough, we ask no proof and obedience is imperative. There is a body of such propositions behind every state of society which secures the momentary equilibrium of its worship and faith, its traditions, customs, and laws, of its institutions and habitual behavior. These all have been in large measure collated by students and in some measure codified. Since the beginning of our epoch there has been such running to and fro over the whole earth that the process can now be completed. We have so profoundly studied the law of nature and purged it that we can now study the law of nations in peace and war with equal thoroughness, and on a sound basis of historical knowledge. We know what societies have done in both relations; we can form a working hypothesis as to what they are willing and able to do in the immediate and remote future; we may formulate ideals and relegate Utopias to the king- dom which is not of this world. Above all else we may note the change, whether forward or backward, in applying the universal moral system of societies. OUR CONCEPTS 361 This is really our chief concern; to establish firm foundations for international justice. Democracy is essentially pacifist ; in time of war it makes a light- ning change into a tyranny. Without international justice and courts to pronounce the judgment there can be no stability. The day has arrived when no single state can be a law unto itself. This is the one outstanding reason why the United States entered the recent war. But there is another of almost equal urgency; we heard the call of humanity and of civilization as we understood it, and responded. In the age that is passing, governments intervened, by war if necessary, to protect the rights of subjects and citizens, and to redress their wrongs. It was with a sense of outrage in the hearts of most Americans that they saw our fellow citizens, natural-born or naturalized, deprived of their simplest privileges in Russia without more than a formal protest by our rulers or the denouncing of a commercial treaty; and it was in blind but in- effectual fury that we looked on as American property was destroyed and American lives sacrificed in Mexico, while the administration reversed our historical policy in order to overthrow a de facto government and set up a so-called de jure constitutional revolutionist and dictator. The dimensions of wrong mean everything to a democracy and it was only when we saw the whole fabric of free government throughout the world endangered and toppling that we were finally roused to majestic action. What every American must understand is that the existing peace if destined to endure a reasonable time, had of necessity to be totally different from any hithert) made. Since the close of the terrible wars incident to the readjustment of the European state system after the Reformation, it has been dimly dis- cerned that there was then and has since existed an 362 AMERICA AND THE PEACE: inchoate United States of Europe, The germ of the idea is in the Treaty of Westphalia, 1648. The next advance, after the expansion of Europe into non- European lands, was an unwilling recognition that there was an inchoate United States of the World. The germ of that idea is in the Treaty of Utrecht, 17 13. The next step was the Treaty of Vienna, 1815, em- phasizing a general state system. The first step after the inauguration of the commercial and industrial age was to recognize the trade routes of the world as free highways ; the germ of that idea was in the Treaty of Berlin, 1878, the clauses at least dealing with South- eastern Europe and the nearer Orient. Since then two oriental powers, Japan and the Czardom, entered on the arena in a conflict for supremacy in the Far East, while the United States, becoming a world power, al- most by accident, finds its expansive interests in direct conflict with theirs and in general rivalry with all exporting nations for control in the Pacific Ocean. This fact in itself and its incorporation in the world disaster of 1919 would be sufficient to show how far advanced beyond all other world charters, West- phalia, Utrecht, Vienna, or Berlin, this new peace had to be, if it were to have any lasting qualities. Taken in conjunction with the facts of contemporary history and the newer doctrines enumerated as rising above the old horizons, it becomes clear that the declaration of new principles and the formulation of new rules was necessarily the affair not of a European, but of a world, conference. While, of course, the victorious belligerents necessarily dominated in proportion to their interests, yet all peoples had a degree of repre- sentation. In order to give the world agreements stability, their interpretation, curtailment, or enlarge- ment, their use in conciliation and in adjudication for that purpose must be entrusted to a suitable in- strumentality with a power both physical and moral. OUR CONCEPTS 363 To insure their enforcement a new sanction for the new international law had to be considered; some, fearing the tyranny of a super-state felt, that it must be purely moral ; some were sure that economic sanc- tion would suffice, and others again earnestly con- sidered the greatest possible novelty, viz., the even- tual creation of a super-state with international armies and fleets, to police the world and enforce international law. The general principles underlying the conclusions of statesmen have found wide-spread acceptance among scholars, but the extent of them can be best under- stood through comparison between what is going and what is coming. There have been seven epochs in the development of international law; the Roman dominion dictated the relations of its conquered states to each other and to the ruling state with due consideration for their respective institutions; the church and the Roman law dictated the relations of the nascent nations down to the peace of Westphalia, in 1648; that charter proclaimed the European equili- brium, the balance of power, and the right of inter- vention to maintain it. In the fourth epoch, after the peace of Utrecht, Europe concerned itself with the rights of neutrals and belligerents in matters of com- merce and navigation, while Cromwell and the English Commonwealth gave an earthquake shock to the divine right of kings; the fifth epoch, 1 763-1 789, saw the criminal partition of Poland, the independence of America, and the doctrine of sound neutrality, while Bentham put forth his famous project for per- petual peace; the sixth epoch (1789-18 15) the age of revolutions, saw monarchy on the defensive ; and the assertions of non-intervention, of de facto government as sovereign in a nation, and of the foundation of national jurisprudence through court decisions; the latest epoch, 1815-1915, saw the rise and fall of the 364 AMERICA AND THE PEACE: Holy Alliance, the assertion of national sovereignties, and the counter right of rebellion in the case of Bel- gium and the Italian States, the extinction of small states in Italy and Germany, and the final emergence of the doctrine that states (nations) have rights and duties regarding each other, binding obligations of reciprocity parallel to, though not identical with, those of individuals. This enumeration of evolution epochs suffices to demonstrate that Wheaton's definition of interna- tional law is on the whole complete : a body of rules for conduct which reason deduces as consonant to justice, from the nature of the society existing among independent nations, with such definitions and modi- fications as may be established by general consent. This statement foresees advance, exhibits the genesis of law, and does not emphasize its nature. To avoid confusion we exclude law as meaning the partial uni- formity of nature within the limits of our senses; we also exclude private or municipal law, enforced by the totality of state power; we confine the meaning to rules obtained by the general assent of states or na- tions, each asserting its sovereignty over its own citi- zens, its independence of other states or nations, and its absolute equality as a moral individual with all others, regardless of territorial size or numbers of population, with no consideration of age, rank, or dignity. Equitably and legally what is law for others is law for it. Such in theory and largely in practice have been the organizations that have agreed or dif- fered about the rules governing their relations in peace or war. They, and they alone, are the arti- ficial persons which lay claim to moral attributes; which appeal to the moral sense of civilized humanity. In the passing age these qualities of sovereignty, in- dependence and equality were, of course, non-existent as ultimates, except in theory. They were neverthe- OUR CONCEPTS 365 less invaluable theories, for upon them all state action was based: legislation, administration, and justice. Yet any given state was sovereign only so far as it could command acquiescence from other states with obedience from its own citizens ; and neither was ever approximately complete. There always were and there always will be objectors and dissenters, unwill- ing subjects and reformers. The independence of every state was complete only so far as it could be maintained by the moral and physical force, actual and potential, which was behind its assertion of inde- pendence. As to equality among states, it has been both a beautiful and an indispensable fiction, in times of peace the most efficient and beneficent of them all. Yet every one of the three has been only a part of speech in the grammar of politics; a term of grammar is proved by its exceptions. Or else they are ideals, always to be pursued, but like the hare and the tortoise of Greek casuistry, never to be overtaken. As an exhibit of disproportion in values let us take a nineteenth century conception of peace; the best which can be found. It is based on the so-called axiom "that each state is inviolable and free, and that no state has a right forcibly to meddle with the con- stitution or government of another state. A state is a society of men which alone can rule and dispose of itself; to meddle with its affairs, whatever they be, is to render uncertain the autonomy of all states ; and tends to scatter the seeds of war which sooner or later will germinate and bear the most bitter fruit." "A gen- eral resistance of all states against any intermeddling in the affairs of others would be one of the greatest guarantees of peace in the world." "In this way a federation of free states would be formed and pro- claim as an inviolable, unalterable rule of international law the principle of non-intervention." This defini- tion is founded on what was called reciprocal inde- 366 AMERICA AND THE PEACE: pendence, a term which we must see is really a mask for interdependence, a very low degree of independ- ence indeed. In order to realize this high ideal, stand- ing armies of regular troops must be abolished. In the words of Kant, "being always ready to act they incessantly menace other states and incite them to increase the number of armed men ad infinitum." "Such rivalry," he continued, "an inexhaustible source of expense, which makes peace more onerous than a short war, sometimes even leads a state into open hostilities with the sole view of getting rid of so painful a burden." Secondly, abolish an even greater menace to other states: all loans at home or abroad for the purpose of feeding war; permit only those es- sential to the economic needs of a state of peace. The great sums of money easily obtained on credit for prosecuting war are the most frightful of all taxes, a blood tax, used to destroy life and render impossible all peaceful pursuits. Thirdly, use the referendum and ask the nation itself whether it wants war, wants commerce and industry lamed, wants its sons slain and mutilated, wants its taxes indefinitely increased, wants its aged and infirm to pay a second penalty in privation of comfort and food needful to prolong life ? Is it the government or the people which wants war? There would be instances as in our Spanish war and this one, where a free people would answer yes ; but in this latest barbarity it is most unlikely that except those of Germany, the populations of the West European Powers would have replied in the affirma- tive. Some wars have been just, useful, and neces- sary, and there will inevitably be such wars in the future. Passion never submits to arbitration as the last resort. From the Amphyctionic Council of Greece to the Hague Tribunal this has been under- stood and the justiciable discords between nations which can be settled by arbitration are few exactly OUR CONCEPTS 367 / in proportion to the emphasis laid on the sovereignty, independence, and equality of states. The instrument of peace called a treaty has never had any sanction except reciprocal benefit. Since England violated the Treaty of Amiens down to the latest violation of the treaty guaranteeing Belgian neutrality, the "reason of state" alone has controlled the observance of the hon- orable obligation implied in such pacts. Indeed, the treaty of Berlin was made to justify bygone aggres- sions and invite new ones. So brief a summary is of course imperfect, but it is compiled from high authorities and fairly represents the dispassionate judgment of judicial minds who were neither pacifistic nor militaristic, but simply historical. The peace contemplated and recommended was vi- sionary then, but to-day the world has a totally new and far more comprehensive vision of peace. That vision was based on a knowledge of mankind as it is, this one on the perfectibility of human nature. The former recognized the predatory instinct which seduces strength into rapacity, the latter fondles the concept of the benevolent incapacity of the billions to molest the individual and the glad unselfishness of the cun- ning few in quenching every temptation to best their unendowed mates. With all the socialistic, com- munistic and anarchistic dogmas which emanate from this state of mind we are not here concerned. But we are profoundly concerned with the conduct and de- mands of those who hold them. That they have ac- complished what once seemed the impossible within a single generation is no less startling because it is true. "Social justice" is a phrase which to our grandfathers would have meant little. To-day it means to the tax- payer a requisition of about half his gross income to equalize, for all, the conditions of living in education, food and housing; in insurance against sickness and disability ; in pleasure grounds and museums ; in safe- 368 AMERICA AND THE PEACE: guarding the shiftless against themselves, in exacting the least labor for the largest pay. The levelling down of the well-to-do and the levelling up of the unequipped multitude proceeds apace, while the very rich have been notified of coming confiscations in order that the pauper poor and the criminals may live softly under the aegis of reform, in what are, whether jails or alms- houses, or tenement dwellings, really hospitals for the feeble-minded, and reformatories for the depraved. We have so civilized our world as to minimize both personal and family responsibility and to reverse the order of nature that as a man soweth so also shall he reap. Shame has been relegated to the rummage chamber of discarded antiquities; emotionalism knows no shame. Not having disavowed the bases of supply for this successful campaign in the former ideals of peace, which themselves far outrun actualities, the emotional reformers have devised later ideals almost contra- dictory of the passing ones, and likewise outrunning possibilities quite as far as they did. Let us beware lest we fail to discern the face behind the mask. An- tecedent to 19 1 7, there were certain outstanding facts of policy entertained by each of the European powers. Germany avowed its European territory sufficiently large except for certain "rectifications of boundary" to include all Germanic peoples, but demanded free trade by land and sea, and German colonies for Ger- man settlers outside of Europe. Italy proposed to redeem all lands where Italians dwelt, to have its share of Roman Africa, of the isles of the jEgean, and to make the Adriatic an Italian lake by seizing Albania in the partition of European Turkey. Russia had al- ready seized half of Persia, most of Armenia, and de- manded the Straits with Constantinople. Great Bri- tain had for a brief moment fondly believed her water highway to India secure when she occupied Egypt, OUR CONCEPTS 369 but found to her dismay that Central Europe was "protecting" Southeastern Europe and Asia Minor in such a way as to jeopardize her control; she had taken the other half of Persia, reversed her an ti- Russian policy and now set her back to the wall. Since 1874 France has agglomerated the second greatest colonial empire of the world and has yearned to reclaim Alsace- Lorraine. We have seen Cuba and the Philippines forced upon us ; decency and order in Central America, and certain West Indian isles are dependent on our marines, and we have come to a consciousness that we are no longer an American, but a world, power, under compulsion to protect ourselves on the western con- tinent against the expansionist, imperialistic govern- ments of Europe. This was all before the war, when peace and pacifism of the nineteenth-century type prevailed and a nice equilibrium was maintained by the sleight-of-hand known as secret diplomacy, when governments were partners with trusts in exploiting undeveloped portions of the globe. But as the war progressed it proved a more desperate struggle than had been deemed possible and elements of brutal ruthlessness which might have been foreseen, but were not, began to distress not only the belliger- ents, but substantially the entire civilized world. It proved to be not merely a struggle for power in the less civilized parts of the earth, but the grim array of two types of civilization, our own and that of Germany, for their very existence. Into this titanic struggle we threw ourselves whole-heartedly for the maintenance of self-respect in part, but largely from a sense of the most imperative duty to preserve the institutions and traditions not merely dear to us, as they are, but es- sential to the only life we are able to live — for self- preservation as well as for self-respect. Dimly and vaguely conscious of this as we finally were, we began as other great powers were doing, to ask ourselves for 370 AMERICA AND THE PEACE: what we were appealing to that last awful tribunal of bloodshed; not what we wanted in the large, which seemed clear enough, but what we must fix in detail. Some said that we went to war for nationality, some for democracy, and many for the liberation of en- slaved peoples from the bondage of autocracy: more clearly stated, for nationality everywhere such as we possess at home, for democratic government every- where such as we maintain in America, for liberty under law such as Americans demand and enjoy. Those who have read history talked before the armi- stice and continued to talk about restoring Schleswig- Holstein to Denmark, Alsace-Lorraine to France, Savoy to Italy, Poland and Finland to independence, Persia to autonomy, the Slavs of Austria-Hungary to equal rights with Germans and Magyars under the Hapsburgs, the Shantung peninsula to China, Ireland to home rule, and all the dependencies of the United States to self-government. Of course these are only samples; there are eighteen peoples and nations within the former confines of Russia; there are certainly two Chinas, perhaps three ; within the Balkan peninsula are five different claimants to self -directing nationality. To those who have deeply studied history these are not the words of soberness and sense. Since the world began there have been aggregations of individ- uals united by blood or territory but mainly by com- mon interest, the respublica: throughout the ages some have shown capacity for self-government, some have not. Society in the large sense did not originate in physical strength, there never were gorilla com- munities reliant on their own brute strength for pro- tection against marauders while practising the arts of peace in the tillage of their fields. There was no up- lift toward civilization in the hunter stage and no smooth transition from that to the nomadic and further to the settled occupations of fields, villages, OUR CONCEPTS 371 and towns. In every case known to research there were wars and convulsions from which guile, that is, mind, emerged triumphant over brute force. It was the union of physical weakness which produced the strength essential to security : there was, of course, constant warfare, but fortification, tactics, and strategy, however primitive, overwhelmed sheer brute onset ; organization conquered numbers, nerve power, which is will power, began the never-ceasing relegation of animalism into the limbo of impotence. Then history began ; ideals were formed ; the statesman out- ran the general even, in all that makes for progress. Why civilization moved westward to Europe and crossed the Atlantic is understood and can be ex- plained, but not in a few words. The fact is sufficient and the vestiges of its march are an open book to the traveller. What was initially true remained true; that, around the globe there were and are degrees of culture among persons and peoples, that the inequal- ity of adaptation to high forms of living is glaring, and that the social institutions of the few are abso- lutely impossible to the many, that politics must fit a nation like a garment and that misfits cause unrest with recourse to violence. Past and present are words totally destitute of meaning in the grand poli- tics of our planet. The past is in the present, it is here and now as regards institutions, laws, and forms of government. We cannot burn this fact deep enough into our souls. It is a crime against humanity to think of other peoples in terms of ourselves and our folkways: in terms of our ideals and efforts to realize them. There is no reprobation sufficient for that trend toward intervention of a narrow self-sufficiency which con- ceives of the savage, the barbarian, the man of the tribe, the city-state, and the modern nation in its varied forms, as e/ther desiring, or needing, the com- 372 AMERICA AND THE PEACE: plexities of free democracy. How far even we our- selves are fit to work the most perplexing and expen- sive system of government ever devised is as yet un- determined. But for the free chance, the unhampered opportunity to realize our ideals, we have sweated money and blood; we lay, and, please God, we ever will lay our lives and fortunes on the altar of political liberty — hitherto we have made our enormous sacri- fices for ourselves and those within our gates, hence- forth, we make the same free-will offering for the great world without, in so far as it desires our gifts and can by their acceptance strengthen its own purposes and fructify the blossoms of its own aspiration. We shall, indeed, be foolish if in the coming enforcement of peace there is any effort, successful or otherwise, to impose on any or all the stratified humanity of the world our dim, vague, yet precious and vital notions of nationality and constitutional government; or of democracy, that iridescent arch of promise in our heaven. Such a preamble to peace negotiation was, however, forced on the allies and, chilling many ardent reform- ers, continues to be stigmatized as reactionary. The plea is hypocritical and Pharisaic because the merest wayfarer can read the clear truth: peace stability depends on national institutions being a good fit and no institutions from a second-hand shop will fit any single nation when the war is over. Japan wants a limited autocracy — strange oriental contradiction in terms — and has it. What Russia or th§ many Rus- sias desire they must eventually secure, monarchy with or without checks and balances. France must remain a centralized republic or oligarchy as it is or turn federal republic, as has been proposed. And so on throughout the list, with stable governments there can be peace, without them none. There are careful thinkers holding the conviction that when OUR CONCEPTS 373 Bismarck set up the Thiers government and gave it the prestige of ending the war of 1870, he knew the device could barely outlast a generation. If we want an armistice let us by all means not merely set up foreign governments which correspond to our own notions and continue to maintain them by military and economic force; if we want peace let the respec- tive peoples mould and maintain their own in order to have within their borders the only peace which can insure peace without. This is a novelty in the relation of nations to each other because in the passing and antecedent ages the contracting parties under international law have without exception had governments imposed on them by the hard hand of history or custom, or else by the hostile temper of each nation regarding every other. The only country working a system made by a con- stitutional or constituent assembly is our own; and to this single fact we owe the rock-ribbed durability of the constitutions under which we live, state and federal. How shameful such an outcome ! many will exclaim. Perhaps. It remains a fact that "shame in the mantle of profit or advantage to its citizens has ever been pronounced wisdom." There is no inherent absolute right in sentimentality or emotionalism; neither is there any in the pragmatism based on ruth- less, selfish practicality. But in perpetuating a peace with a people content in its particular form of govern- ment there is no emotionalism whatever and no prag- matism, there is just an effort to secure what the world has set out to get. Antecedent to the smooth working of the next world charter the peoples must — not by plebiscite, a futile deceptive tricky device, but in representative assemblies select and instruct their negotiators, responsible delegates of the popular will, constitutional bodies with power to maintain or to discard the men and groups who have made and 374 AMERICA AND THE PEACE conducted the war. Mere appointees of a party machine or a ruling caste cannot negotiate anything stable and bring in the reign of new principles in inter- national relations. If theoretical independence is to be replaced by actual interdependence the fact must be proclaimed; if not there can be no enduring peace. Mephistopheles declares: "I am a part of the force which, ever desiring evil, yet always creates the good." Possibly there is something basic in good resulting from evil as it does; but impatient democracy calls for a good beginning that there may be surely a good end. IV FURTHER CONCEPTS OF THE PEACE POPULAR PARTICIPATION IN MAKING WAR AND PEACE SO FAR VERY SLIGHT — LEGAL ABILITY AND TECHNICALITY IN CONTROL OF INTERNATIONAL RELATION. CHANGE DEMANDED — THE IDEAL OF PUBLICITY IN DI- PLOMACY AND ARBITRATION. THE NEW INTERVENTION — DEMAND FOR DIRECT POPULAR CONTROL IN PUBLIC LAW. DAILY EXPEDIENTS FOR DAILY NEEDS — CONSPICUOUS EXAMPLE OF THE UNITED STATES IN HARMONIZING MUNICIPAL WITH PUBLIC LAW — A STILL GREATER NOV- ELTY IS INTERVENTION BY WAR TO MAINTAIN IDEALS, NOT FOR MA- TERIAL GAIN THE INTERVENTION OF ALL EXISTING STATES IN EACH OTHER'S AFFAIRS AS AN ADVANCE TOWARD PERPETUAL PEACE: ST. PIERRE, ROUSSEAU, BENTHAM, KANT, WHEATON — THE MOBILIZATION OF DEMOCRATIC STATES FOR PEACE A COROLLARY OF THEIR MOBILIZA- TION FOR WAR. QUESTIONS — FAILURE OF OLD EXPEDIENTS TO ANSWER THEM. THE ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION AS A KEY — FALLACIES TO BE EXPOSED — DUTY TO POSTERITY. CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RE- SOURCES — THE INTEGRATION OF DEMOCRACY — ANTAGONIZED BY NA- TIONALISM NEUTRALIZATION OF AMERICAN AS WELL AS OF OTHER INTERESTS. THE IMPERIAL DOMAIN AND THE PANAMA CANAL. Some years ago there was made under the writer's supervision a careful study of how far the people of Great Britain or their parliament had been concerned in either the declarations of war or negotiations for peace since the Congress of Vienna. In every case her ministers had acted with true British individual- ism and it may be asserted that war was either de- clined or declared by secret diplomacy, generally by the personal act of the premier or minister for foreign affairs. In a far higher degree public opinion has been consulted and followed in the wars waged by the United States : even the Mexican War, so detested by New England and the Anti-Slavery men of the North, has come to appear in a new light, as a retort in pres- ervation of our self-respect to a shameless oligarchy using us as an ogre wherewith to lash a barbarous people into warlike frenzy for the support of their own ambitions. Nevertheless, the Treaty of Ghent, the 375 376 FURTHER CONCEPTS OF THE PEACE Treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo, and the Treaty of Paris, 1898, which ended the Spanish- American War, were products one and all of personal statesmanship, finding in the process of ratification by the Senate a menacing opposition which yielded from patriotic motives to save the face of an administration. As far as continental European nations are concerned there has been no pretense, whether in absolute or limited monarchies, not even in the highly centralized republic of France, that the people through their representa- tives had any capacity for negotiation. Only a few highly trained men in each country have thought internationally; from their scanty ranks have been chosen the comptrollers of international destinies in war; their conduct and correspondence have reflected secret instructions from a bureaucratic hierarchy. The successive treaties of peace negotiated by such men have been based, therefore, on the nineteenth- century conception of international law and relations ; a law which in the hands of professional lawyers has tended more and more to become a system of case law, parallel to municipal or positive law, rather than the expression of the precepts of a moral law accepted by all civilized peoples. Particularly in the decisions of national, notably, of course, British, prize courts there has been a source of friction between nations rather than a strengthening of ties across a common inter- national understanding. The history of international arbitrations is proof of this: entrusted for the most part to mixed international courts, composed for each party urging its plea, and likewise for the arbi- trator, of some men expert in public law and other men expert in the private law of their respective countries, the decisions are a mixture of law and equity, totally incomprehensible to the lay mind and generally exasperating to the losers. That they rep- resent in the main exact justice is generally admitted, FURTHER CONCEPTS OF THE PEACE 377 but as a portion of international law, quite as recondite as diplomacy, they arouse no enthusiasm and some sul- lenness in the popular mind. The press and the public have come to expect a new procedure consonant with new ideas in both; regarding negotiations for peace, war, or alliance. If we are to make peace through elected popular representatives, we must also make alliances in times of peace in the same way, if, indeed, there are to be any alliances hereafter: and arbitra- tions must be carried forward by lay courts, excluding certainly the practitioner of national law and possi- bly the professional publicist. What is believed to be homely democratic common sense is to determine reciprocal advantage or disadvantage, political, social, and economic, especially the last. The expert may be called to advise, but his judgment is only ancillary to higher considerations. The people, or the tribunes of the people, shall decide what to demand and what to sacrifice, what political advantage to forego in defeat and what to exact as the price of victory. That diplomacy and arbitration should be matters of publicity, controlled by public opinion, destitute of technicalities, is fondly desired since it would give per- manence to their achievements and create alike peace and good will among men. All treaties would de- pend for observance and validity, not on the needs of ages long gone by, nor on (what was given ages be- fore) the plighted faith of an organic state with un- broken continuity and identity; nor on the shifting sands of self-interest; but on the contentment arising from their correspondence with the changing desires of the contracting parties. We all recognize that such feeling is idealistic, but the ideals of to-day may be the facts of to-morrow. Indeed, such has been the course of all history. Take an example or two: When the cross-bow was invented and used in battle it was denounced from the chair of St. Peter as a 378 FURTHER CONCEPTS OF THE PEACE lethal weapon, an invention of the devil, and was for- bidden in civilized warfare. Gunpowder overthrew one state of society and inaugurated another. Nat- ural science has furnished the world with a succession of mortars, guns, explosives, missiles, and deadly bombs of smoke and poisonous gas which not only strip war of all chivalry toward a foe, but prolong its duration, and heap up the living and dead in moun- tains of mutilated bodies, called human, but too foul and mangled for the shambles. The murders at Jaffa which made Napoleon Bonaparte a monster in the eyes of Europe, would in our day be regarded as trivial, an error of judgment at the worst. The causes of our war with Spain were a veiled but actual mission- ary zeal, brought to the exploding point by the main- tenance of a yellow fever pest-house at an important doorway. To intervene for such reasons in the affairs of a friendly power would have been thought intoler- able by our fathers, but we have not ceased to con- gratulate ourselves amid the plaudits of a majority of civilized men. The higher must crush the lower civilization or perish itself. If Samuel had not hewed Agag in pieces, Agag would have hewed Samuel in pieces. Similarly there was general approval when Japan wiped Corea off the map, because the effete Coreans did not occupy their land in a way beneficent to the rest of mankind. All these are instances of how ideals, apparently wild, have proved practical and have been realized ; of how later generations regard with equanimity and even admiration practices once considered abhorrent. Let us be humble and charitable in the face of such startling truths, and let us not sneer when we are told that King Demos is about to take the complicated matters of negotiating peace, declaring war, com- posing differences of opinion and interest, and con- ducting diplomatic negotiations, into his own hands FURTHER CONCEPTS OF THE PEACE 379 and dispense with governmental intermediaries. His plan could not possibly work worse than that which has been tried for ages and been found wanting. The organs he needs are to be created for the momentary purpose and then destroyed, the arguments necessary for the present are not to be encumbered by tradition and are to last only while those who make them are sat- isfied. Americans will for the moment put up with any administration, however dictatorial, and with the exercise of arbitrary power to any degree ; cherishing the consolation that the next election for president will end what may be felt intolerable. Our society seems to find the term of office too long and chafes: it is prepared to try a new experiment: to banish permanence and all the accumulated experience of the past from international law. Centralization and continuity with identity and moral responsibility have been the avowed goal of national evolution — and the end thereof has apparently been the negation of all civilization. The proud boast of natural and economic science was that great empires are essential to cosmic order in the world, each enormous federa- tion managing its external relations with a view to further its internal interests, and so minimizing the number of parties at the international bar. Were there but five great powers in the whole world it would be fairly simple for the people to choose repre- sentatives, establish a parliament of states and en- force its decrees against any one or even two states refusing obedience. But with fifty powers each claim- ing equality as under the older and vanishing law of nations such a league would be very hard to form and harder still to maintain. The idea was over-weighted and the boast a bubble. The example of the United States is a stirring one. Here are forty-eight commonwealths, each free, in- dependent, and sovereign as regards internal matters, 380 FURTHER CONCEPTS OF THE PEACE but under the stern restrictions of a central govern- ment which only thirteen had any share in creating. Each must have a democratic republican form of government; each must respect the laws of all the rest; each commends interstate relations to the cen- tral power; each must obey the behests of the federa- tion in matters of war, peace, and diplomacy; inter- national treaties are paramount to municipal law; every type of inequality as to population, territorial size, and representation is tolerated ; federal courts of all varieties and kinds of jurisdiction take precedence over others; local self-government has its limits strictly defined ; there is, in short, an illustration here of how international relations, interstate relations, and the internal affairs of half a hundred semi-au- tonomous governments not only can be, but actually are, combined in a harmonious and efficient working. This fact has not passed unnoticed by enlightened ob- servers the world around. Earlier in this discussion it has been emphasized that out of mediaeval condi- tions there was produced the embryo of a United States of Europe known as its state system, that there have been striking parallels and coincidences in the historical development of its members, and that the absolutism which made the states yielded to constitu- tional monarchy, while democracy steadily grew in extent and intensity until we first devised and realized the idea of a short-term elective king, and of revising at intervals both politics and institutions so as to in- sure liberty under equity as well as law in each of our commonwealths, and then advanced to the completed federal union under which we live. It is no wonder then that the peoples of the world have keenly ob- served and keenly criticized the American system, and at this conjuncture of events either long for or revolt against its expansion. It admits of no possible contravention that an en- FURTHER CONCEPTS OF THE PEACE 381 during peace must be negotiated not by officials rep- resenting governments, but by men chosen for the purpose by popular vote, assisted, of course, by ex- perts of their selection. It now seems equally clear that in the new social world under the new sanctions of international law, the consent namely of those who are to live in peace, there must be a wide play for differences of opinion based on differences of culture and tradition. We, for example, declared a state of war through a representative president and a repre- sentative congress, under the solemn conviction of the people that our self-respect was already jeopardized: that our long-suffering was interpreted as weakness, and that our very existence consequently was at stake in the final arbitrament of war. Dare we forget that now when hostilities have ceased, others feel as we were feeling, that justice demands a certain degree of consideration for their social, political, and institu- tional identity, and that what we have fought, died, and paid for is nothing more or less than the superb Anglo-Saxon heritage of fair play, not alone for our- selves, but the rest of mankind in a world as motley in disposition, temperament, and ideals as the colors of a tartan plaid or a patchwork quilt. We shall have the right as time passes and things settle down to know through their popular representatives what other peoples — not administrations or bureaucracies or plutocratic combinations — but what the peoples con- sider essential to their self-realization in territory, in nationality, in form of government. Knowing that, we must practise the sternest self-restraint in imposing on those unfit for them, American institutions, which are after all not so very perfect a fit for us who wear them. This making a peace by representatives would be a kind of intervention utterly different from what history knows by that name, and would go to an ex- tent far beyond what the past has dared to consider; 382 FURTHER CONCEPTS OF THE PEACE yet it would save the face of all the parties to the com- ing tests of the new treaty and might further the en- during peace of the world. As our respective states intervene in each other's affairs through the federal government, so a higher development of international law would tolerate a higher degree of intervention than ever before, because it would be different in kind, corresponding to the democratic temper of a new age. The phrase, enduring peace, is a most attractive one as the goal toward reaching which we strain every effort. Jeremy Bentham, as we have seen, in an epoch quite as humiliated and exasperated by the failure of historical expedients as our own, took refuge in pure theory to find his plan for universal and endur- ing peace. Doubtless he was familiar with his pred- ecessors St. Pierre and Rousseau, but, to recall what was said before, the elaboration of the federal scheme is his own. Briefly stated, he demanded a congress of deputies, two from each existing state, which should determine international disputes. Its decrees were to be enforced against any state that might assist them by the combined power of the rest. As a preliminary condition he required the reduction of military estab- lishments and the abandonment by European nations of their colonies. Kant likewise, as has already been stated, exposed the dangers inherent in military pre- paredness. His vision required a confederation of states all under republican constitutions and acting in international affairs through congresses to be held from time to time. There are most startling resem- blances between the plan of Kant and the plans of contemporary reformers, a fairly complete realiza- tion of which can be seen in our American system. But both these forerunners spoke to heedless ears and properly so : the world was still unready, and unready it yet remains, although enormous advance toward their ideals has been made except in three respects: FURTHER CONCEPTS OF THE PEACE 383 military establishments have been increased, not di- minished; colonial empires have been enlarged, not curtailed or abandoned ; and, worst of all, the very best and most highly civilized peoples mobilize the credits of an organized society to unheard-of limits so as to support and enlarge the war-power of the nation by supplying ever more horrible weapons of offense and defense; so that posterity, which is to enjoy the benefits, may pay most of the costs. Is it any wonder that sane and finite minds are in despair and declare with Wolff, Wheaton, and the half-Kantian school that the only feasible advance in international law is a codification, such as was begun in the St. Peters- burg and Geneva conventions, continued in the treaties of Paris and Washington (1842), but never completed. The behests of international justice, examined in the light of experience and magisterially stated — even by a single text writer, much more so by an official peace congress — compel attention always and sometimes obedience by the sheer force of moral correctness. It is, indeed, democracy with a vengeance when a population of a hundred million or more, a great power with all its dependencies, is mobilized in taxation, labor, conscription, commerce, finance, and even the fine arts (camouflage and vigilantes) mobilized from children of both sexes to the aged of both sexes for the conduct of a war. Yet exactly this has democra- tized the autocracies and made both class and mass conscious each of its correct value in the state. In Russia the boiler exploded, in England socialization to a degree never imagined has taken place, in France radicalism and socialism have ranged themselves with the middle class and abandoned the counsel of despair; the German people began to express in 1918, sotto voce, a doubt, in dazed wonder, whether their rulers had or had not misled them ; they now proclaim the 384 FURTHER CONCEPTS OF THE PEACE certainty both in word and deed, while throughout the southeast of Europe the semi-civilizations are disen- ' chanted with the type of nationalization and the theory of nationality which have proved a pestilential delusion in their politics. If we have democratic war we must have democratic negotiation and demo- cratic intervention ; using the word democratic in the sense of majority consent to the final arrangements made by a peace congress representative of the peoples participating in it. Let us therefore once more re- peat that the conference had two very distinct sets of questions: one, those primary to the outbreak of the war, the other, those which had arisen during its course, the secondary ones. Why was recourse had to arms and who began the horror ? What intol- erable offenses have been committed and how pre- vent them hereafter? Can democracy disarm and will it? Could European powers abandon their colonies and will they ? Could public finance eschew war loans and the people insist on it? Could the state system of the world be divided into a few vol- untary federations which will meet regularly in con- gresses to preserve and enforce peace, or must the previously existing political combinations be splint- ered into a multitude of separate states asserting each its nationality in kinship, religion, laws, and institu- tions ? Could a liberty of the seas and a freedom of trade in all markets be devised and entrusted to the police guardianship not of one power, but of a union of all powers? When there is a demand for self- direction by an oppressed nationality, what must be the numerical strength, the territorial size, and the degree of culture essential to the granting of such a request ? These questions were not enumerated in a spirit of irony. They were importunate and imperative. No answer was possible on the basis of historical experi- FURTHER CONCEPTS OF THE PEACE 385 ence. The. past is rolled up as a scroll and its oracle is dumb. No degree of homogeneity in blood, lan- guage, or even aspiration has so far secured to large numbers unity of nationality. There have been the bitterest hostility in civil war, the fiercest struggle for mastery between kinsfolk of one nation and their blood relations of another. The ambitions of men and parties regardless of every tie have delivered over the multitudes of mankind and the fairest portions of the earth to murder and devastation. No devotion to re- ligious confession or to political constitutions could prevent schism or woo the dove of peace. The mystery of conciliation between conflicting interests has never been solved. In the years just antecedent to this war there was much confidence that economic history, or history of wider scope called social history, would afford the key. It was pointed out that river systems with their alluvial lands and easy transporta- tion had been the earliest seats of agricultural pros- perity. The wild, brave peoples of surrounding des- erts or of mountain chains had envied the wealth and luxury of the early river empires and finally had re- duced them to submission by armed and organized force, a process repeated just as often as the successive invaders and possessors grew effeminate through luxury. Again there were peoples whose seats on the seashore made them the traders and middlemen of the time, gathering raw material from undeveloped lands and enriching themselves by the commerce of manufactured articles. These too in turn aroused envy; and piracy was the normal form of barbaric sea relations. Then a rude form of international law began to regulate the ocean highway, reacting on the shore and continental peoples to render safer the lines of traffic by land. Thereupon necessity invented money and credits, the whole system of international banking in embryo. While nations were content with 386 FURTHER CONCEPTS OF THE PEACE the home market for natural products and manu- factured goods, there could be little friction: when they began to export both in a fairly even balance of exports and imports the peace could still be maintained by clever negotiation: but when finally nations be- come creditors, exporting money to exploit undevel- oped lands under an alien sovereignty then hostility begins in the minds of the creditor states and di- plomacy becomes little more than a suspensive process to prolong the truces between wars. Very interesting, very instructive, partly true, this economic solution of the mystery. To the negotiation of a peace, however, it added still greater complexity than even the consideration of nationalities and nat- ural boundaries so modified as to give every state a shore line on the high seas. The peace conference has had to partition the undeveloped earth, which is at least sixty per cent of its land surface, into spheres of influence for nations with money to lend. Incom- pletely, secretly, and timidly, that had already been done; but the secret must out, the world must know what all the respective treaties are which relate to every creditor nation and every debtor power. The common talk is very incendiary: that Cuba is the appanage of a sugar trust, and Central America of a fruit trust, and Mexico reduced to its sorry plight by the embittered strife of two embattled oil trusts, cop- per trusts, hemp trusts, and the like. The most specious falsehood of ours and every similar crisis is the unblushing declaration that all war is ignoble be- cause at bottom it is the capitalistic class which profits while the middle class of tradespeople and artisans make all the sacrifices, even of family and life itself. This fallacy is the basis of pacifism : self-respect cannot be personal unless it is both national and international, honor is impossible in a dishonored family or a cring- ing state, when both cheeks have been smitten so- FURTHER CONCEPTS OF THE PEACE 387 cially, life itself commands resistance and battle fury. For the non-existent there can be no God; while there is life, there is the embryonic concept of God as the Lord and Giver of Life, whose gift we must defend at any cost or hazard until overpowered. We are not overpowered when first we think so: there is a second and a third wind ; survival is a matter of nerves, of courage, and the will to live. Another of the questions which rise like highest peaks among the minor ones, is that of what we owe to posterity. If we have any memory we must recall our own long and acrid discussions seven years ago of what one civilized generation owes to those who are to come after, of what the fathers owe to those for whose existence and nurture they are responsible. We have styled this question the conservation of nat- ural resources: forests, mines, water-power; natural beauty in national parks, historical monuments, and all collections of aesthetic or traditional value. The French, in 1812, tried to reduce to ruin the splendid churches of the Kremlin and assembled the art treasures of the world in Paris: they merited and received universal reprobation. The Germans have destroyed with ruthlessness the mediaeval architecture of Belgium and France on the plea of necessity and have brought on their rulers and themselves a just and general despite. Such vandalism can never be covered by indemnities, the ruin is final. Within our own land it has not been possible to awaken the public indignation and secure legislation until geological structure and prehistoric remains have been irrepara- bly injured. As to natural resources the greed of a single generation, the self-styled empire-builders, has in our day, under our operation, torn from the com- mon store a stupendous private wealth which terrifies its possessors, exasperates the public, and is by many considered a menace to organized government estab- 388 FURTHER CONCEPTS OF THE PEACE lished for the general good. At first it seemed futile to inject the control of natural resources and beauty into a peace conference. But how about China? Such a reservoir of every known commodity in and on the earth exists nowhere else. It has long since aroused the covetousness of the outside world. Its fervid and kindred neighbor Japan asserts an un- divided interest and no peace can last a generation which does not settle the degree in which Europe and America are to participate in what we like to call the regeneration of the Middle Empire. In this likewise lies the nerve-ganglion of the Russian question. Who are to be the capitalists: how are the enterprises to be divided ? Let us not be appalled by what we have taken into consideration as the necessary contents of the peace which ought to have been made and was not. The universe of social relations has been the background of every war and every peace, and will continue so to be until the end. What we are facing is another step forward or backward as the case may be, in the definitions of sovereignty, independence, and equality. Certain notions of each have been relegated to the discard, and into the Gehenna whose fire is not quenched have gone the principles of action which cor- respond to them. Something more than a century ago the French aspiration which goes by the name of Napoleon was for progressive conquest as an aid to pro- gressive federation. Then, as now, things went so far as to produce two halves of what was to be ce- mented into one whole, a world-empire on the model of Rome. The known and civilized world of that day was larger than the basin of the Mediterranean which constituted the Roman world. Neither diplomatic nor military science could compass its dimensions and the imperial idea was routed by that of nationality. The state system emerged from the Napoleonic age FURTHER CONCEPTS OF THE PEACE 389 with every one of the three notions just enumerated indurated and sharply outlined: with a concept of nationality based on common origin, common lan- guage, and constitutional government totally tri- umphant, except in Prussia and Austria. Throughout the last century there was a steady expansion of the nationalistic idea and from the biased studies of nationalists, backed by the dynastic instinct of self-preservation, grew all the abortive movements known as "pan" this, that, and the other. Not merely these poisonous weeds, but a deadly night- shade known as nationalization. It was no longer "cujus regio, ejus religio;" that survived, but it be- came "cujus regio, ejus natio." Within the realm of Russia, a terrorizing Russification of Finns, Germans, Poles: within that of Austria a Germanization of Czecho-Slovaks, within that of Hungary the Magyari- zation of Jugo-Slavs and Roumanians. The "melt- ing pot" idea was America's pet concept: let us not forget. Only, we used the instruments of suasion and education, not of force and terror, such treatment as in Germany made Danes, Lorrainers and Poles more nationalistic than ever. Then, too, submerged na- tionalities came to the surface and became vociferous, about thirty-eight within the Russian Empire alone, most of which have so far been intimidated. But Servians, Bulgarians, Roumanians, Armenians, have compelled a hearing and where the chief bone of con- tention, the Macedonians, belongs is still a riddle. What the orderly development of western civiliza- tion exacts as the condition of its very being is the delimitation of boundaries in a great territory to the east of the central powers: a vast expanse now spot- ted and splashed, without definite boundaries, here and there, all over, by noisy, crude, emergent nation- alities, fiercely set on recognition and making har- mony impossible without stern repression. In the 390 FURTHER CONCEPTS OF THE PEACE case of every one the task of the peace delegates was a redefinition of all three bases for international law. Besides finding new definitions there must be a sifting and ordering of all the multifarious problems which importune solution and regulation at the con- ference or congress, whichever it is to be. These matters are inseparable : for a conference there could be one order of business, for a congress of elected plenipotentiaries, quite another. It begins to look as if this last will eventually be necessary; the Paris conference has fixed the new principles and general arrangements incident to success in war and the essen- tial primary terms of peace regarding those outstand- ing questions which brought on the war, with abso- lutely no regard to which party gave the push that toppled the unstable equilibrium. This accomplished, and the principle of the League of Nations having been accepted, there will have to be a parliament not of men appointed by governments, but of elected rep- resentatives from the great powers and little powers recognized in the peace, sitting long and debating de- liberately all the portentous novelties of the hour. The new intervention, the limitation of armaments, the status of colonies, the freedom of the seas, and the spheres of markets, are the gamut of social and economic reforms demanded by the closer federation of states which is sure to come if the peace is to have any durability. This is all a very staggering pro- gramme to be suggested by any single man or group of men. But modesty is not violated by it because, as our phrase runs, all these suggestions are in the air. Some familiarity with both American and foreign opinion convinces me that no single one of all the propositions contained in this chapter is totally novel; neither the enumeration of questions nor the means to their settlement. It is my firm conviction that this is no time for men FURTHER CONCEPTS OF THE PEACE 391 of vision to be dumb. Practical, hard-working, con- scientious statesmen have their hands full with recon- struction after war: and the people themselves as well as their representatives have been nobly striving with singleness of purpose to do their full share. All statesmanship is a choice between two courses, neither of which may be ideal, but one of which is more prac- tical than the other. Some things can be done imme- diately, others can wait a little and still others some- what longer. There is fortunately a general con- fidence in the administration as it has been working since war was forced upon us. Party lines were al- most obliterated and there was a union of sentiment which produce a glorious unity of action. With the smooth, efficient working of our representative govern- ment in the appalling crisis of war we may well be content. But there is something of almost equal im- portance to be accomplished, the preparation of pub- lic opinion by full debate for the conclusion of the whole matter. Already there is a dawning of fairness and justice in the minds of Americans of the older stock toward those of the later stock, still bound by close ties of blood and tradition to European lands. It is a splendid promise. If charity at home can minimize the passionate intensity of conviction re- garding those who have adopted the same home for reasons other than those of long descent and vested interest, there is a well-founded hope that when the fires of war are burned out the reprobation of bar- barity and f rightfulness may be moderated to a state- ment of principle, firm and strong, but for that reason gentle. Mendacity and hypocrisy can never be stated con- vincingly. At the risk of further presumption an effort must be made to state the causes of this war simply, and without bias. As everywhere in collective or personal life there were grievous faults; mistakes, 392 FURTHER CONCEPTS OF THE PEACE blunders, and misrepresentations not exactly on both sides, for there were many sides, but all around the circumference of European politics. Even we our- selves were objects of suspicion after the Spanish War gave us insular and non-contiguous possessions, an outcome suggesting in some measure imperial am- bitions; and when silly politicians began to talk of annexing Canada, when the Panama Canal was finished and trade was diverted from former channels, then it seemed to British, French, and Germans that we were a menace to the established order. We were not very sure about the matter ourselves, and in a vacillating hesitancy gave ourselves no trouble to ex- plain. We were so sure that our purpose was to im- prove transportation between our two ocean coasts and so clear as to our laws about coastwise shipping that it was only when all Europe began to denounce our greed that we understood our liability to miscon- struction and amended our legislation according to the outsiders' understanding of our treaty rights. V ORIGINS OF THE WAR: PRIMARY NEGOTIATIONS THE UNSTABLE EQUILIBRIUM OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS — RELIG- IOUS RIVALRIES IN THE CENTRE AND EAST OF EUROPE — USE OF THEM BY ABDUL HAMID FIRST PHASE OF GERMAN ASCENDANCY — TRANS- FORMATION OF POLICIES IN PROSPERITY — THE STATE OF THE GERMAN MIND — DIVIDED JUDGMENTS BUT UNITY OF PURPOSE. REALPOLITIK — TURKEY ABANDONED BY GREAT BRITAIN ADOPTS GERMANY — PAN-GER- MANY AND IMPERIAL EXPANSION — DELCASSE AND KING EDWARD. THE SECRECY OF THE ENTENTE — OUTCOME OF THE DIPLOMATIC REVOLU- TION — RESPECTIVE RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE BELLIGERENTS — THE CHIEF CAUSE OF THE WAR — THE CONTRIBUTING CAUSES. BELGIUM AND SERVIA — GREAT SERVIA ASPIRATIONS. ITALIAN POLICY. International relations have some resemblance to a pyramid balanced in delicate equipoise on its apex. With such an instance of unstable equilibrium it is not difficult for an accomplished politician so to juggle as totally to conceal the slight impulse which oversets it. Generations pass before state papers even of a single nation see the light. When opened to research we find there are three kinds: the secret, the confi- dential, and the ordinary all-official. In addition there is the personal correspondence of the statesmen of the day, generally invaluable as a source of history. To this hour families in Great Britain and America are making new contributions to the history of 1776, and even yet the darkness which broods over some facts is impenetrable. As to the present war the world has made up its mind about who began it and what caused it, and slowly public opinion is shaping itself to considerable indifference about both, realizing that a world-wide democratic revolution could not possibly be accomplished without terrific throes for the conservation of nationality. 'The readjustment of international politics to a social state emerging not in one, but in all nations, was likewise bound to pro- 393 394 ORIGINS OF THE WAR: duce an explosion. Hence we do well to cease further efforts to fix guilt and bend our energies to settle rivalries as they were, in order to minimize the rival- ries certain to reappear. In western Europe the church was the mother of the state and the severing of filial ties has been a long, bloody struggle. In central Europe those ties still exist with considerable binding force. In eastern Europe the state and church are still one, with the preponderance resting in the secular authority. The states of eastern Europe, therefore, govern in large measure through the church, and the German Empire was never made inclusive of all Germans lest a Roman Catholic majority should oppress the almost, but not quite, equally strong Protestant minority. The ultra conservatives of three confessions, Protestant, Roman, and Greek, have powerfully opposed every step toward harmonizing political differences between Austria- Hungary, Russia, and Germany. The Prussian squirearchy is arch-Protestant. When the fanatical element of Turkey is added to the conflict, the con- fessional question of middle and eastern Europe be- comes a source of exasperation and of extreme danger. Of the national and nationalizing question as a well- spring of bitterness, enough has been said, but we must not forget for a single moment, that to be a Roman Catholic is just as essential to the com- position of a Pole as his birth. Slavic Romanists; Poles, Czecho-Slovaks and Croatians vs. Slavic Greeks; Servians, Jugo-Slavs in Bulgaria, Roumania, and Greece, in Bosnia-Herzegovina as well; there is an antinomy which must be seen to be grasped. Greek Russia protecting Greek Slavs. Roman Austria- Hungary protecting Roman Slavs and governing a few Greek ones. Here has been one of the blasts into the furnace seven times heated of which we have heard almost nothing. PRIMARY NEGOTIATIONS 395 Wild Europe, indeed ! But with a welter of quarrels concerned almost solely with the final disposition of wild Europe. Could the forces, physical, spiritual, and military, of these primitive peoples be united into a working organism they would control their own destinies. But their untrained minds have been fed on the historical husks of antiquity and medievalism until they have rendered themselves contemptible by exploiting madcap, imperialistic conceptions and have made their lands and resources an object of covetousness to the highly organized great powers. The system of a wily sultan just gone to his reward, whatever it is, Abdul Hamid, was simple; to array the ambitions of the Balkan states and those of the European empires against each other; and then to rule amidst the consequent ruin. For two genera- tions the diplomacy of states in central and western Europe was mainly concerned with the check, counter- check, and stalemate of each other in southeastern Europe. The deeper causes of the war were in the Balkans; the wars of the petty Balkan states to oust Turkey began at home; their object partly accom- plished, they turned and fought each other for the spoils on specious pleas of history, nationality, institu- tions, and confession; and the jar which toppled the European card-house was carefully planned to be given there. Such a deluge of official exculpation as over- flowed the world in the shape of " books " of every color is a novelty in the relations of states to each other. Every government pointed with thumb over shoulder at the rest, exclaiming self -righteously: this is no work of mine and you've got to believe it. The offense had to be, but woe to him by whom it came ! Contemporary history. began with the federation of Germany and the unification of Italy. The steps by which Austria-Hungary was reconciled with the Ger- man Empire were the deliberate preference by Bis- 396 ORIGINS OF THE WAR: marck of the former to Russia in building for the future, the alienation of Italy from France by the latter's annexation of Tunis, the completed Triple Alliance, and the hegemony of Germany which lasted for an entire generation, as that of France had for the previous one. In Great Britain things German were the fashion: and friction with France increased be- cause of colonial rivalries. The inevitable retort to the Triple Alliance was the foregathering of the two states which are marginal on either side, to wit- Russia and France. One was wounded in her pride, the other threatened with the permanent loss of her position as a great power. By rattling the victorious sword of Prussia in its scabbard on the west, and by occasional compliments toward the east the inevitable was postponed until William II became German Em- peror; and, a little later, the subsequent deposition of Bismarck, when the Dual Alliance became a reality. It was a reality rich in moral effect, but for long totally destitute of practical result : a modern democracy and an antiquated Oriental despotism do not mate well. By a policy almost as adroit as Bismarck's, the Emperor William encouraged the French colonial policy on one hand, and Russian expansion eastward, on the other; thus in the skilful use of a balancing- pole maintaining the German ascendancy on the tight- rope of diplomacy as late as 1904, when unforeseen in- fluences became a menace to Germany on her dizzy height. For it was a dizzy height, not alone politically, but economically and even morally in the sense of expand- ing and confirming the German "folkway," the Ger- man "thing in itself." With military preponderance secure, diplomatic predominance apparently assured, and Great Britain no wise alarmed, there began and continued without a break from the treaty of Ber- lin (1878) onward such an economic transformation PRIMARY NEGOTIATIONS 397 as cannot be, paralleled in history. It embraced agriculture, manufactures, and commerce in all their ramifications. Population kept equal step and ad- vanced from forty-one to sixty-seven millions. Which was cause and which effect is difficult to determine. There was such an expansion of markets and shipping that two demands seemed imperative, one for both military and commercial fleets, one for colonies. Of the undeveloped regions suitable for a European popu- lation in Asia, Africa, or America and Polynesia very few, if any, were left and most of the unclaimed spots were promptly occupied, according to the time- honored custom, by other European powers. But the insignificant colonial acquisitions of Germany did not suffice in even a minimal degree. Great indus- trial establishments in larger numbers were founded and these with the ancillary banking and credit facili- ties added, absorbed the ever increasing population. The birthrate diminished somewhat, but sanitation and a thoroughgoing socialization of labor prolonged life so that there was a steady rate of increase in the population. Towns grew in size at the expense of the country, but agricultural labor was abundant on the Slav borders and every year hundreds of thou- sands crossed into Germany for seed-time and harvest, to return home at the close of the season. With in- tensive agriculture based on imported fertilizers and imported labor, with an industrial system living on scientific processes and home labor, with a fleet grow- ing enormous and with leviathan merchant ships on every sea, with an elaborated art of selling goods that were cheap and good, adapted likewise to the different markets, the business of the empire advanced every decade in geometrical ratio until it rivalled that of Great Britain. It was inevitable that many patriotic Germans should begin to consider Germany's future as the world power she already was. 398 ORIGINS OF THE WAR: From such a dizzy height of material prosperity weak minds, the vast majority, turned confused and haughty. The saner minority grew profoundly de- pressed by the moral effect of economic superfluity; the transformation of spiritual into material ideals. Throughout the years just antecedent to the war, men of good will and solid wisdom were questioning themselves and every sympathetic visitor about the changes in sex morality, in literature and art, in philosophy, in the luxury of living and extravagance, in that elusive thing the German mind. Among the high-minded there was great uneasiness, exactly as there was in every civilized land — only in Germany the increment of wealth being proportionally greater and its use largely in the control of those unaccustomed to elegant living, there was a proportionally greater uneasiness in the minds of the elect few. But the tide was irresistible, Berlin, Munich, and Vienna vied with Paris as the capitals of a corrupt pleasure, which, moreover, was especially offensive because of gross- ness and bad manners. This, too, in spite of the spot- less family life of most of the courts, including that of Berlin, which from the domestic point of view was pure and noble. The impatient arrogance of the military caste grew in exact proportion to the ever greater in- terests with which they believed themselves to be intrusted. The superior authority struggled to sup- press chauvinism ; barracks were removed to the sub- urbs of the towns, officers wore civilian clothing more than before, manoeuvres were held in remoter dis- tricts and generally military pomp was suppressed. Certain braggarts, however, were not to be suppressed and found a restricted public of readers. The im- perial circle iterated the policy of German lands for Germans and denied all lust for further territorial expansion. The world conquest for which a cam- paign was possible would be pacific, the peaceful pene- PRIMARY NEGOTIATIONS 399 tration of trade and civilization by a new diplomacy of travel and commerce. German tourists and com- mercial agents began to flood the world highways, carrying in their sacks a conception of German values which to those among whom they came seemed offen- sively exaggerated, overweeningly patronizing. The academic classes were the busiest. Themselves arid and unoriginal, they proved to be most adroit in adap- tations and applications of old concepts to new con- ditions. With a kind of elephantine trumpeting the world was summoned to worship at the shrine of a pornographic, orientalized art, a long, outworn theory of the state, a philosophy of negation verging on he- donism, and above all of a bureaucratic, over-special- ized regimen which quenched all initiative in the in- dividual ; a collectivism just as inhuman and intolera- ble on that side as the absurd overweighted individual- ism on this. This colossal arrogance was a form of insane folly. Beside it and permeating life was a smug self-satisfac- tion, mistaken for contentment by the millions. Above it was a substantial minority deprecating the situa- tion and foreseeing the consequences. Fully aware of foreign resentments, the writing classes attributed them to vulgar jealousy, and there was a general half conviction to that effect. Yet without haste, without rest, the movement continued until there was a wide- spread and sincere conviction that Germany had a mission, and that mission was to regenerate the world by opening its eyes to German "virtue" as the remedy for all ills, peacefully if possible, by arms if necessary. Powerful voices proclaimed war as a purifier, the uni- versities roused a spurious patriotism based on the so- called duty to enforce the German good if called to do so. The Pan-Germans became vociferous for the annexation of all lands where Germans dwell; the Colonialists fpr expansion by settlement. From every 400 ORIGINS OF THE WAR: political hustings, from the throne to the tavern, peace was preached as essential to the germinating of the seeds of German influence, yet the tone of all the orators was slightly defiant ; a proof of fear, of such a timid sensitiveness as had not hitherto characterized Germany. The man in the street, like the man in the chair, was ominously touchy. Manifestly pro- fession and practice could not long keep equal step. Finally these shiverings took substance in the proc- lamation of opportunism in politics, based on British methods, and despising consistency as a vulgar vir- tue: real politics, go for what you want. The out- standing fact was finally recognized: that Russia was the menace to Germanism. England had been for a period fairly sympathetic, and on the whole indifferent, but the Slav was becoming aggressive. Russification threatened the two superior classes of the Russian empire; brutal nationalizing, tyrannical extirpation of language and tradition, were destroying Teutonism both in Finland and the Baltic provinces; the lower was strangling the higher civilization at the very portals of Prussia. When at last the cordial under- standing of France, Russia, and England, the En- tente, began to encircle all Germany with a hostile ring, of which Russia was the contiguous link to the east, men hitherto dispassionate began to write that such bonds could only be severed by force of arms. Your born soldier must occasionally rattle sabre and spur, stroke his martial mustachios and make a fierce face. So far it went, but no farther. The case was very similar regarding world policy or imperialism. Bismarck was a savage foe to colonies and imperialism. When colonies were still going, he refused them and left Germany the compact entity she was, egging on the French to waste their money and soldiers in disjointed enterprises sure to bring her into collision with Great Britain, as proved to be the PRIMARY NEGOTIATIONS 401 case at both ends of the Nile. There are still plenty of conservative Germans who think as Bismarck did, that colonies are a nuisance and an expense, likewise that the natural ally for Prussia and the German em- pire always was and always will be Russia, despite Russian corruption, trickery, and political incertitude. Its boundless resources furnish the finest possible field for exploitation, and the peaceful penetration of Ger- mans into the great land, based on the influence at court of German " Baltics " had gone a long way. But the Nicholas system of ruthless Russification filled Germany with exiled "Baltics" who were both vin- dictive and adroit. With the advent of William and the withdrawal of Bismarck, a choice had to be made between Russia and Austria-Hungary and the choice fell on the latter. There was no longer a Ger- man diplomat who knew how to divide and rule, or rather to woo both parties to a hopeless quarrel and neutralize their power by pitting different cross-pur- poses against each other. Besides this was that con- juncture of events when Lord Salisbury finally aban- doned Turkey to its fate, content through the un- divided possession of Egypt with the absolute control over the Mediterranean and the ocean highway to both the nearer east and to India. As a distinguished Turkish journalist said to the present writer: fac- ing complete disruption we had to hire the protection of some great power and we offered all our concessions to Germany. The temptation was great and there began a very definite policy of peaceful expansion into the near east with apparently a firm fulcrum in the Asia Minor railway concessions. But just there the German intellectuals intervened with a flood of books, pamphlets, and articles, sorely warped by prejudice and an almost infantile irresponsibility concerning a world policy. For the support of this, history and philosophy 4 02 ORIGINS OF THE WAR: were summoned to the witness-box. There was to be a central Europe like that created by the treaty of Verdun, in 843, the great German rivers were to be controlled from fountainhead to sea as bulwarks, the Rhine as a western outlet, the Danube as an eastern; the Slav peril was to be removed by con- quest or peaceful persuasion; the great highroad across the Balkans with Turkish aid was to prolong it- self over hither Asia to Persia and the Persian Gulf; Germans wherever found were to be folded in, like stray sheep, in order to enforce the German idea where- ever they might be; and an iridescent vision of new horizons was exhibited to the already intoxicated brain of a people naturally sane and sober, with an inborn sense of proportion and limit which had been strengthened by ages of classical study. The tri- umphs of applied science had already shaken these foundations, the trumpetings of battalions were a summons to disdain the lessons of experience and enter on the career of adventure not only on one or two continents, but in Asia, the islands of the sea, and even in America, where many Germans and many more German descendants were supposed to exercise, north, south, and centre, a commanding influence totally disproportionate to their numbers, simply because, being Germans, they must be children of light. We have all had the pathetic experience of beholding these outland Germanics dazed, con- fused, outraged by the expectations formed in an over-elated home-country of what they could not possibly do, because in overwhelming mass they had abandoned a Germany of which they disapproved to dwell amid conditions which they had helped to make and of which they highly approved. What- ever dependence the Pan-German chauvinist had placed on outland Germans proved to be a broken reed. Every effort was made to assemble Teutonic PRIMARY NEGOTIATIONS 403 forces of every description alike in offense and de- fense, but the only success was further to exasperate those among whom they dwelt and create for the aliens or semi-aliens an intolerable social position. The Germanics of high principle and sagacious minds rallied to their adopted lands, ready to fight for home and fireside against every aggressor, includ- ing the lands of their origin. Two facts precipitated the inevitable conflict: one was an awakening of French spirit, the other was British alarm at the menace to her ascendancy in commerce and manufactures. By 1898, clericalism and political reaction having been buried, the new French generation had eliminated all the other dis- integrating factors from French politics, including not only ultramontanism and ecclesiasticism, but militarism and sectionalism; the nation felt its strength and resolved no longer to live in bondage to fear. Almost simultaneously Great Britain dis- covered, or rather roused itself to the dangers of its "splendid isolation" from continental politics, noted in dismay the details of German rivalry by land and sea, began to grow frigid in its hitherto kindly rela- tions with the German empire and resolved on an aggressive trade policy as ruthless as that of its ugly rival. In consequence there ensued the diplomatic revolution which presaged the encompassing and checking, not so much of German growth as of Ger- man aspirations. The new France was personified in Theodore Delcass6, the new Britain in King Ed- ward. Both were weary of a diplomacy which em- bittered both countries with each other, and France with Italy, while Germany was keeping Russia in good humor by permitting her indefinite expansion across Asia. The former became minister of foreign affairs at Paris, in 1898, and held office until, in 1905, Germany demanded his removal, a humiliation to 4 04 ORIGINS OF THE WAR: which his government and people, totally unready even for defense, had to submit. In 1900 King Edward VII succeeded his mother, and Salisbury made way for Lansdowne. To a German tendency in throne and cabinet succeeded one which, though not exactly hostile, had distinctly a bent toward re- storing the balance of an older order, of stripping from Germany the hegemony she had so long en- joyed. In what follows the word king means the secret junta of Edward, Lansdowne, and Grey: Delcasse, assisted by Paul Cambon, inspired the legis- lature and people of France blindly to follow his lead as one who had won their enthusiastic confidence; a representative of the new, united, impatient France. The work of both was accomplished by the ancient methods of secrecy, personal influence, and log-roll- ing. Quite innocently, in the statements made pub- lic, Italy and France agreed to be friends, as did Great Britain and Russia; what the moving spirits secretly arranged and the sanctions they put behind their revo- lutionary plans has dribbled into publicity little by little, though even yet the controlling points are un- known. As the scroll of facts has been unrolled it appears that every treaty was purposely left obscure in its salient points, and that such obscurities were explained as occasion served by question and answer between officials of both sides. The peoples of the respective nations and the world are still largely in the dark; and the governments refuse to publish the papers. Even German espionage could not pene- trate the Cimmerian blackness. It amused the "cordial understanding" to watch its rivals' blind man's buff diplomacy; even we Americans wondered why at the Conference of Algeciras our representa- tive voted in every single instance with France. What were his instructions and who gave them ? The final outcome of diplomatic reconstruction was PRIMARY NEGOTIATIONS 405 a gentlemen's agreement forming an actual league of offense and defense to end the nuisance of German vaporing. The bureaucracy of the empire was and is the mainspring of imperial action. As time has passed every so-called indiscretion of the emperor proves to have been a carefully studied utterance of the bureaucratic regime. So we use kaiser or tsar with, no slightest personal meaning. Every autocrat is the slave of his own creatures, or of the system; Nicholas was a cringing slave; William a laborious servant of duty, as a finite mind may grasp it in his office. But, however much he may have striven to use his personal judgment, in the end he was the mouthpiece and the tool of an omnipotent system, rooted far more deeply in the national consciousness than courts or armies. If a self-sufficient Germany, failing to Germanize its own Poles, Alsatians, or Danes, was to set forth on the quixotic adventure of Germanizing the world, and if, as was boldly stated, nothing was to be done in Europe without her assent, the rest of Europe solemnly engaged itself to leave the German bureaucrats isolated in their dream castles. Pretty much everything was done without either the knowledge of the German peoples, or even the knowl- edge of the peoples boasting themselves democratic and free. Russia as yet was merely an excrescence, calling wide-spread attention to the fact that a three- fold league of two democracies and a decaying, morti- fying orientalism was far from normal. The sub- stantive political, territorial, and commercial arrange- ments of the understanding were what we now know. Russia was to have her front door opened through the Straits, to have a "sphere" in Persia and cease from troubling the British Indian frontier: Great Britain was to be unmolested in Egypt and her other African spheres ; France in western and northwestern Africa — *. e., along with Tunis and Algiers, in Morocco, pro- 4 o6 ORIGINS OF THE WAR: vided a weak little Spain should hold the strip of shore opposite Gibraltar and not menace British control of the water highway. France was thus to maintain her ascendancy in the western Mediterranean, Italy was to get Tripoli and the transverse traffic of the Adriatic with a hold in the Balkans, Turkey was to be totally dismembered. The Balkan states, half or wholly Slav, under Russian tutelage, would attend to Turkey's European possessions, the Arabs and Ar- menians would resume sway in Asia, with the aegis of both Great Britain and France thrown over them. In such arrangements one of the five strongest powers was to have no share ! Here were considerations which a conservative estimate of the day declared to involve about one billion dollars of trade — something worth fighting for, the British navalists frankly de- clared; which involved also a total upset of existing preponderance of power, which threw the question of nationalism into the melting pot, and jeopardized the proud ascendance of British empire. German armaments could mean nothing short of a struggle to the finish for naval supremacy on the high seas and the domination of continental lands as well. A mighty fear swept over the populations of western Europe and in such a storm the refuge of secret diplomacy with unquestioning obedience to its be- hests created what was little short of hysteria in every land; except America which, true to its traditions, exhibited a calm indifference, secure in its isolation across three thousand miles of ocean. We cannot repeat too often that the responsibility of that state or nation by which the outbreak of hostilities is precipitated is immeasurable : but further we are bound also to remember that such a responsi- bility may be morally approved as well as reprobated ? The moral sense of the twentieth century holds neither person nor state to be a criminal because one or other PRIMARY NEGOTIATIONS 407 begins a war. It does hold both to be criminal if the start, the method, and the conduct of belligerency be criminal. The world at large is wildly curious but impotent to fix the blame from the start. To fix the blame on another has been the occupation of every government and so continues to be, inasmuch as at the peace congress decisions have been reached largely on that basis: who began the war, how has each bel- ligerent perverted international law, "modified" is their term, for its own advantage, and what is the state of each party from the military standpoint? With this in this connection we have nothing to do except to be on our guard against the specious pres- entation by each party of its own case. Had we a great, dispassionate judge to sift the whole mass of evidence and compel the production of secret agree- ments, laying plain facts before the jury of public opinion in the order of time, we might hope to know who was the criminal aggressor, and it would be the most solid satisfaction to find our prejudices justified. But as yet there is no such judge: and the jury — divided between the belligerents — is sadly warped. But from what we at least seem to know Russia and Germany were dismayed, each and both, at the pros- pect of losing predominance in the Balkans and had it been possible to isolate them for the settlement of their differences by arms, one or other would have had Europe for another forty years. But there were the backers of Russia. Great Britain was quite as much interested as either of the principals in regain- ing control of that invaluable land highway across the Balkans and Asia Minor which Salisbury had virtually handed over to the Prussian autocracy. France after Delcasse's humiliating dismissal, once more fretting under Germany's menace, grew anxious about her position in Morocco, and saw that her very existence would be threatened should war break out 408 ORIGINS OF THE WAR: Tbefore she could prepare her armies, fleets, and muni- tions factories. Her internal politics were shameful, her foreign relations outwardly fair, though in the case of Spain not entirely sound. With no fear of contradiction we may assert that in the light of history and present knowledge the cause, the outstanding cause, of the war was the ques- tion of Russo-British or German control in south- eastern Europe and Asia Minor. There were plenty of contributing causes. Western, industrial Germany believed itself the victim of commercial tyranny be- cause its wares had to pay tolls, however light, for crossing the Low Countries, and schemed for free tran- sit and a free port on the North Sea. This Great Britain considered "pointing a pistol at her face." The five-power guarantee of Belgian neutrality was one of her greatest commercial assets and she never relaxed for one instant in her concern for its mainte- nance. If the violation of that neutrality by Germany was a crime, as it was, before the moral sense of all civilization, to use the violation as a plea for enter- ing the war was for England to secure a high moral pretext for a struggle to keep material benefit. At the eastern end was where the train was to be laid and the match applied. The Treaty of Berlin was de- crepit as early as 1898 and moribund when the Turkish Revolution occurred which overthrew Abdul Hamid, a revolution almost certainly financed by Russia. When the young Turks, resting on the letter of the Treaty of Berlin, invited Bosnia-Herzegovina to elect delegates to a constituent assembly of the Turkish empire, ignoring the fact by emphasis on the letter, who could have imagined the result? Austria- Hungary formally annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina while Germany rattled the sabre in Russia's face. The "sour-kraUt and sausage" regimen had in thirty years regenerated the provinces on the material side, PRIMARY NEGOTIATIONS 409 while bringing great prosperity to both Vienna and Buda-Pesth. The provinces were the joint posses- sion of the Dual Monarchy, belonging to neither branch. But Roman Catholic Croatia was united to Hungary by a treaty similar to that which bound Germans and Magyars. It chafed under the cal- culated severity of Hungary in "Magyarizing," leaned toward Austria and was fairly indifferent to the "Great Servia" agitation. The Servs of Servia are Greek Catholic; so, too, are the peasantry of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Servs and Greek, while the great proprietors and native capitalists are fanatical Mos- lems, Slavs as they are. These all are styled Jugo- slavs, as are those of Dalmatia, ninety-five per cent of its population, and of Montenegro; and Dalmatia, fearing Italian ambitions, was a contented province, not of Hungary, but of Austria. The aspirations of the Servians for a Servian empire are not to be quenched. When they found King Alexander artd Queen Draga to be Austrian in sym- pathy they murdered both and threw the queenly corpse out of the palace window. From a humble retirement the surviving claimant of a pro-Russian dynasty was called to wear the crown at Belgrade. Russian favor secured, there began everywhere in Servian-Austria such a political plotting by Servian agents as only semi-barbarians can carry on, espe- cially in Bosnia; and the assassination in its capital of the proud Hapsburg heir with his consort — both Slav in feeling, but also both of them devout Romanists, not Greeks, kindled alike in Slav and German lands the awful conflagration not yet quenched. It appears to have been the formal incorporation of the two Balkan provinces by Austria-Hungary which directly influenced the cruel and bloody oligarchy, ruling at Constantinople to find its account in abandoning the feeble Russian autocracy. It was a bitter pill to 410 ORIGINS OF THE WAR: swallow, because the Hamldlan policy being worn out and discarded, the new regime, after the example of their nearest national neighbors, were busy "national- izing," that is Turkifying, all the heterogeneous peo- ples, as Prussia was Prussianizing Poles, and Russia Russifying Finns and Hungary Magyarizing Rou- manians. The little Balkan states thought only of self-preservation, and the German powers having anni- hilated Servia, Bulgaria joined the Central Alliance, while Roumania temporized, with a leaning toward the Allies; and Greece also, with a king leaning toward Germany but never forgetting a coast line at the mercy of Allied fleets. To the Belgian situa- tion and that of the minor Balkan states the further contributory cause for war was afforded by the mysterious Italian attitude, much clearer now than it then was, and even yet not entirely clear. To sat- isfy Italian aspirations the government was forced to consider the Irredentists, the Expansionists, and the commercial industrial interests. Her toying with Germany on one side, and with the Allies on the other, with an eye to grappling out of the welter advantages on the whole Adriatic littoral, and in Tripoli and in the far Levant, did not directly contribute to initiat- ing the war, but it did encourage both the major parties to the struggle. It seems self-evident, therefore, that the primary negotiations for peace were of necessity concerned with compromising the conflicting aims which each of the great powers had at the outbreak of hostilities, and that these compromises have taken form from the situation of the belligerents by sea and by land when negotiations began. From the outset there has been tall talk among official circles. With the pass- age of the months and years, suggestions have been thrown out from time to time, each a little less cloudy than the last. Germany made the declaration of war PRIMARY NEGOTIATIONS 411 a necessity alike for our self-respect and for our self- defense against its machinations, both within our own lands and in foreign parts. We disclaim any purpose of material gain. So did revolutionized Russia before it became criminally insane. We assert that we were fighting for ideals, but have not even in the peace terms defined the substantive proofs which would signalize the triumph of these ideals. To make democracy safe, what specific readjustment of the status quo ante have we secured ? Such questionings will not down and it is high time we were talking con- cretely. We must be willing to deal, if strife is to end, only with popular representatives. What Europe wants is quite different from what American democ- racy wants: we want disarmament and a league to enforce peace, we want colonial governments to be autonomous, and we want no more war loans; each generation is to pay its own charges for its own war- fare. Not any of these aims and ideals have been se- cured. We want the rights of nationality, great and small, to be sacred ; we want liberty on the high seas, we want a fair share in world markets among countries still evolving their political identity and economic independence. The settlement of these remains imperfect and far from secure. But what do we still want as regards the new map of Europe and the world ? Until that map is either more completely reconstructed or left as it now is by the general agree- ment of those nearest concerned, not a single forward step can be taken in other matters. Should Great Britain keep Mesopotamia to guarantee her cotton supply, control the Suez Canal as she has so far done, and as we maintain supremacy in Panama, with the Bosphorus open to all the world, can there be any permanent contentment among the rival great powers, demanding economic equality? The cause of the war was the Balkans, the contributing causes have 4 i2 ORIGINS OF THE WAR been enumerated. It is a categorical imperative that we persist in the later adjustment of our terms about the settlement of the map. Each of the allied com- missions, one after another, in 191 8, confessed the struggle lost unless we should come to their aid. We' have done so, and yet a conflict of interests is declared: as of old nothing but a compromise of im- perial and economic interests has been secured. We alone assert disinterestedness now. Must we in consequence police a reconstructed Asia, until Italy is seated in Smyrna, France in Syria, and Great Britain in Mesopotamia? Is it our affair to prolong warfare by policing Russia also? No sooner had foreign commissions returned to their respective coun- tries with assurances that we were coming millions strong, than as much as this, if not exactly in these words, began to be hinted from the highest quarters in the respective capitals or from the respective pre- miers of the Allies. We have now reasoned to- gether, and reached decisions, which if ultimate, mean larger armaments than ever, a super-state either impotent or tyrannical, greater burdens of taxation, and suspicious distrust among all the nations. VI HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY THE GENERAL ASSOCIATION OF NATIONS AS AN INFLUENCE BY SEA, AND BY LAND FAILURES OF THE BERLIN CONGRESS OF 1 878. CHANGE OF BRITISH POLICY — PEACE CONGRESSES AND THE MAP OF EUROPE — ENUMERATION OF PEACE CONGRESSES SINCE I815 THEIR CONSERVA- TIVE ATTITUDE THE RECENT CONFERENCE AND THE MAP — FIRST PRIMARY CONSIDERATION BELGIUM AND ALSACE THE SETTLEMENT OF A NEW "PUBLIC RIGHT" — "REPARATION, RESTITUTION, GUARANTEES" — THE QUESTION OF COLONIES — THE ECONOMIC QUESTION — THE BAL- KAN QUESTION — THE ENFORCEMENT OF THE CONCLUSIONS REACHED BY CONFERENCE — MINIMUM TERMS OF PEACE — PUBLIC OPINION AND TERMS OF PEACE. At the very end of the sixteenth century, the "Grand Design" of Queen Elizabeth for a general association of nations was the basis of a tripartite treaty, to which the tJnited Provinces, Henry IV of France, and Eng- land were parties. This "Grand Design" was never pushed, but likewise it was never forgotten: the idea was a norm of reference alike in theory and in prac- tice for two hundred years: and the Holy Alliance of Russia, Prussia, and Austria at the close of the Na- poleonic epoch was an effort to realize it. Our ad- ministration, at intervals shrewdly chosen through- out 191 7, began and continued proposing "a universal association of nations to maintain inviolate the se- curity of the highway of the seas for the common, unhindered use of all the nations of the world." Si- multaneously it was promoting the idea of a single league to enforce peace when made. Whereas there were two leagues then fighting to make a peace, each as they severally desired, a German peace or a British peace, one or other of which was to be enforced, when made, hereafter there is to be only one. After cen- 413 4 i4 HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY turies of international struggle in both peace and war, the high seas are and for some time have been free in peace; in war the doctrines of contraband and blockade have been so enlarged in the interest of the naval powers that neutrals, though they may assert their rights from the housetop, cannot maintain them by the mere moral sanction of neutrality. The beU ligerent strongest at sea, either over the waters, on the waters, or under the waters, may work its will without restraint. On land the military power of the belliger- ent exercises a similar compulsive power over a con- tiguous neutral, and the neutral must either yield or cease to be neutral. An armed neutrality is almost a contradiction in terms to-day because natural science has so increased the numbers and efficiency of lethal weapons, has elaborated them to such a degree that the only means of defense for nations, at least the cheapest means of defense, has now become an armed offense. The defensive is no longer the stronger, morally or physically; attack and repulse, gain or loss, however infinitesimal each may be, can alone maintain a military line. There is, therefore, already in existence as we re- marked earlier in this discussion, the universal associa- tion of nations; and there has been since the Con- gress of Vienna and the formation of the Holy Alli- ance. The disintegration of the treaty and the league made there destroyed neither, because at every stage there was a substitution, and the Con- gress of Berlin was what we now consider a con- spiracy of almost identical type with the conspiracy at Vienna sixty years earlier. The guilt of the former was, however, far less than that of the latter, because as Balfour stated in his plea to the American people for the expulsion of Turkey from Europe "circum- stances had entirely changed." What he meant was that British policy had entirely changed. What the IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 415 men at the green table in 1878 at Berlin knew was that the peoples and nations had entirely changed while they themselves were behaving exactly as their pred- ecessors had behaved, disposing of populations regard- less of their consent, and drawing territorial bound- aries according to the aspirations of the ruling class. Beaconsfield was the facile tool of Bismarck and Lon- don illuminated to celebrate his ''peace with honor," totally ignorant of the nefarious and secret plottings to which he had been a party in order to secure glory for his ministry. The Turkey so carefully restored from Russian aggression in 1878 was the same cruel, ruthless, frightful power which it is to-day. With the danger of Russian advance toward India removed, that national ogre is no longer necessary to the con- servation of British interests in Egypt. This very striking illustration of chess-board politics together with the talk of premiers and foreign ministers in London, Paris, and Rome, early aroused speculation in America as to whether there would eventually be any more connection between pieces and players than there was at Vienna or Berlin, unless America, the one disinterested party, should appear at the confer- ence with a preconcerted plan and speak the word of power; as it could earlier have done. It is a very curious and disturbing, but universal, experience that high moral professions and glittering philosophical generalities, so alluring, so elevating, so purifying to the soul, are the panoply of statesman- ship. This mystical elevation of soul is fine, but when the sword whistles and falls, its object is sordid ad- vantage for self, and land, and national commerce. Let us accept, however ruefully, what is the fact, namely, that we are led on by such bubbles and iri- descences, of our own and others' blowing. At the worst these visions will help us to make a better map than we could have made without them. But if there 416 HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY be any slightest guidance for the future in the experi- ence of the past, the map expressing popular aspira- tions must and will eventually be made. On what principles it is for us to decide. The cry of no annexa- tions and no indemnities found the Germans en- thusiastic after defeat, and the Allies opposed. We had suffered our administration without rebuke to phrase it "peace without victory;" it means the same thing, a peace based not on the principle of uti possidetis but on the status quo ante. Nothing but a military stalemate could possibly produce such a peace, and it would, if made, have had no durability whatever. Again the map: for a change in border lines there was and again will be, whether there be in- demnities or not, and whether or not the changes do or do not amount to annexations. Throughout the nineteenth century there were five powers recognized as great, until the union of Italy into a single state added a sixth. Either by recip- rocal agreement or for purposes of convenience, or because they humbly asked the favor, certain of the minor powers were associated with the occasional deliberations. At the so-called congresses or con- ferences they were variously represented, frequently one or more were not represented at all. Every con- ceivable type of irregularity in their transaction of business can be discerned. At the most important of all there was not a single general assembly of the members; and the urgent business was settled in the corridors and window-embrasures by the plenipoten- tiaries of the powers most closely concerned in that particular affair. The great of the earth in full gala were in the city, which was the main object, and little or large committees could be got together for any imperative occasion. It was said of the congress that it danced but did not walk — so entirely social, out- wardly at least, was its character. One man, Gentz, IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 417 a lieutenant of Metternich, drew up every one of the many treaties between different contracting parties. How many meetings of diplomats might be dignified with the style of peace congress is very hard to de- termine; probably only three, that of Vienna from September, 1814, to June, 1815; the London Con- ference of 1830-31 ; and the congress of Berlin in 1878. All the others were ancillary, either prefatory or sup- plementary. For instance, the respective congresses of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1818, of Carlsbad, 1819, of Trop- pau, 1820, of Lay bach, 1821, and of Verona, 1822, were one and all meetings to determine how and by whom the frequent liberal uprisings in various parts of Europe were to be subdued. By their timid half- measures the Metternich doctrine of intervention was totally and finally reduced to an absurdity, because in one place there was intervention to uphold despo- tism, in another to establish a liberal government. Poor mystical Alexander, the Czar, grew so confused and impatient that he saw his prestige destroyed, felt his dignity wounded, and finally died of a broken heart. The Metternich system of interventions thor- oughly discredited itself, becoming a horror and a by- word. The London Conference was composed of the great powers only; it ended the hostilities between the Catholic and Protestant Netherlands, setting up the new kingdom of Belgium. In other words, it recti- fied the map drawn at Vienna not in the interest of race, but of confession, which was a necessary anach- ronism. It busied itself with only one small part of Europe, but that was the nerve centre and it was a European congress. Again at London, in 1852, five great powers guaranteed the integrity of Denmark; but their guarantee proved a "scrap of paper" when Russia called on Great Britain to help enforce it. To that dishonorable crawl may be traced the origins of all our present troubles. Again the map of Europe 4 i8 HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY was changed. At Paris, in 1856, the great powers as- sembled once more to settle the accounts of the Crimean War and strike its balance. Principles of international law, now relegated to the scrap-heap, were enunciated, but still once more the map of Europe was changed. In 1867 there was a conference at London which recognized Italy as a sixth great power and in 1878 at Berlin she also was one of Bis- marck's servile tools. This time not only was the map of Europe changed, but that of non-European lands in hither and further East. Further consideration should, if space and time allowed, be given to these meetings not of popular, but of dynastic or governmental, representatives with a view to several points: the evasion of every liberal Napoleonic doctrine, the indifference to popular will, the contempt for territorial limits, the uneasiness about nationality, the extinction of all democratic aspiration. The one outstanding fact in every as- semblage of emperors, kings, princes, and plenipo- tentiaries was their constructive work on the map of Europe and the eastern hemisphere. About the god Terminus all rites and ceremonies were per- formed; they were boundary festivals like the Ter- minalia of the Romans, except that they were cele- brated not in the open, but within closed doors, with whisperings behind curtains and screens. As the Allies at Vienna stood unanimously and fiercely for the old order so too did the powers at Berlin. Substantially every national aspiration of the world had unofficial representatives in both places, but they were not even fed on the cold shoulder of promises or the husks of procrastination; they were either shut out or ignored. Map-making was the game of those who were still clothed in the majesty of naval and military power, wherewithal to enforce the com- promises they had secretly devised before assembling, IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 419 exactly as Great Britain had secured Cyprus from Turkey before the powers, yet to be convened at Ber- lin, could put either the stamp of approval or dis- approval on her procedure. Indeed, if we study 181 5 and 1878 comparatively, we shall find no advance whatever in system or principle and discern the cen- tral purpose to be identical; to settle boundaries without regard to populations or nationalities, peo- ples or tongues. When the French premier (Ribot) declared (July II, 191 7): we shall take Alsace as a right, admitting no plebiscite or expression of its inhabitants' will, it began to look as if the Conference of 1919 would, as it has done, exhibit the same old temper. There has never been one instant when the Balkan states had any slightest degree of self-deter- mination ; they have been intimidated or encouraged solely within the desires of the great powers ; and the London Conferences of 1 914 to settle their differences exhibited no slightest concern for their desires, biased or otherwise. The consent of the governed and the determination of all affairs, internal and international, by popular sovereignty, seem principles no nearer of realization than sixty years ago. Let us, therefore, not deceive ourselves; the first business of the Peace Conference, under whatever circumstances it might meet, had necessarily to be the business of all such conferences, that of rectifying the map, both of Europe and, perhaps, of two continents east and west, certainly of the eastern. This was to be done, as we fondly hoped, in such a way, said President Wilson in April, 1917, as to "compose many of the questions which have hitherto seemed to require the arming of the nations" so that "in some ordered and just way the peace of the world may be maintained by such cooperation of force among the great nations as may be necessary to maintain peace and freedom throughout the world." "There is no entangling 420 HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY alliance in a concert of power." "A steadfast con- cert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations ... a league of honor." These were brave words, commanding whole- hearted, universal assent among the American peo- ple; assent to control, to taxation, to conscription, to war, as never before in the history of our own or any other democracy. Like other nations we claim our beliefs, customs, and politics to be the best and like other nations we are prompted to force this civilization on the world. Only by a league of democratic nations can the things "nearest our hearts" find a world-wide guarantee. We are fight- ing for "democracy, for the right of those who sub- mit to authority to have a voice in their own govern- ment, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right." Have they a right to grow large ? When we took our seat at the council table, after the "democratic nations" conquered and had fought the despot nations almost to a dissolution, what de- limitations were we to enforce in order to enlarge and emancipate democracy; what were to be the terri- torial aggrandizements of Great Britain, France, Belgium, and Italy at the expense of Germany, Aus- tro-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey? In Europe probably none, unless Schleswig should be returned to Denmark, Alsace-Lorraine to France, Finland to Sweden, and the Italian parts of the Tyrol with those of the Dalmatian littoral should be assigned to Italy. Furthermore should we extinguish every protect- orate over the chief bone of contention, the Balkan highway to the east ? Could we say to Great Britain, Hands off ! while to the wild, half -civilized inhabitants we gave full license as we have done to Mexico, to fight it out among themselves; to determine their own destinies, as the phrase now in vogue runs. Jus- IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 421 tice demands this. To have handed Balkan affairs once again to any tribunal, however constituted for the settlement of details, would have left the Balkan peoples with a deep-seated determination to prepare for another Balkan war, whereas in their present state of disruption and exhaustion they will eventually, if left to themselves, once again negotiate a federa- tion having some chance of enduring for a genera- tion or two. It may in our discussion have seemed a reversal of the natural order to place the rehabilitation of Belgium together with the restoration of northern France in the second place of importance, but intimately asso- ciated with both was the fate of Alsace-Lorraine, quite the most intricate, as it at first appeared, of the pri- mary matters to be considered by the Conference. What position was America to take with reference to it? Our people and their statesmen reiterated that the inhabitants must have the deciding voice. Not so either France or Germany, for the French feared that a popular vote would by a small majority prove ad- verse to their claim; because Alsace with a part of Lorraine, at least, has been Germanized by coloniza- tion and many original Alsatians still recall the abuses of French imperial rule which were parallel to those of the German bureaucracy. The Germans on one hand are clamorous for the retention of all lands even constructively Germanic, for the further incorpora- tion of such as lie still without the pale, notably the Baltic provinces. On the other hand they scorn the new doctrine of the rights of nations, that is, the right of any other nationality to do what they have been doing, the right to integrate under one government those of common origin, speech, traditions; and in- stitutions and hold that Alsace-Lorraine is a part of Germany exactly as Savoy is a part of France. The French demand compensation for their awful sacri- 422 HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY fices: Alsace-Lorraine first, undisputed sway in Roman Africa next, with a protectorate of Syria to safeguard the French influences emanating from many religious establishments, and, to assure a share of Asiatic markets, a place in the Levant such as they held centuries ago. There could be no question about Belgium and the occupied French territory: on resti- tution we must of course insist. What were we to do about its corollary, the reintegration in France of Alsace-Lorraine. Instinct and sympathy would de- mand it; whether justice did was to be considered. Those provinces in 1870 were indisputably French, what are they now and how are we to find out? They must be governed by their own consent, the consent of the majority. Great Britain, the greatest, overwhelmingly the greatest naval power of the globe, entered the war with the grim determination to do what she had done previously on several occasions, to annihilate a dangerous sea-rival and seize her fleet, to secure both land and sea highways to the east, and to pre- serve the invaluable neutrality of Belgium, the high- way for her surplus wares into the heart of Europe. Of Holland she was reasonably sure. But the British democracy demanded an ideal wherewith to create enthusiasm and Mr. Asquith said: we are fighting for public right. How was this to be enforced? he was asked. By reparation, restitution, and guaran- tees, he replied. Of these terms, as of "freedom of the seas" and "league of nations" the world de- manded further definition. What kind of reparation, restitution of what, and what guarantees? Public right can only be defined in one way; non-interven- tion in the affairs of existing states, great and small. This in modern thinking has seemed to be totally dis- credited for something quite the reverse, the inter- vention of one state in the affairs of another, peace- IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 423 fully penetrating; or even to the extent of enforcing Cuban sanitation, mitigating Turkish tyranny, con- trolling Dominican finances, and so forth. With the same breath we are talking about three or four na- tions controlling two others in a league. Manifestly here is gross inconsistency; the only public right surviving is that of moral suasion, which is not at all a process compatible with fighting for public right. The sanction of international law has been proved in this war to be far more powerful than that of any municipal law; the whole modern world was bleed- ing white in defense of it. Expressed differently the moral sense of the west has been outraged by the conduct of the central powers of Europe ; and for that moral code which underlies its conduct of all affairs, ex- ternal and internal, it has been destroying its own for- tunes, mortgaging those of posterity, and making the greatest adventure in the destruction of human life hitherto planned. Never again can text-writers of Austin's school deny sanction to an international law which corresponds to and expresses in its working the general human sense of justice. What we must recall is that we were not fighting for the antiquated public right of non-intervention : we were fighting for precisely the opposite, the right to intervene for securing liberty and justice. Now about the three other "magnetic" generali- ties: reparation, restitution, guarantees. Guaranty is either an affair of honor or of collateral security. We assert that the Germans have violated every pledge as well as every humane provision of interna- tional law, new or old, on the world-old plea of self- defense ; f or " reasons of state. ' ' Have we in the terms of peace, insisted upon collateral security, on a pawn or pledge for good behavior ? This is one of the high lights; of the very primary questions which should have been settled at once. Neutralize the Balkans 424 HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY and the Straits: let Alsace-Lorraine decide its own fate; disarm Germany by the extinction of her war fleet, and reduce her army to the dimensions of a home-guard. This was, most correctly, the cold logic of the guaranty. Reparation? There was first, when the Central Powers were intoxicated with seem- ing victory, tall talk about extensive annexations, enormous money indemnities, vast spheres of world control. To this succeeded a programme of what they thought moderate ideas, minor annexations and, perhaps, no indemnities, which indicated the restora- tion of Belgium with free transit for German commerce to the North Sea and undisturbed control toward the east by the Balkans and Asia Minor. Toward mid- summer, 191 7, the popular, not the official, demand was for peace with reconciliation, which sounds like the status quo ante; neither reparation nor restitution. If a beaten foe was to repair and restore, we had to be ready with a definition of both words not in other generalities but in hard, concrete realities. Already we were justified in the conviction that our foe was then in despair of overwhelming victory or even of victory at all. We asserted, the British premier as- serted, the French and Italians at least assented to the assertion, that we did not contemplate crushing our foe. What must she restore? If she got the northern duchies by force was she to restore them? and that contrary to the wish of an overwhelming majority of their peoples. Was she to go back still further and restore both German Poland and Silesia, contrary to the wish of a majority now dwelling on their soil ? To repair the damage done to French soil and Belgium is measurably possible; that we have demanded restoration to conditions before 1870 is thinkable, the rest is ludicrously impossible — with any show of consistency. If a greater Poland is to be set up with all its old ineptitudes and inefficiencies, IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 425 why not a greater Sweden, and a greater Denmark, and a greater Servia, and so on through the whole list of political dreams. Reparation and restitution would have no meaning except as they would include a re- turn of Danish Schleswig to Denmark, of a portion of Lorraine to France without a plebiscite, or of the whole of both Alsace and Lorraine provided a plebiscite de- mand it. This third primary concern is just as prickly and thorny as any other; yet the categorical necessity was on us to have a definite judgment. The fourth primary concern to be settled by the Peace Conference was the question of colonies, and here again our representatives were expected to pre- sent a very definite decision. During the progress of the war every German colony had been occupied either by Great Britain or Japan. What about restitution to those whose claim in 1914 was undisputed? The frothy demagogues of Germany began early in the conflict to bleat about the occupation of both French and British possessions as among the goals of the war : about Roman Africa in particular. This aroused a storm of bitter hatred in both the great colonial empires, France and Great Britain: a storm which has not subsided and the allied belligerents if left to themselves would surely strip Germany of all her colonial possessions. This would be quite as detri- mental to our interests as the control of the Straits by any single power, as far as American dealings with Russia are concerned: and it might very well once again open the flood-gates of German migration to our shores. There was a time when our historic continuity was not menaced by German settlers, but that day is over. With their intense consciousness of race, culture, and temperament they are saturated with Germandom, a system and an attitude of mind antipodal to ours, colliding with it in moments of crisis, awakening a tolerant sympathy even among 426 HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY truly American Germans as distinguished from Ger- man Americans, and creating a degrading, stifling atmosphere of distrust among fellow citizens with identical interests in the United States. We called ourselves disinterested belligerents and so we were, provided the war does not put us at any disadvantage greater than that under which we suffered at its out- break. The immigration of the latest years has been dangerous enough, a sort of alluvial human mud which enriches the soil without bringing hard pan to the surface, but also impregnated with dormant ma- laria, full of weed seeds and anarchy germs. Results are in the future, but when nervous, overstrained Germans leave their native shores they ought to go to German colonies for our sakes as well as their own. So far German emigration has been parasitic, feeding on other established civilizations and sorely disturb- ing them. There was truth in the remark that the German clerk in London was a cause of the war; it is even truer that the inordinate zeal of the secular German missionary, commercial and political, has been not merely a crumpled roseleaf in the world's repose, but a thorn whose perpetual activity has created the festering sores "of international hate. What the peace of the world demands is a vast Ger- man Africa, both tropic and temperate, perhaps better still a German Central Asia, within whose limits the surplusage of German life may find rest, while be- tween them and the mother land the interchange of relations may finally stamp their boasted efficiency for what it is, an explosive substitute for gentleness and good manners in national, colonial, and per- sonal relations. We want no more blending. Were it not for the rock-fast conviction of the American people that whatever the cause of the war it had been transformed from a struggle for economic supremacy into something totally different, into a IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 427 holy war, a war to make the world safe for democracy, a war of intervention against autocratic imperialism, our interest would never have been what it was. We had many times turned the other cheek to both Great Britain and Germany, and while many of us had lost our self-respect, most of us had not: when our ad- ministration finally obeyed the popular behest, the self-respect we invoked and the self-defense we claimed were purely the respect for, the defense of, ideals. Yet there was and is an economic spectre in the back- ground which will not down. It sat at the conference and for every representative it took identical shape; the internationalization of all the narrow high seas, especially the Straits, the Suez Canal, and the Panama Canal. When we cast economy to the winds and built this last as a national enterprise to bind our two coasts more closely, we were rudely reminded that however and by whomsoever constructed, once built it was not a national, but an international highway and that we had no privilege in the matter of tolls for our coastwise shipping. Fierce as has been our commercial life, that of Europe has been terrible. We are dollar-chasers, they are shilling, mark, and franc huntsmen. The far-reaching consequences of our Isthmian Canal were more clearly seen over there than by us. Three great powers refused to partici- pate in our Panama celebration, France raved about our commercial annexations, and during the early years of the war, all the allies held us up to scorn for a "holier-than-thou" phariseeism masking ease and greed. Later still they called for our money and our men : but coldly said, of course this means the pro- longation of the war. It behooves us in these matters to look to ourselves. To make the world safe for de- mocracy does not mean intervention to overthrow des- potism in central Europe, alone, though it does mean that. It ought to mean securing a long peace by 428 HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY removing economic friction, and providing for read- justing from time to time the economic problems perpetually arising. International commissions be- tween democracies can later settle minor details, but the great principles of economic peace should have been fixed at the Peace Conference which was to end war; and we must be prepared to contribute the interna- tionalizing, and neutralizing, of our Panama Canal as a preliminary. The world must be made safe for other democracies than our own. Perpetual warfare, military, naval, or economic, stifles the development of democracy. Economic peace underlies political. ' For the other primary questions we must return to the central, vitalizing, insistent matter; the map, first of Europe, then of the world. The savage rest- lessness of the Balkans was due to Servia's exclusion from the Adriatic in her proposed expansion. The phrase "free trade" has long been employed in a very limited sense. Its broader sense is unhampered access to open seas, and the unhampered use of inter- national rivers, straits, and canals. If the principle of national rights is to prevail then every ambitious nation, large or small, will demand abundant, guar- anteed access to the ice-free water highway of the globe. The jealous Magyars secured a port by Mag- yarizing the more or less Croatian and Italian city of Fiume at the head of the Adriatic, the Austrians by holding the other more or less Slovene and Italian city of Trieste. Italy demanded both as well as all the other Istrian and Dalmatian ports of the eastern shore, her own undisputed western shore being curi- ously destitute of protected harbors. Russia has felt her development impossible without a free out- let from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. Ger- many would have liked to make the Low Countries states of the empire for the sake of adequate access to the North Sea. The Dual Monarchy wanted IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 429 Salonica, and each Balkan state has struggled for an enlarged shore line on the Euxine or the ^Egean. What a novelty must be the map of Europe which gratifies these several longings and what a total revolution in public law there will be when Switzer- land secures a seaport of its own. Yet there have been extraordinary efforts to agitate in all these various senses and Switzerland had secured, for some years had enjoyed, a virtual internationalization of the Gotthard railway, an arrangement so advantageous to both her neighbors, Germany and Italy, as well as to herself, that it proved an element in prolonging the Triple Alliance until all the world wondered at Italy's procrastination in declaring war on Germany after she had assumed the offensive against Austro-Hun- gary. If there is to be a new world, if we are to have a long peace, based on the opportunity open to na- tionalities for self-realization, this question must, as it did, insistently enter the realm of practical politics and demand arrangement by the representatives of the powers at the council board. The last of these primary questions was, of course, that of enforcing the behests of the council both by land and by sea; the policing of the federated world. To what nations was it to be entrusted and what share was each to have in it? Where was the high command to reside and what was to be its extent? What quota was each of the nationalities to have in the active force? Where was the international tri- bunal to sit and how was it to be constituted ? What questions may be referred to it for justiciable settle- ment and who is to codify the laws which it is to ad- minister? To those who have hitherto thought in terms of public right and non-intervention these are revolutionary ideas. But a world war is revolution- ary and since revolution has come through ambitions and appetites springing logically enough from the 430 HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY concepts of history and politics prevalent fifty years ago, there is no alternative, those basic concepts must go. To formulate the substitutes, to draw their logical conclusions, and to solidify those conclusions into fact, in short to erect the new machine and make it work was surely a primary duty, we might almost say a preamble to all the rest of the work. As so often occurs in human affairs, there is a reaction and interaction of cause and effect which makes those af- fairs seem not merely a tangle, but a reversal in order of time and causation. This last obligation of the Conference was really the first; but it could not be put there until reasoning from perfectly obvious con- siderations the world found that the crisis had really come when beautiful phrases expressing beautiful ideals would no longer suffice; and made the start- ling discovery that reality demanded settlements in conflict with national interests, with indurated hab- its of thought, and with collective interests accus- tomed for several generations to use the state as a public means to secure private advantage. In midsummer of 191 7 there was a statement of minimum terms of peace, apparently a semi-official feeler. I. Restoration of Belgium and the ravaged lands, towns, cities in France; with an indemnity sufficient to reconstruct both buildings and inaugurate fruitful agriculture. II. No annexations. III. Guarantees that secret alliances could never again bring on a world war. To these apparently German opinion was not averse. Yet the insistent questions of the map and the guarantees were not defined : the practical, actual and concrete, it was immediately seen, must be the business of the Conference. America and renovated Russia, strange dualism as it seemed, would probably be the moderators. The latter has now not only no armies, but no existence, being dis- solved into her elements; to enforce the positions we IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 431 took we have our armies and fleets, even if their participation in actual fighting has been considered slender by those whose cause they saved. There they stand, ready and alert, let us hope, to give due weight to well-considered plans of settlements. If such plans be stated with clarity, their very clearness and justice will carry conviction, but the armies must be in the field and the fleets on two oceans ready for action; or diplomacy may thwart every high pur- pose. Or else, too, economic warfare, boycotting and elbowing, may go on with little restraint and per- petuate a savage rivalry which would reopen the unhealed sores within a very short time. Yet mini- mum terms there had to be in order to justify the cessation of hostilities. What these may finally prove to be when the broad principles of the new world charter are reduced to a working system, is in the womb of time, but there will be no pregnancy even unless popular opinion con- cerns itself with the subject. Our general mind is chaotic and likely to remain so. Democracy does not preclude leadership, it invites it. Our leadership is three-fold, social, political, and commercial: in that order let us hope. The social leadership is purely moral, coming from the press, the pulpit, the aca- demic chair, and the family circle. In each and all the topic of establishing the peace just made should be intelligently discussed and some kind of policy formulated. If studied and stated where it should be it will finally reach the public ear. The professor and jurist, the iherchant and workman must be heard, and if they speak well they will be heeded. More important is political leadership, not general, but local. The administration needs every assistance. So admirable has been its latest course that party lines have almost disappeared and a sort of wondering apathy has replaced the keen criticism there ought to 432 HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY be in state legislatures and in congress. Perhaps for the actual conduct of both preparation and warfare this is well: but for the policy to be pursued in es- tablishing peace every one of us should demand an expression of opinion from his or her representative. The commercial world needs no stimulus; every speculative mind is busy and alert for what is to come of all these sacrifices. But as yet we, the people, have heard little of their ideas. There has been talk of economic warfare, of restoring our commercial marine, of the relative proportion between loans and taxes in raising the ways and means, and of the readjust- ment in relations between the strata of the democracy. But our financiers have so far expressed no opinion of general acceptance regarding such a peace as will preserve a stable equilibrium in the economic units of the world. We need to hear from them. The United States is all vocal with hymns of peace, but there are no recitatives about the details of it. About each of the matters we have just been considering there can be and must be not only the expert but an inexpert, everyday, homely opinion. Otherwise the tyranny of socialism will overwhelm the liberty of democracy, and the anarchist will behold his longed-for chaos; the cosmos will have to be reordered from the beginning. VII THE CONFLICT OF IDEALS WITH POSSIBLE ATTAINMENT AN ARMED TRUCE THE FIRST STEP TOWARD PEACE — WHAT MUST BE DE- FERRED. INSTITUTIONAL REFORMS — REGENERATION OF NATIONALITY, CULTURE, AND DEMOCRACY — POLAND, BOHEMIA, AND JUGO-SLAVIA — UNRECONCH.ED RACE-STOCKS QUESTION OF ASIATIC AND AFRICAN NATIONALITIES — IS THERE A "RIGHT" OF NATIONALITY? LANGUAGE QUESTION — THE STRUGGLE OF "CULTURES" UNSETTLED CONCEPTIONS OF DEMOCRACY — THE SOCIALISTIC STATE NOW AND HEREAFTER — PRO- POSED REVOLUTION IN LIVING CONDITIONS — OUR IMMEDIATE CONCERN IN THE PEACE IS TIME TO SETTLE INTERNAL AFFAIRS PEACE WITH HONOR OR DISHONOR. FACTS OF ALLIANCE STRONGER THAN DENIAL OF ALLIANCE THE CASE OF THE UKRAINE ILLUSTRATES OUR POSSIBLE OBLIGATIONS PEACE WITH HONOR IMPOSSIBLE WITHOUT TIME TO ARBITRATE ALL THESE POIGNANT, PERSISTENT DEMANDS. LIMITATIONS OF THE DOCTRINE OF INTERFERENCE ESSENTIAL! WILD EUROPE MUST PROBABLY TRY ALL THE PHASES OF HISTORIC EXPERIENCE: EMANCIPA- TION, DICTATORSHIP, CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY AND REPRESENTA- TIVE GOVERNMENT — THE SUM OF THE WHOLE MATTER IS THAT THE DOCTRINE OF PERPETUAL PEACE IS AT LAST A WORKING HYPOTHESIS AND THAT THE GAINS OF STRUGGLE, HOWEVER MEAGRE, MUST BE REGISTERED INJTHE PUBLIC LAW. l The enumerated objects of the war were more or less closely connected with the origin of the war, and seemingly should have demanded immediate atten- tion at the Peace Conference. But much blood had been shed and much hard thinking done since 1914. The western allies at the outset formally declared: 1. France — that she was fighting for self-preserva- tion, 2. Russia — to protect Servia, 3. Great Britain — to liberate Belgium and assist France, 4. Italy — to secure the Trentino as compensation for the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina by Austria- Hungary, a breach of the Triple Alliance Treaty, and 5. We, the United States, began our war with Germany to uphold international law. 433 434 THE CONFLICT OF IDEALS How each one of these causes of war broadened out during hostilities is perfectly manifest; they were what were designated primary considerations, all the others were secondary. Some of the secondary ones have, as even the casual newspaper readers know, forged into the primary rank and secured precedence; the new league of nations, the new map of Europe, Bel- gium, Alsace, colonies, economic peace, the liberation of trade routes, and in particular the Balkan question. Many had felt confident that peace could be made with no regard to these cognate, inseparable matters; but they were disappointed. What kind of a peace would it have been ? Certainly not an enduring one, not a three-generation peace even. Exhaustion of time and patience confined negotiations not to the ostensible and proclaimed causes, but to what proved the real ones; so we have an armed truce, and a world both militarized and navali£ed, the same old uneasy world of bickering, pushing nations and states, of governments maintaining their home power of catering to the material prosperity of all the classes of population in varying degree, chiefly to the greater advantage of the "haves" and the lesser good, but still good, of the "have-nots." For such a peace as we had desired and for which we had been lavishing life and property there proved no possibility of quick settlement. Some of the ideals which were beneath the surface and have emerged can wait, and wait a long time. They could not be fairly settled until laid before an international court, where evidence could be taken and sifted, the thing in action argued and the brief pre- pared for a second and protracted peace conference to settle definitely all these secondary questions, the question of nationality, autonomy for the submerged peoples; the question of the general interest which resembles the balance-of-power doctrine transplanted WITH POSSIBLE ATTAINMENT 435 from Europe to the world; the question of superior and inferior civilizations with their reciprocal strug- gles; the question of democracy in mortal combat not against autocracy or monarchy but with socialism. Making the world safe for democracy, we have been told by a few men from the trenches, is already an antiquated slogan. The stratified democracy of to-day has all the earmarks of an intolerable social hierarchy, no better than constitutional monarchy in its social influence. The war will have been fought in vain, or worse than that, for a reaction, if we do not emerge without distinctions of rank, fortune, or ability. We give our bodies, all we have, for what ? not merely to destroy the enemy before us, but the enemy behind us, the mediaeval institutions which oppress us in domestic matters and send us to the shambles in for- eign affairs. Away with class and wealth and the pomp of office. The civil servant, the bureaucrat, entrenched in a job with an assured salary, was the worm at the core of Germany's premature ripeness and his class is the real author of the war. Yet we go onward creating offices and salaries and, to com- plete the vicious circle, accelerating public opinion by ingenious devices to produce conditions which themselves create the very work the taxpayer hires the official to do. The trenches with their horrors of cold and wet and fever lairs, with death an incident, and disfigurement by wounds a daily round, have unquestionably proved to be forcing-houses of social- ism. We pay with drafted lives say many, let others pay with drafted wealth. Nationality; civilization, high or low; democracy, institutional or socialistic: such questions have through the war loomed up, no longer as ideals, but as importunate demands. The repressive measures of what we have styled orderly government are now considered despotism and tyranny. Even the thrifty, 436 THE CONFLICT OF IDEALS enterprising, creative classes are shaken in their con- victions, and for them what were but lately preposter- ous heresies are now topics of deliberate discussion. Is there a right of nationality ? Is there the right of a civilization considered superior to impose itself on a lower ? Must collectivism supersede individualism, however enlightened its selfishness ? At the outbreak of the war there were in the city of New York, with branches everywhere, the follow- ing nationalistic committees: Irish, Polish, Finnish, Ukrainian (Ruthenian) Lithuanian, Armenian, Ara- bian, Syrian, Persian, Egyptian, Indian, and Chinese, Alsatian, Bohemian, and South Slav. Some brought charges of oppression against Great Britain, some against Japan, others against Russia or Turkey, most violent of all against Austria-Hungary, while the Jugo-Slavs preferred the frying-pan of the Hapsburgs to the dreaded fire of Italian control. As to the rights of civilizations, we fought to prevent German- ism from swamping ours, are we not still fighting in the field of diplomacy to impose ours, measurably at least, on the central powers ? And, furthermore, the surges rise higher and higher of an opinion, terrific and determined in Russia, grim and wide-spread , in both the central and western powers, that enduring peace can be negotiated not between "free peoples" of the present democratic type, but only between socialized democracies. Even to state such problems seems presumptuous; but they are posed with passionate persistency and will not down. They make the heart sick, so ob- scure, so delicate, so complicated are they. The most insistent is that of nationality. What were called the two dead nations of Europe, Poland and Bohemia, which once long ages ago were flourishing powers, forfeited their nationality by weakness, moral and physical. They now claim, and so appear, to be WITH POSSIBLE ATTAINMENT 437 ready for resurrection. Are they ? And was the game worth the candle, the disruption of lands very much alive, of Prussia, Russia, and Austria-Hungary? Then there are what were styled the dead lands, Roumania, Servia, and Jugo-Slavia, all three of which pleaded for what two have had, but lost, and the third desires, an independent life as self-directed nationali- ties; Bulgaria feels herself a torso without Macedonia. Were all four of these desires fulfilled as in measure they already are, Slavism confederated and consoli- dated might and eventually will hold the same relation to Germanism as the latter held to the former in 1914. Would the reversal be a gain? Germans, at least, would not admit it and their bellicose spirit would be perpetuated while they sullenly bided their time — their second "Day" of wrath and judgment to come. British opinion is intolerant, and justly so, to any comparison between Poland and Ireland; yet Great Britain as a war measure pleaded for and with our aid brought to pass the restoration of a greater Poland. Carlyle's fierce denunciations of the Poland that was , ' and his justification, in the name of civilization, of her partition, are not recalled; but they were written and remain written. If the Poles are morally re- generate, fit for self-government as we say, then the question answers itself. But suppose that in learn- ing that hard, hard lesson they continue the border warfare already begun and remain for a generation disturbers of the public order, where is our enduring peace? Such considerations are forced upon us by the course of affairs in emancipated Russia. Could the peace commissioners have fitted themselves for this task by travel and observation among the rude boors so clamorous for liberty, which, as they under- stand it, means much license and little restraint ? Cer- tainly not, and the determination of culture frontiers, language, tradition, confession, would be impossible 438 THE CONFLICT OF IDEALS if they had so travelled. They would have discovered that these so-called nationalities are not unified and contiguous, that race and language are distributed in spots or enclaves; Roumanians maintaining them- selves in groups among Bulgarians or vice versa, Ger- mans in large settlements among Magyars, Czechs commingled to the eastward with both Germans and Magyars, and so on and so on. The very first step in compacting nationalities would be wholesale de- portations of the cruel, Turkish sort. The enduring peace of the world, a peace that can be enforced for at least three generations, must eventually find for this prickly question the middle course: in the peace charter there is not even an ap- proach to it. And this course cannot be found with- out a campaign of world-wide education on the sub- ject. Already propaganda leaflets and pamphlets flutter through our windows on every breeze ; they are seemingly dispassionate and present their case with in- genious elaboration. One explains that there can be no balance of power in Europe without a Poland, an- other that the Czecho-Slovaks have been ground under a foreign tyrant's heel and want their seat of govern- ment at Prague to satisfy their self-esteem; and an- other sets forth the rights of the Jugo-Slavs to na- tionality because there are thirteen millions of them and they have a common speech with a common tribal organization. The Roman Catholic Croatians have maintained a savage quarrel with Hungarians to ward off M'agyarization, but they succeeded and enjoyed a degree of self-direction through the viceroy at Agram. The Greek Catholic Servians, Bosnians, Herzegovinians, Montenegrins and Dalmatians, inter- spersed with many Romanists and Mohammedans, not only want autonomy, but no interference from Croatia, and any other than a purely artificial union between the two embittered Christian confessions -*4 WITH POSSIBLE ATTAINMENT 439 with the Moslem chuckling in his sleeve seems to- tally out of the question. To enforce it would be to court the speedy outbreak of civil war. Eastward from the confines of Germany is a world that has no faintest" resemblance to any we have known or which Americans of our sort have known. For a peace conference backed by even a powerful league of nations arbitrarily to solve such a series of questions: to disrupt and rejoin; to allay passion and overcome distrust in an off hand way, was suicidal to the peace it was met to make. A totally different court com- posed of representative judges and claimants will have to sit long and patiently before testimony or recommendations could be completed. In its present state the question of European nationality makes the barbed-wire entanglements of trench warfare appear a simple and easy circumstance. The question of Asiatic and African nationalities proved quite as intricate, only much more wild and inscrutable. "The Turk must go" is the cry. Yes, but where? There are 9,000,000 Turks; where and how are they to live ? Under the repressive protector- ate of the international police force, contemplated by most of us with naif equanimity? More and more the Turks have proved to be the most warlike of exist- ing peoples, and the most recklessly barbarous in their treatment of subject populations. To create an Armenian state and guarantee its sovereignty must require a standing army of large size and high efficiency. The Syrians want relief from Turkish oppression and deserve it, but at present the Syrian and Egyptian Arabs can preserve order and decency only at the charges of French and British armaments. Is this to continue as a recognized element in the peace until generations yet unborn adopt western civiliza- tion ? Indian unrest does not yield to moral pressure either, and as we pass on to the farther east the ques- 440 THE CONFLICT OF IDEALS tion of nationalities embracing peoples to be num- bered, not by tens but by hundreds of millions, not of white, but of yellow and dusky races, looms on the peace horizon with a menace like that of the sprite escaped from the bottle dragged ashore by the fisher- man's net and recklessly uncorked by him. The monstrous and horrid shape of this Jinn casts a grow- ing shadow which reaches across the Pacific to our shores. In all this vast expanse there is but a single police power, to wit: Japan. Her foes declare she is keeping the house to her own advantage, her friends that she is the one organizing regenerating force which can cope with the unrest of such enormous dimensions. Must Japan become a democracy or be excluded ? About this boundless, shapeless topic of the oriental nationalities we are less informed than about the European. Indeed we are lost in Cim- merian darkness, when compared with the other great powers whose officials have made a specialty of it. We at least need time and information, debate and discussion, the aid of experts in oriental politics and economics, if we are to maintain our dignity as judges in an international court, such as must be constituted and kept in lively operation for a long, long time. This "right" of nationality, which has measurably secured recognition, will keep the bridgehead and leave other secondary matters to be determined after the peace : the questions of cultural superiority and social democracy. To those who have frequently sat on in- ternational commissions or tribunals the "right" of language is a "right" equally dubious. If we have a representative court of all nations and tongues how is it to deliberate; through interpreters, cumbersome almost to absurdity. Since immemorial times our affairs at Constantinople have been conducted by a series of admirable dragomans, presumably accurate and upright; but after all mere language machines. WITH POSSIBLE ATTAINMENT 441 We hear of linguistic prodigies and they come now and then under our observation; but the more pro- digious their linguistic capacity the less so their other characteristics. No small proportion of the mis- chief wrought among nationalities in recent years has been due to a so-called English written and spoken by Germans, who learn foreign tongues with assiduity, but very much as they would learn Volapuk. Ger- man teachers giving English instruction to their pupils are with rare exceptions pure mechanicians, and their words are lifeless, generally exasperating. It begins to appear as if modern-language teaching had a very high and real value only in two respects: the reading of texts and the colloquial power to ex- press material wants. Real thought can only be expressed in our native tongue. No doubt also the ability to conduct business by correspondence and by broken speech can be acquired. But delicate negotiation ! that is altogether another affair. With these unhappy facts in view it has been customary to regard French, English, and German as international languages to be used at the choice of the speaker. There is solid truth in the contention that you can perfectly understand what you cannot perfectly say, and within limits the system works. But it is not every democrat who has such a knowledge of three languages as may enable him either to speak or to listen: those who can, derive either from the scholar or the leisure class, and only such are able on the language side to represent their country. To the majority of their laborious countrymen they appear more cosmopolitan than national and do not represent them at all. There is trouble ahead in thinking, talk- ing, and behaving internationally, as far as the patri- otic plain man with some contempt for fine manners and elegant accomplishments is concerned. Should our conferences and courts be composed of such, as 442 THE CONFLICT OF IDEALS theoretically they should be, we will have to pray for a special pentecostal visitation of tongues. The superiority of a civilization is not determined by assertion and iteration. As in the case of the higher patriotism, of which self-complacency is the one weak element, the fact of superiority is determined by the' superiority of fact, by behavior and its results. What lies athwart the path of peace like a barricade is patriotism, not the self-seeking hypocrisy which so often passes for it, but the true love of home, respect for ancestry, devotion to principle, of which real patriotism is compounded, real self-sacrificing patriot- ism. Especially in Puritan lands, the single and col- lective temperament of which is not only: believe as I do, but behave as I do. Here is the only water of life, drink it. Of all human qualities this is that which cements society most firmly and makes possible its efficient organization during peace or war* It is the antipodes to the passion for prestige. No Anglo- Saxon patriot of the right sort sincerely believes him- self or his civilization to be the best possible, although he knows that he likes it best, quite another thing: and he is ready to fight for it because by its means he as an individual gets the most out of life. The pure Teuton has erected his civilization into an idol or a god. What the Slav desires to begin he began five generations ago, the integration of his collective life. Against the horrid monster of a French despotism, smooth but hard, materially fair and morally rotten, enthroned in the west by sheer presumption and hypnotizing men by its dazzling beauty, the rude boors of the middle and north plotted and conspired and dashed their inefficient fists until at last they evolved the idea of organized and unprincipled vio- lence under the electors of Brandenburg and the Kings of Prussia, who were lately German emperors. The great branches of the Teutonic race which had been WITH POSSIBLE ATTAINMENT 443 thoroughly Romanized, had become Latinized as well and were with the oppressor. Long dependent on French culture, they could not emancipate themselves from its insidious charms without going to the very roots of life. They evolved a literature, a philosophy, a science which could be and were transmuted into material power. Amazed by successes which they fondly and naturally believed to be the result of gen- eral superiority, the German genius was deified and the cult of its worship intoxicated its devotees. The result was vertigo and confusion. It is an open ques- tion whether or not this is a German peace, and if, with an enlarged Germany, free within the limits of what a non-political people considers to be freedom, there are 70,000,000 of Germans, Germanism must be accepted as a postulate. But should it prove to be an American peace, what then ? We are not with- out our idols of what we call the plain man and democratic temper and committee government. Let us not forget what fair play demands, and remember that there is just that remnant of justice left in the old doctrine of public right. Is war to infect us with bom- bastic cocksureness ? Let us have the courage to face unpalatable truths, the foremost of which is for us the shifting nature of our democracy. Within a single lifetime the social structure of the United States has been transformed completely and beneficently. The democracy which De Tocqueville knew and described so alluringly is as extinct as the dodo. We have thrown not one but all of our recognized political pilots overboard and the ship is run by irresponsible bosses — the wily polit- ocrats who know how to give insinuating advice to sluggish minds as to the disposal of their vote. In every community these persons are known and as my personal experience runs they are not entirely a bad sort. It has seemed to many of us that if we 444 THE CONFLICT OF IDEALS could legislate the boss into the spotlight where he belongs, publicity and responsibility would make a decent citizen out of him. But the effrontery with which the unofficial but well-known and responsible captains of industry and labor marshal their forces for conflict gives us pause. Think of the progressive movement in both of our parties and the uplift pro- gramme which both have adopted, and compare the general attitude with that of forty years ago. The churches, the family, and private charity were then vigorously at work caring for the sick and the aged, shielding the infirm of body and mind within the fam- ily fold, providing liberally for secondary and higher education: the taxpayer was heavily burdened then, but what he paid for social betterment outside of his taxes was enormous. Slowly, surely, and properly the state has assumed the most of these burdens, while the church and the family (not of the better sort) fail to reach the overwhelming mass of ordinary mankind; neglect is undermining and destroying not only faith but the unselfish kindliness which once char- acterized all our American life. This transformation of society is not yet complete: we are facing the ex- tinction of what we know as charity because we are steadily legislating wealth out of existence. That free-will toll which the plutocrat has been paying to society in his munificence to colleges, hospitals, and the like will soon come to a stop. When I shall have paid my taxes, no personal charge will remain except the voluntary support of my church, if I have one. i Such a revolution will bring a day of reckoning for the politicians. A discriminating Frenchman diag- nosed the French public disease of venality and dis- content as due to the fact that there was not an office for every Frenchman. It will not be long ere at our present pace we shall have reached that absurdity or something near it; then we shall have the dreaded WITH POSSIBLE ATTAINMENT 445 bureaucracy, of capable, honest, ingenious public servants, convincing themselves and the rest of us that they earn their pay, spending all their energies to perpetuate the system which supports them, and devising subtle plans for the "acceleration" of public opinion either to keep the peace or preserve the public honor by arms as may be the deliberate judgment of those whose profession is to make our decisions for us in public affairs, while we study prices and margins of small profit and economy of consumption and live the painstaking lives of the generality. The increas- ing drift of public opinion, that is of the democratic state of mind, from political to civil and from civil to social and from social to economic levelling, to- gether with a maximum of state activity, is a fact. Whether or not there is any halting place, and what it is, does not yet appear; but one fact does appear: that in our present uncertainty as to our own de- mocracy, we need time to study other democracies in other lands before we can get even a dim outline of the kind of peace we hope will endure. Since the outbreak of the war both the central European pow- ers and Japan have been revealed to themselves. Both honestly believed they were on the defensive until they discovered what they were defending, namely an economic overlordship within chosen spheres of influence. Quite suddenly the Germans saw what a few of their intellectuals had long seen, that to pause meant retrogression and slow death; and that the middle Europe plan in conjuncture with the Balkan and Bagdad plan was their life or death in the near future J and they avowed it completely in act, and partially in word. With Japan the case has been similar. Her terrific surplus of population must either choke and strangle her insufficient insular domain or find a continental home. If there is to be a general, enduring peace, either our friend Japan 446 THE CONFLICT OF IDEALS or our foe Germany, or both, must be eliminated completely from the maintenance of the tentative peace concluded in Paris ; and perhaps splintered into temporary inemcacy. Crushed they cannot be, their populations have exactly the same type of patriotism, the same passion for home and home culture as have those of the western allies and ourselves. Here is food for thought and careful consideration ; and every- thing points to reducing our world charter of peace to its minimal terms in order to gain time for careful procedure based on thorough knowledge. If we are to bring in a new heaven and a new earth abroad, we must first produce a near-millennium at home. What has been said is not intended even to be tinged with irony ; far from it. There can be no ques- tion but that a peaceful federation of free peoples throughout the world is appreciably nearer than when Queen Elizabeth propounded her "Great Design." The very fact that the millions of subject peoples are awake to their condition proves the enormous advance made by them in a consciousness of human worth. Furthermore untiring discussion reveals unsuspected possibilities. If the hour can be hastened for adminis- tering the compromise based on fair play which the peace terms contain, then the temper of the world will be displayed in its actuality. Our acceptance of Germany's challenge safeguarded our self-respect indefinitely; the deliberate speed with which we advanced preparedness on a colossal scale clarified our views as to our own efficiency, gave us a calm self-reliance and proclaimed to possible foes that compulsory justice is a part of international law. We want and we need not merely a formal peace, but a settled one, in order to set our own house in order, no longer as an isolated democracy, no longer as a member of a great American federation even, but as a model member in the great family of democratic WITH POSSIBLE ATTAINMENT 447 nations throughout the world. In reply to President Wilson's note of December 19, 1916, the peace terms of the Allies were stated as follows: "The civilized world knows that the aims of the Allies include the reorganization of Europe guaranteed by a stable settlement, based alike on the principle of nationali- ties and on the right which all peoples, whether small or great, have to the enjoyment of full security and free economic development." In the total German alliance there were over 92,000,000 of people holding in subjection over 47,000,000. This is shown by a widely distributed map of Europe and hither Asia compiled from German sources. The subject peo- ples of Europe under the allies numbered about 5,000,000: Irish, Greeks, and Savoyards, the two form- er unhappy, the latter more or less contented. Let us consider these facts and determine whether we could possibly have insisted upon the liberation of them all, or a part of them, whether we could have left them as isolated as Mexico, patiently waiting while the turbulent, bloody process of reconstruction went forward to its end. If this emancipation into license be part of the minimum terms, well and good: pro- vided only we realize what we have been doing. Another pivotal consideration is whether we are to have indefinitely such a passive peace as has been negotiated, a peace like the Roman peace under the Antonines, or the short Greek peace under the Athen- ian empire in the days of Pericles, a peace enforced in some places by one power or in others by a league of powers; a peace without life and without honor, or whether we want peace with honor, a peace, instinct and vibrating with life, because all parties to it have secured in the main what they feel to be the minimum essential to their respective lives, a peace cherished because of the blessings, material and spiritual, which it affords. Few of us have given sufficient study to 448 THE CONFLICT OF IDEALS the later histories of the small neutral states of Europe. Three Scandinavian kingdoms, the two Netherland powers and Switzerland. Forced through weakness out of all participation at the international council board they have been a happy family of prosperous neutrals. Their territories have been transformed by a new agriculture, their domestic politics quickened by leisure to consider problems relegated elsewhere to the background, their seafaring and manufactures are a wonder and in the case of Holland, colonial ad- ministration was regenerated. Their literature and art have proportionately outstripped the advance of their great neighbors. One right, and one only they have had denied them, the right to grow larger, colonially or otherwise, but it may well be that such an example will have its enticements even for the large states upon which peace will be forced, a peace maintained by force, a peace without honor because compulsory. A man or a people good because com- pelled to be good is not practised in virtue. Shall we dictate or help to dictate the terms of virtue and rattle a trusty, victorious sword whenever there are signs of uneasy naughtiness. Unquestionably the belligerents with whom we were associated, regarded the association as an alliance in fact if not entirely in form and expected exactly this enforced and passive peace. They will consider ours a Punic faith if we behave otherwise than they expected, refusing to bear a full share of all military and administrative burdens. Nor will formal, solemn asseveration that we were not so bound, mend matters at all. We must be ready with a settlement basically just, and therefore, morally binding; a peace with honor. If others disdain such a compromise peace, that is their affair. We can then, ' and then only, be too proud to disdain fair play and generosity. Give the other man a good bargain is the rule of honorable dealing individually: so it is collectively. WITH POSSIBLE ATTAINMENT 449 In this respect we are to be sorely tried. Aside from several cases in point, such as Turkey, Armenia, and Mexico, there is one which is likely to be most acute, calling on the west for a degree of self-abnega- tion amounting to stupefaction. We have never sufficiently realized that the horrible cruelties of dynastic autocracy in Russia were the tyranny of a people styled Great Russians and numbering possi- bly 60,000,000, the close-knit, fairly homogeneous admixture of Slavs and Finns whose capitals were Moscow and Petrograd. It was they who wrought the revolution, theirs was the first provisional govern- ment, and theirs is the Bolshevist fury, the grim de- termination to perpetuate, if need be, in gory anarchy their ascendancy over all the thirty-eight peoples who constitute what was once the Russian empire. They have always been feared and hated, but their race-consciousness has made their authority under Czardom unassailable. Under a socialistic make- shift committee it proved a broken reed. In the hour of dissolution there has been a deathbed scene, in- human, impious, and obscene. The 6,000,000 White Russians living on the swampy margins of Lithuania are dull and cowed, manifesting neither desire nor capacity for autonomy, though they have no love for their masters. But the 30,000,000 Ruthenians or Ukrainians, or Little Russians, are not so, they have an intense race-consciousness, have a lan- guage, a confession (Uniates), a tradition, and a capital city of their own (Kieff). They intensely re- sent their treatment by the Great Russians. Like the Finns and Poles they want autonomy: perhaps when the facts of the negotiations at Brest-Litovsk are known they will be found to have secured it. More- over, their seats are the most delightful and fertile portions of eastern Europe. Between the swamps and barrens crossing central Russia, southward to the 450 THE CONFLICT OF IDEALS Black Sea, they live and toil, reaping rich harvests for rude tyrants. Galicia contains a very substantial number, as well as Poles and Jews, another great block inhabits the Carpathian districts of Hungary and Bu- kowina. This mighty population holds all other Rus- sians as a degraded mixture and considers Kieff, the original focus of Russian life and religion, as alone worthy to be a Russian capital. Three times at long intervals they have struck h'ard for national existence, but in their last effort Great Russia proved victorious and during four generations they have suffered shame- fully under the process of ruthless Russification. In the face of our generous assertions about the consent of the governed, the Great Russian ochlochracy sim- ply must let these peoples go : Finns in Finland, Poles in Poland, and Ruthenians in the Ukraine. Mani- festly it was this which destroyed the Russian offen- sive in war and jeopardized our cause. To the plea of the home ruler that autonomy of the various Russian stocks in a Russian federation will eventually make Russia a more redoubtable foe, the answer is. that it will protract a decision indefinitely and that our sacri- fices in the cause of liberty may bleed us as white as the other western powers already are. To bestow on others all the blessings we feel ourselves to enjoy is a most portentous enterprise. No wonder Germany was sincere in the high and contemptuous tone she was so lately taking. She too wanted the r6le of protecting the oppressed. Finns, Poles, and Ruthen- ians, they all for some time looked to her for the over- throw of Moscovite tyranny, socialistic and anarchis- tic, democratic as well as autocratic. We all begin to see that the demand for a clear line of demarcation between primary and secondary terms of peace must eventually be made, if the peace is to be enforced and kept, and that we are primarily concerned with the former if our ideal of empire is to WITH POSSIBLE ATTAINMENT 451 be realized. We want no vague and hazy theocracies like the early oriental governments, nor a Greek im- perial democracy based on slavery and force, nor a Roman imperial control based on an army and on law however just, if it has to be enforced by militar- ism; least of all do we want a mediaeval empire as catholic and sovereign as its other self, the catholic, all-comprehensive church. In the composition of frail humanity there always was and there lingers still a dream of universal imperial sway. The British empire has realized many high ideals. Germany has formed those which are antagonistic, which we consider warped and degenerate, based on those of Rome and just as antiquated. The fight of the giants is be- tween the hostile ideals, as well as between the sordid self-seeking which lurks around. During the world- shattering conflicts both theirs and ours have been modified, Germany's for the worse, our own we trust for the better. We want what the battlefield and peace conferences cannot give, a world-wide empire of justice and reason. To define justice and formu- late the rule of reason, there will have to be long discussion in a parliament of the world, a constitu- tional and constituent assembly composed of popular representatives, men of good will abhorring violence. To inaugurate its sessions we must have peace with honor, the terms of which shall exclude the vast majority of contentious questions which are yet justiciable. If we are going to be all-inclusive eventu- ally, we must first be fearlessly exclusive of all the derivative issues, so that the din of arms may cease and the uproar of debate may begin. We must have a heart for any fate; whether wily diplomats dish up a nominal peace within the year and leisurely go about the consideration of the maximum — or whether im- patient sufferers in the cause of nationality, civiliza- tion, and democracy stand out for substantive results 452 THE CONFLICT OF IDEALS and prolong the conflict indefinitely in a war-worn, battle-scarred world of sorrow. Either may be the outcome; the former would bear finer fruit in the future, the latter would better content the present generation. As a rule the manners of liberty have not been gentle manners ; and in the name of liberty the most ruthless tyranny has been practised as it may be again. Men of affairs are still, as they have been for three years, talking scornfully of any return to the status quo ante because it was the status quo ante out of which pro- tracted horror has come. Yet the general cry was: no annexations, no indemnities, which is territorially and financially the same thing plus the appalling ex- travagance of war loans and war taxes, and the re- arrangement of nationalities. This plus-age was inevitable in the primary arrangements for peace; but with that and the limitation of armaments, the regulation of ocean trade and the readjustment of boundaries, there could be and is no slightest hint of returning to a previous condition of European or even of American affairs. The relations of unde- veloped and backward peoples to each other, and of the vanguard to the rearguard are the secondary mat- ters: and, though fundamental to enduring peace, they can secure better attention when guns are not rattling, cannon booming, shells bursting and human- ity groaning unutterably, as they still are on the frontiers newly delimited. As to the inevitable de- velopment in the relations of states to their citizens and of citizens to each other, state ownership of gen- eral utilities and natural resources, private enterprise under state control, limitations on wealth, etc., that is the work of giants freed from the outward thrust for defense or offense; it is, as many think, a task imposed by the primitive curse, has been in process of solution throughout the ages and is not likely but certain so WITH POSSIBLE ATTAINMENT 453 to continue. Ease is no treasure, moth and rust cor- rupt the easy-minded. The struggle for life and the realization of ideals never ends, and fortunately so. It is utter weariness, yet it is the sense of failure which regenerates the worker, turning his mind to the con- templation of the highest thing, the salvation of his own soul, not by matter, but by the spirit. The way- farer is the only joyous pilgrim, because his goal is ever receding as he approaches it : and it is the game, not the victory, which rejoices the true sportsman. So it will be as it must be with the elaboration of our present peace, a milestone on the path of progress toward nobler living, but leaving a vista of travel over long and weary stretches before human perfecti- bility can be even distinguished in flickering outline. The earthly Salem, the city of peace, military, politi- cal, or economic, will still be afar off. But it will be nearer because the doctrine of perpetual peace has become a working hypothesis. VIII PEACE AS THE TEST OF OUR DEMOCRACY THE EFFICIENCY OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY; MILITARY, FINANCIAL, ECONOMIC, AND MORAL — SUPREME TEST THE FULFILMENT OF PEACE TERMS; FIRM, DEFINITE, AND ENDURING PEACE — CORRECTION OF THOSE FALSE AND DISTORTED CONCEPTIONS OF NATIONALITY WHICH UNDER- LAY ALL OTHER CAUSES OF THE WAR — OUR UNION THE CONSPICUOUS EXAMPLE OF COORDINATING NATIONAL [MUNICIPALl LAW WITH INTER- NATIONAL LAW: HAS AFFORDED THE FIRST EXAMPLE OF DECLARING WAR IN SUPPORT OF THE LATTER — HAVE WE ALSO CREATED A PUBLIC OPINION WHICH EXPRESSES ITSELF INTERNATIONALLY? THE DOCTRINE OF NON-INTERVENTION TO BE SUBSTANTIALLY MODIFIED BUT NOT NUL- LIFIED — AMONG QUESTIONS REGARDED AT FIRST AS SECONDARY, THOSE OF THE ATLANTIC AND PACIFIC HAVE BECOME PRIMARY — OUR EASTERN SHORE COMPELLED TO LOOK EASTWARD: THE IMPORTING AND IMMI- GRANT SHORE THE PACIFIC STATES SHOULD STUDY AND STATE THE PACIFIC PROBLEM: THE EXPORTING AND WORLD-MARKET SHORE OUR EASTERN AND MIDDLE STATES FAIRLY CLEAR AS TO TRANS-ATLANTIC POLICY: THE PACIFIC STATES SUPERBLY PATRIOTIC, BUT ALSO DISPOSED TO LOOK EASTWARD — THEIR SPECIFIC TASK TO CREATE A DEFINITE PUBLIC OPINION AS TO PACIFIC PROBLEMS — OUR DEPLORABLE LACK IN THE COMPREHENSION OF THE FAR EAST. NO SCHOOLS OF COM- MERCE OR DIPLOMACY TO STUDY ITS PEOPLES, TONGUES, AND POINT OF VIEW — THE HOMOGENEITY OF THE PACIFIC POPULATION SHOULD LIGHTEN THE TASK OF CONCENTRATING PUBLIC OPINION THE NAVAL STRATEGY OF THE PACIFIC. INSTANCES OF IGNORANCE AND INDIFFERENCE — GEOG- RAPHY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF THE PACIFIC NOT STUDIED AS ARE THOSE OF THE ATLANTIC — OCEAN HIGHWAYS DETERMINATIVE FACTORS IN PEACE AS WELL AS IN WAR: INTERDEPENDENCE OF NATIONS BASED ON THE KNOWLEDGE AND USE OF THEM ENDURING PEACE DEPENDENT ON THE FAIRNESS AND JUSTICE OF SETTLEMENTS: AND THE PACIFIC QUESTION SECOND TO NO OTHER IN IMPORTANCE — THERE SHOULD BE NO SENSI- TIVENESS AS TO WHAT ONE REGION OF THE UNITED STATES THINKS OF ANOTHER. EACH MUST PERFORM ITS OWN TASK AND IMPOSE ON THE OTHERS PRINCIPLES OF RIGHT THINKING AND JUST DEALING AS TO THE WHOLE. As is natural under existing conditions we are prone to consider the final test of democracy to be its efficiency in peace. Ours has exhibited a military efficiency marvellous in the eyes of all mankind including our own. Our financial efficiency has been equally re- markable, because without our self-denial and the lavish supplies of every kind wherewith the belliger- 454 PEACE AS THE TEST 455 ents have been furnished there would have been a disastrous and unhappy end to the struggle. Our efficiency in the conservation of food was admittedly phenomenal. The price paid for this efficiency was very high, because the powers of our chief magistrate, civil and military, were temporarily enlarged into those of a dictator. Inasmuch as the use of these powers did not seem tyrannical to the ardent American patriots who formed the overwhelming majority as against a malignant but insignificant minority of enemy sympathizers we may comfort our- selves with the thought that the tacit and enthusiastic consent of democracy is one way of exhibiting its sovereignty. It was at least a democratic dictator- ship ultimately forced to obey the unquestioned will of the people, expressed in majority rule. With a cause we knew to be just, fighting for self- respect, self-defense, and the welfare of posterity, our uppermost thought was decisive victory. Without the humiliation of our enemy, all else would be naught; and with a peace based on exhaustion or on a state of wasted opportunity there would have opened a sorry vista, a perspective of recuperation for the renewal of conflict, a vigilant and burdensome militarism throughout the world, a perpetuation of intolerable, international relations. We did well, therefore, to bend every energy and make every sacrifice, so that we might command and not accept a peace. But it was exactly in that act, the dictating a peace, that the su- preme test of our democracy came. To use the com- mon phrase, in making the world safe for democracy did we make democracy safe for the world ? Having the power, have we had the knowledge to state the terms of a just and enduring peace? Suppose we had both the power and the knowledge, did we also have the unselfishness and the chivalry to make a peace both enduring and just, because generous. That we 456 PEACE AS THE TEST would have both the power and the generosity seemed likely: but we have been sadly disenchanted by the little backward nations. We iterated and reiter- ated that we sought no advantage of our own; we believed it, and this unselfish confidence in our na- tional virtue would, we felt certain, carry us "over the top" at the decisive moment. But what about our knowledge? We thought democracy, American democracy, intelligent and accomplished, able to form an enlightened public opinion ; were we right ? There is much to give us pause before we answer affirmatively. The battle-cry of this warfare has been a word which sounds innocent enough but con- tains the germs of all unrighteousness; to wit, nation- ality. To the aggressors it has meant the inclusion under one government, under one political system, within a definite territory, of all who claim a common origin, have common institutions, faith, and speech. In particular the Ottoman empire hitherto and measur- ably even yet a congeries of unrelated parts, each clamoring for emancipation and independence, aimed either to exterminate all who were not Moslem Turks, or else to Turkify them. Such, too, was the parallel aim of its embittered foe, the Czardom seated at St. Petersburg. It was, therefore, in eastern Europe, the wildest and most backward of all lands, not ex- cepting Mexico, that the passion for nationality became a menace to the peace of the world and to all civilization, even the bastard culture of Germany. It was the solemn, though preposterous conviction, of the German bureaucracy that by the appeal to nationality, the world around, they could splinter Brazil, the United States, and the British empire, recall a lukewarm kinsfolk settled in foreign lands to German allegiance, and thus secure a hegemony at all strategic points, especially in the south and east; because all the European peoples, including them- OF OUR DEMOCRACY 457 selves, suffer so under the survival of that primitive curse known as heliotropism, the longing for sun lands, tropical and semitropical. What Americans proved in the result to know about this bacillus of nationality in its virulent activity was little enough. Yet at the peace council the most impassioned and misleading pleas to save it from the electrocution it deserves, were both heard and heeded. Yet even self-knowledge would, in our case, be world knowledge. Ostensibly a federation of sovereign states — free and independent each claims to be — in reality we find a federal state useful for administra- tion both of local and national affairs and have al- most forgotten even the phrase: States' rights. What we have builded and are building within our own borders is a federation not only of states, but of peoples, European, and even in a measure, Asiatic. Lawyers know that the friction between municipal and international law has been severe throughout all modern history and at times has menaced interna- tional relations. The public law of the nations in relation to each other has so far received its widest validity in the regulation of all our interstate affairs and is in that respect a lesson to all peoples. But it has affected us more profoundly than all the rest, unconsciously but really; because we are familiar with it. For the first time in history a great power has set foremost among the causes for declaring war the violations of international law: that is what we have done, violations against other nations and our own. Now this very extraordinary achievement has reacted in an unforeseen way among the constituent elements of our population. Persons now living will behold in a not very distant future the dwelling together in unity and brotherhood of Americans whose pre : American traditions, and race, and speech, and habits differed by the whole universe. The melting-pot is 458 , PEACE AS THE TEST not going to produce a new chemical mass, it is going to purify from their dangerous nationalistic dross the various elements cast into it and turn the later immi- grants into a type, like, but not necessarily identical, with that of the earlier ones. Self-examination and success in adapting private to public law really fitted the American democracy to preside at the peace con- gress: but the presidency proved formal and inef- fective. Of course far more than such self-examination,' however rigid, was required to make enduring the hoped-for peace of the world, inaugurated but not completed at Paris. But the one example just given must suffice for the present, so that we may turn to the second and even more vital point — the question of public opinion in a democracy and how it is to ex- press itself in international affairs. We all know what a painful process learning and thinking is; so painful and so exhausting that we shirk it and leave the formation of opinion to experts. A boss-ridden democracy is the outcome, for in some form the boss has been indispensable, the leader who devotes him- self exclusively to politics as a profession and advises the slothful voter. It is he who has devised the whole machinery of party government and runs it. Many leaders lead with no other remuneration than the sense of power; many more secure a livelihood by office-holding, and as many more as the contractors for public works which they propose, which by their influence are legislated into projects and from which they have their profit, legal or illegal, but in most cases immoral. To this process in domestic affairs there has always been an analogy in the conduct of foreign affairs. Except that the management of the latter has generally been committed to high-minded statesmen, who form and lead public opinion about international relations almost as completely as do the petty politicians about local affairs. OF OUR DEMOCRACY 459 Hitherto we have regarded this state of things as a necessary evil. Out of it grew the old international law and the whole system of international relations alike in war and peace; the systems of congresses, of secret treaties, of baneful alliances, of a sudden call to wars, unforeseen and unsuspected by those who carry their burdens, of peace negotiations which fixed the status of lands and peoples with absolute disregard of their consent. Our administration proclaimed to the world its discontent with all this, demanding "open covenants openly arrived at," in a world safe for democracy; and has reiterated that no govern- ment shall stand without the consent of the governed. Literally taken, this would mean that the existing governments of Europe should, as far as the great powers are concerned, be relegated to the historical rummage drawer; because though all are democratic in some sense, not one can grasp our system of de-' mocracy, partly because each finds its own very troublesome, and likewise because every one of them has one or more so-called nationalities protesting violently against the rule under which it finds itself. The doctrine of non-intervention which is the corner- stone of the American system would be promptly superannuated. Of course such an extreme would be worse than silly or foolish, it would bring us into general reprobation and nullify all our influence for good. Well then, what does the administration mean, and what do the American people mean that it should mean? To the first question the answer is at hand, because we were intermittently informed at shorter and shorter intervals that the peace made after victory was to settle the primary and not the secondary causes of the war, and coordinately a determined effort was made to secure from the belligerents of western Europe a statement of their minimum conditions. 46b PEACE AS THE TEST The replies were shifty because of secret treaties be- tween four powers, disposing of the Adriatic shores and the two island groups in the western Pacific, taken from Germany by Japan; commanding strate- gic positions, separately or together. The answer to the second question : How far can we go then ? was intended to be given in the famous fourteen points published by our administration. Is a permanent parliament of nations to settle the so-called secondary questions; those of nationality, the freedom of the seas, the negotiation of international questions not secretly by trained experts, but openly by popular rep- resentatives ? How far indeed? And these are matters infinitely more complex than the primary ones, basic to any enduring peace, even a two-genera- tion peace, as we have just had a one generation period of delicate equilibrium. France asserted that she did not go to war for the recovery of Alsace-Lorraine and the protectorate of Syria; she now wants both. Great Britain entered the war, she said, to protect Belgian neutrality and secure France from humiliating invasion, but in the background is the important question — Who shall control southeastern Europe, Asia Minor, and the land route to the hither and middle Orient? We entered the war with no thought of any other cause than the preservation of our self- respect, the upholding of justice in public law, and protection against aggression. But in our case, too, there enters another importunate question, What about our rights on the high seas, the freedom of all the connecting straits, and quite the most searching query of all: The strategy of the Pacific Ocean. To be purely an Atlantic-ist is not to be American at all; to be purely a Pacific-ist is equally nugatory. Two mighty oceans wash our shores. In spite of figures and all possible evidence to the contrary our eastern harbors have been and are destined to be mainly OF OUR DEMOCRACY 461 importing entrances while the western have the manifest destiny to be exporting exits now and throughout a long future. The older states of the Union are, of course, the most populous, so far; but their populations are woe- fully heterogeneous; to the extent of dire confusion in times of acute crisis. What flood of immigration flows into our middle and western states is, although some discredit the idea, a filtered flood. It is the eastern American who has to take the unenterprising residuum, coarsely ignorant, totally inert, sullen when disturbed, and treating it chemically as it were, partly by instruction, partly by suasion, sometimes by the strong arm, to set going the reactions, destroy the inhi- bitions and emancipate human souls into the environ- ment which millions have come to call God's country. Yes ! the slums of New York, or any great city of the Atlantic seaboard, are an unknown and undiscovered country to ninety-nine per cent of our visitors and fellow countrymen; terrible as they are, they shine, nevertheless, as their full participation in the war has abundantly proved, with the light of hope, and the pilgrims of our day are indifferent to all else than the shining goal. We and ours in New York are fully aware of all our narrow provincialism and make no excuses. But we are faithfully struggling to reform; we are steadily learning to think nationally and the existence of fifteen or more powerful nationalistic societies within our borders has compelled us to think internationally, to examine the vociferous de- mands of Albanians, Syrians, Poles, , Bohemians, Ruthenians, Irish, Lithuanians, and all the rest, for sovereign nationality. No true peace has been made because their later tyranny is worse than the former: this is their dream. Our eyesight is confused enough as we look across the Atlantic. If we can clarify our vision in that direction as we are desperately engaged 462 PEACE AS THE TEST in doing, what about our fellow citizens on the Pacific shores? What is the direction in which they look and what is public opinion on the Pacific Coast regarding the Pacific problems? These questions are not academic, nor based on mental fictions. For the eastern and middle states the war has already worked a miracle; their most intelligent men and women have poured through every gateway westward across the continent; not only as pleasure and climate seekers, but with the fraternal interest in relatives of whom they have had insufficient knowledge, and with whom they desire to knit closer ties. It can be asserted without fear of contradiction that from the Great Divide to the Atlantic Coast de- mocracy is willing to study alike the Atlantic and the Pacific questions which are still to be settled dur- ing the trial years of peace; still more that it is so occu- pied; and further yet that the administration has been under the influence of a perfectly definite public opinion to the effect that the peace itself should, as it did, cope only with the ostensible and primary causes of the war. Every element in that vast population of ours is likely to be clarion clear in the expression of such an opinion, feeling that with the victory and the cessation of arms, other forms of strife must not immediately threaten political peace. Social and economic questions are matters for arbitra- tion, as self-respect and self-defense cannot be. These questions of national policy on the Pacific concern every section of the United States because in their settlement we are now stooping beneath such a burden of taxation as never before and we have been sending the best young blood of all the land to risk pre- cious life for a just cause which was not national but international and world-embracing. Whence is light to come? "Ex oriente lux" is an old, old proverb OF OUR DEMOCRACY 463 which in our case may have a double meaning and prove misleading. Let us say at once that for the Pacific Coast light cannot come from the shores of the Atlantic and say it with offensive iteration. But it can come from the far east beyond the Pacific, if wise men go to find it. Such wise men there are in com- merce, manufactures, and banking. Like the Magi of old they have already fixed their eyes on the star and have made prosperous beginning in that inter- change of commodities which is the soul of trade. There, however, is a full stop; we have no sufficient body of wise men, young or old, familiar with oriental ways in politics and society, speaking the tongues of the far east, acquainted with leading men, or familiar with their policies, external or internal. The first line of defense for any nation is its diplomacy; not the old tortuous, self-seeking diplomacy, but the di- plomacy of enlightenment, intelligence, and good will. Our neighbors over the seas outstrip us far in this re- spect. There is a single American university with an association of oriental students numbering about three hundred and some others are not far behind it. This company of men from the east has but one idea, to search out the secret of western power. They learn all European languages, they study European and American history, they become proficient in all the natural Sciences pure and applied. Not to expand this theme unduly where are our young Americans doing the corresponding thing ? We hazard the guess that our diplomats transact substantially all their business with eastern governments through hireling inter- preters whose statements they have to accept with no control, with infantile trust, and wide-eyed credu- lity. Would it be asking much if the merchants of the Pacific shore were requested to combine and found schools of commerce where their successors should learn eastern ways and establish travelling 464 PEACE AS THE TEST fellowships on which youth should be sent to reside' for years where those ways were practised ? And the American people generally would like to hear an im- perious clarion call from the Pacific communities, which Washington would have to heed, for the es- tablishment both in our diplomatic and consular service of well-equipped departments for the training of men to serve in the great oriental countries. Visit- ing our embassies and consular offices in eastern lands, it is not hard to discern why men holding such posts find themselves inefficient to shamefacedness. Who will deny that most of our diplomatic establishments in hither and farther east are and long have been appanages of the well-equipped European organiza- tions maintained in diplomacy at every strategic point. Not that our men are servile but simply that association with the trained expert compels a certain deference, always paid, however unconsciously by ignorance to knowledge. Such a demand as that suggested can only be effectively made by organized bodies of Pacific slope voters; it is the giving or with- holding the vote which brings results. The important question in the supreme test of democracy is not what one section of it thinks of an- other, but what one section compels the others to think about it. The perpetuation of peace is essen- tially a far western task. The three shore lines of Washington, Oregon, and California differ widely, one from another, as do their climates and the com- posite populations dwelling in their broad expanses. But they have a noteworthy community of feeling because they know and feel instinctively that they have a common interest. Besides, the population is comparatively new in its habitat, and has all the advantage of unexhausted resources. It is well fed, well housed, and well organized, not so numerous as to be utterly unwieldy, and for these reasons better OF OUR DEMOCRACY 465 fitted to create and express a unified public opinion than any other part of the country. They are also de- voted students of their origins and local history, eager to enroll their names in the golden book of pioneers, exhibiting in this a quasi-aristocratic temper squint- ing a little with the normal eye of democracy. Yet there is a singular failure to study and discuss their political and economic geography, as it appears from what is their own front door, as in second line it is the front door of the entire nation, because our future is on and in and over the Pacific Ocean. From beyond the Atlantic, Caucasians have been swarming into the country, carried in foreign ships, expressly enjoined by their former home governments to remain loyal to the older in their double citizenship and in latter days entertaining the fixed purpose to win a competency and return to the land of their birth to enjoy it. America's future on the Atlantic is like to be what her past has been, a scanty participation in the lively interchange of relations. The geography and strategy of the Atlantic have been studied with unremitting diligence for five hundred years; the world is only beginning with an examination of the Pacific from the political, economic, and strategic points of view. Think of it, our interest in Hawaii was due to a false idea that it would be a mid-ocean sta- tion when our isthmian canal was built. You feel rather silly to discover that the midway point of the great circle from Panama to Yokohama is a few hundred miles west of San Francisco. That the great Northwest is not a greater Northwest is due to exactly similar ignorance in our ancestors. Should we not fear that posterity may find itself in a sorry plight owing to our ignorance and indifference? A few only dimly conceive the strategic gain of Japan in her quiet occupation of the Marshall and Caroline Islands, directly athwart Philippine trade routes to 466 PEACE AS THE TEST the South Sea; and those few have displayed precious little interest. Here would be another vital matter for the consideration of the Pacific Coast; and that right early, because though the peace is made on paper nothing is settled until the pacts are sealed by practice. Another geographical trick question finds its answer in the fact that the midway point on the line connecting the easternmost and westernmost boundaries of our American possessions is the city of San Francisco. To most such facts appear utterly trivial, part of a school-boy game. Doubtless there are many others like them in the heads of coast dwellers. But behold ! , these apparent trifles have been the little matters about which stupendous in- terests turn. How many have examined a strategy map of the Pacific, attempting to plot on a flat surface the facts which only appear correctly on that of a globe; a makeshift if you like, but flooding our defense prob- lem with a light not seen by the indifferent? The Atlantic, defense of the eastern approach to the Panama Canal is assured by the recent events of our history. We assume the benevolence of Great Brit- ain and it has been proved; otherwise we would be uneasy enough in her strong naval positions at Hali- fax and the Bermudas, naval bases commanding the most populous districts of the country, with the Ba- hamas, Jamaica, St. Lucia, Barbadoes, and Trinidad commanding the approaches of the canal from the east. But the mouth of the canal itself is tactically safe in its own fortifications inasmuch as we have Guantanamo dominating Jamaica and the Wind- ward Islands, as we now have the Virgin Islands, one time Danish, and as above all else we have Culebra, only twenty miles away. They are, as Admiral Mahan in his book on naval strategy so squarely asserts, for our control of the Caribbean exactly what OF OUR DEMOCRACY 467 Gibraltar and Malta are for British interests in the Mediterranean and the Isthmus of Suez. Now the focus of the Monroe Doctrine is at the Isthmus of Panama and how are we situated on the Pacific side ? If our first line of defense be diplomacy, our second is the navy. In the diplomacy of the Pacific shores here and beyond, political and economic, we are deplorably weak because we have no men trained in it and no prospect of securing without violent agita- tion such a branch of the national defense. In the naval strategy we are sorrowfully weak likewise be- cause we have no adequate bases to dominate the approaches to the canal from the eastward. If you take pains to plot the Pacific, especially on a globe, you will see how secondary is the importance of Hawaii thirteen hundred miles distant from the great circle highway, how vital is the strong fortification of Pearl Harbor, and how worthless is the famous "key to the Pacific," Guam, in its present harborless and defenseless state, while as you run your eyes northward you will discover that the despised Aleutian Islands, the anchorage of Unalaska that is, and little Tutuila, far south in Samoa, have uses of the first im- portance in composing our strategic system on the Pacific. Whatever power secures the protectorate of the Marshalls and Carolines with mastery in the Shantung peninsula, that power will neutralize the value of the Philippines for us, isolate the Dutch colo- nies, and erect an impassable barrier between Australia and both American and Canadian ports. Both San Francisco Bay and Puget Sound are unsurpassable possessions, but the great navy forces of the Pacific still in consideration would never collide in their vicinity; they would look helplessly on while the fate of the Pacific was decided thousands of miles away in the struggle for the key bases of the navy, all far nearer to the Asiatic shore than to the town of 468 PEACE AS THE TEST Panama. Great fleets never in history have fought in mid-ocean; every naval decision has been reached almost within sight of a naval base. Distrust and strife spring from incertitude and unpreparedness. And, alas ! there can be no per- petuation of the peace so painfully negotiated with- out a fair distribution of advantages and with the power to maintain it. There is no irony when we announce our trust in the benevolence of the Pacific powers, Japan and Great Britain; nor when we roundly asseverate as we do, that the exclusion of Germany from the Pacific sphere is not merely to'their interest and ours, but to that of the world, including Germany itself, among whose beneficent gifts are not those of dealing with backward peoples; no, we are sincere in such assertions. The world war has exhibited the interdependence of nations in a light at once most humiliating and most encouraging. With those men remaining in office, who have passed through the furnace, trust and sincerity in foreign relations will for the period of their lives reign su- preme. But they will pass and their generation; rivalry will begin again; and what is to prevent the quick return to the sorry strife of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with fencing and tricking, self-seeking and overawing, as once more the dominat- ing influence over international law? Two things, perhaps, and one certainly, can forestall such a dis- aster. A democracy fit for the world, without which there can be no world fit for democracy, is one of them; primarily, however, a square deal as basic to the other forms of democratic equality. The Americans of the Pacific can study the problem of the square deal in the Pacific far better than the rest of us. It is not theirs to say, as sometimes the thoughtless do, that their fellow citizens of the Atlantic have seized so much there is little left. There is plenty left, OF OUR DEMOCRACY 469 of common sense, of patriotic fellow-feeling and of hard cash in the United States Treasury, plenty to accomplish every task peculiar to the Pacific, each and all of those enumerated; the diplomacy, com- mercial and political, the physiography, and the naval strategy of the mightiest of mighty oceans. Whose affair is this? That of the whole nation; and we are solemnly bound, all of us, to think na- tionally and internationally. First of all, however, sectionally I fear, human nature being what it is. Coming and going throughout the various western re- gions of the United States almost every passing inti- macy of the traveller begins with this query: What does the east really think of us ? And why have they so neglected to cultivate our intimacy, learn our wants, and make us feel more like Americans, than, let us say, Texans or Calif ornians. No doubt the retort is impertinent on the whole; but some pertinence there is in it: What does the west want, does it know? And, if it knows, why does it not cry aloud and compel attention? Wandering "children taking notes" both south and west are at times lost for guidance because they find the hall porter of the American national mansion apparently more interested in the delivery wagons at the back door than in the front door which he is set to keep. We search through the press in vain and ransack the minds of friends in vain to secure a categorical statement of Gulf or Pacific opinion, not regarding the Atlantic, that is clear enough; but regarding the needs and duties of the western or southern shore of our continental domain. Representative government is the best expression of democracy so far discovered. But the representa- tive is too often a fallible man of small calibre. Es- pecially so if he is to represent the majority. Arrived in Washington he comes binder the spell of power at 470 PEACE AS THE TEST the seat of power. However he got his seat, he must represent the whole country, a large order: and hav- ing both salary and honor as emolument, the hours fly in a pleasant way until the question obsesses him, How am I going to keep this delightful place and be reelected? He has little time for the study of larger problems in statesmanship because the com- mon voter is his instant concern. Perhaps it is just as well so, but the point of our contention is that neither from the local press nor from men in congress has come, or is coming, the revelation so ardently desired by those who do cooperate in the weeklies, monthlies, and trade press to mould the public opinion on the Atlantic shores in the Mississippi valley and on the Pacific Coast. Only the merchants, manu- facturers, and professional classes can do the self- searching and bring about the self-realization which will put any section to its threefold work: local, national, and international, which will clarify its opinion, specify its demands, and give its reasonable voice that weight of truth which secures results with- out humiliating mendicancy. Indeed, in Roman phrase, the work must begin at once and "glow" if results useful in preserving the peace are to be ready. It is only thus that a democracy, so ad- vanced socially and locally can prove that it is equally advanced politically and nationally, equally poignant and convincing when dealing with the larger and largest elements of world policy. INDEX INDEX Abdul Hamid, system of, 39s; over- throw of, 408 Ability, practical, 131 Absolutism, 46, 51, 14s, 247; and the nation, 163; rise and growth of, 205; in the Middle Ages, 236; in England, 254; and American colonies, 256 Acton, Lord, 79 Aesthetics, care of, left to state, 138, 139 Africa, a German, 426; question of na- tionality in, 439 Agitation, constitutional, 6s; right of, 82, 83 Agnostic philosophy, 195 Agricultural trusts, 70 Agriculture, and feudalism, 239 Aleutian Islands, the, 467 Alexander the Great, 221, 231 Alexander I, Czar, 354, 417 Algeciras, Conference of, 404 Alliances, popular participation in mak- ing of foreign, 377 Allies, the, peace terms of, 447 Alsace-Lorraine, the question of, 160, 419, 421, 422 Ambition, and equality, 86 America. See United States American, artistic genius, 135; self- depreciation, 134; self-knowledge, . 134. 135, 457 „ . , „„ . . American colonies, Tones and Whigs in. So; free-thinkers in, so, 51; charters m, 53; conservatives and liberals in, 53; religious and civil equality of, 54, S5; rights of, 54; representation in, 68; theocracy in, 19s American Revolution, the, 248, 234-257 Amiens, Treaty of,-367 Amphyctionic Council, the, 330, 366 Anarchy, 5, 7, 217, 30s; and the war, 8; menace of, 286; so-called ideals of, 308; in Russia, 314 Anglas, Boissy d', 107 Anglicanism, 45 Anglo-Saxon race, 164 Anhalt, violation of neutrality of, 150 Anthropologists, theories of, 27 Antigone, 40 Apes, and men, 26, 27 Aquinas, Thomas, teaching of, 43, 44, 190, 191, 194, 337 Arabs, 240, 406, 439 Arbitration, International, ideal of pub- licity in, 376, 377 Aristocracy, in a democracy, 58; de- mocratic, in France, 79; American, 90; in warfare, 147 Aristotle, 18s, 272, 281; his doctrine of man, 26, 28, 141, 184, 325, 337; his doctrine of natural nght, 40, 42; on man and the state, 201; the apostle of war, 330 Armenians, 406 Armies, standing, 76, 366 Army, American, in Civil War, 148 Arnold, 287 Arts, fine, new birth of, in Middle Ages, 241 Aryan race, 164; and religious belief, 161 ; and monogamous family, 203 Asia, social condition in, 221; policing of, 412; question of nationality in, 439; a German, 426 Asia Minor, question of control in, chief cause of war, 407, 408 Asquith, 422 Assyria, 220 Athenian, the, a model citizen, 98, 99 Athens, empire of, 29; decline of, 98, 99; a polis, 1 59 Atlantic seaboard of the United States, 460, et seq. Augustan Age, the, Roman concept of peace in, 331 Augustine, teaching of, 43 Austin, 196 Australia, public lands of, 270 Austria-Hungary, 257, 314, 354, 437; in war, 129; dual monarchy of, 156, 157; a nation by dynasty, 164; social- ism in, 312; nationalization in, 389; alliance of, with Germany, 39s, 396, 401; incorporation of Balkan prov- inces by, 408, 409 Authority, doctrine of divine origin of, 194, 195; national, considered as an evil, 195; unification of, in Middle Ages, 236 Autocracy, 5, 6; democratized, 74, 383 Babylonia, 220 Bakunin, anarchistic doctrines of, 295, 308; his "Dieu et l'Etat," 308 Balfour, 414 Balkan States, nationalities in, 370; wars of, 395 ; situation in, a cause of war, 406-410; and the Peace Confer- 473 474 INDEX ence, 420, 421; the question of the, 419, 428, 429 Ballot, the complicated, 70, 8s Baltic States, destruction of Teutonism in, 400 Bankruptcy laws in the United States, 317 Bancroft, 54; his estimate of Calvin, 244 Barclay, influence of pacifism of, 339 Barons, English, alliance of, with bur- gesses, 232 Basques, 240 Beaconsfield, 415 Bedouin, tribes of, 181 Bentham, Jeremy, 214, 334; plan of, for perpetual peace, 343-346, 3631 382 Belgium, 364; violation of neutrality of, 408; and the London conference, 417; rehabilitation of, 421 Berlin, failures of Congress of, 414, 415, 418, 419; Treaty of, 362, 367, 396, 408 Bible-in-the schools question, 170 Bills of rights, in the American colonies, 55 Biologists, and origin of man, 25; and natural law, 212, 213 Bishop's Question, the, so Bismarck, state socialism of, 310; and German unity, 354, 373; and alliance with Austria-Hungary, 39s, 396; his attitude toward colonies and imperial- ism, 400, 401 Blanc, Louis, 292 Bluntschli, 201 Bodin, Jean, and political sovereignty, 46, 192 Bohemia, 436 Bolshevism, creed of, 15, 16; in Russia, 449 Bondage, interest of common, 222; forms of, and physical geography, 225 Books on political subjects, 170, 171 Bosnia-Herzegovina, annexed by Aus- tria-Hungary, 408, 409 Boss, the political, 23, 64, 70, 80, 126, 443, 444. 458 Bossuet, 339 Boundaries, national, 160, 165, 263 Bourbons, absolutism of the, 46 Bourgeoisie, the, 294-296, 298 Bourgoing, 331 Brazil, 24s Brentano, Lujo, 99, ieo Bribery, place, 143 British nation, the, 158. Sec Great Britain Brown, Robert, and Puritan revolution, „ 47 Brownson, 195 Brunetiere, 325 Bryce, James, 105 Buckle, 173; and influence of the land, 261, 262 Bulgaria, 437 Bureaucracy, a menace to democracy, 89; of France, 129; of Germany, I2g, 403. 435; of Russia, 129 Burke, 201 Byzantine empire, the, relation of state and church in, 231 Caesarism, 98, 106 Calhoun, 69 Calif ates, the, depositories of knowledge, 239 California, 122 Calvin, and theocracy, 45; influence of, on . politics, 46, 244; Bancroft's estimate of, 244 Calvinism, theocracy of, 4s, 195; poli- tical, 210; influence of, on politics, 243, 244 Calvinists, and Puritan revolution, 47; theocracy of, 45, 19s Cambon, Paul, 404 Canada, public lands of, 270; question of annexation of, 392 Capacity, development of human, 177 Capital, sacrifices of, 118; and labor, 297-302; and the war, 386 Caracalla, 18s Caribbean, the, American control of, 466 Carlyle, 437 Caroline Islands, Japan's occupation of, 465, 467 Carthage, not a true nation, 229 Carthaginian oligarchy, the, 229 Caste, system of, in ancient East, 227 Cathari, the, pacifism of, 332 Catholic church. See Roman Catholic church Caucasians, in the United States, 465 Cavaignac, 292 Central America, 369, 386 Ceylon, joint-families of, i8r, 204 Chaldea, respect for property in, 36 Charity and democracy, 60; radical views about, 119; sums paid to, in the United States, 317; institutions of, 368; extinction of, 444 Charlemagne, 233; division of empire of, 160 Charters, in American colonies, 53 Chartist movement, the, 293 Chemistry, 30 China, 220; a patriarchy, 29; demo- cratic temper of, 75, 106; in war, 14s; theocracy of, 182; population of, 277; natural resources of, 282, 388; idea of peace in early, 329; nationalities in, 370 Choice, right of, as basis to spiritual life, 43; personal, in the vote, 57; in the city-state, 183 Christian socialists, 3, 294, 307-309 Christianity, and right of choice, 43; and equality, 73; and the state, 93; INDEX 475 democratic, 94; influence of, 186- 190; in Middle Ages, 194; in Byzan- tium, 230-232; and the individual, 233; and Teutonic spirit, 233, 243; practical, 278; true ideals of, 308, 30a ; doctrine of peace of, 331, 332 Church, popular sovereignty in, 44; separation of, from state, 47, 187-igo, 240, 250, 332; and equality, 75; na- tionalization of, 76; authority of, overthrown, 93, 94; universal, hostile to nation, 188, 189; and state in Byzantium, 231; feudalism in, 237, 238; in the Middle Ages, 242; and state in modern nation, 249, 250; and state in Europe, 394; and state in the United States, 444 Cicero, 40, 42, 185, 201 City, the, irresistible lure of, 135, 136 City government, disregard of demo- cratic devices in, 71; new forms of, 144 Citizens, good, and good government, 83, 260; Athenians, model, 98, 99; Greek and Roman ideal of, 182; in Middle Ages, 100 Citizenship, 32; Roman, 185 City-state, the, of Greece and Rome, 29, 182-187, 229, 230; embryo of democ- racy in, 37-40; stage of tyranny in, 38, 39; historic development of, 182, 183; organic constitution of, 186; the successor of, 187; a federation of tribes, 204; of the Orient, 228, 229 Civil War, the American, 131, 132, 142, 147, 148, 150, 266 :ivfl i Civil service, a menace to democracy, 88,89 Civil expenditures, 87, 89 Civil rights, 85-87 Civilized war, 32 Classes, social, of the United States, 208-210; in 19th century, 291 etseq.; no rigid, 3°3-3°5 Cloots, Anacharsis, 331 Collectivism, 271, 436 Colonies, of Great Britain, 73, 74; and democracy, 74; Bismarck's attitude toward, 400, 401; the question of, at the Peace Conference, 425, 4^. See also American colonies Colonization, European, 24s, 246, 383, 400 Columbus, 240 Commerce, in Middle Ages, 240 Commission form of government, 71, 144 Commons, English House of, 253 Communism, 271, 272, 305 Community, and the individual, 28, 29; condition antecedent to man, 32; the ideal, directive not coercive, 207, 216, 218 Community-will, the foundation of power, 52 Compulsion, and radical democracy, 120, 121 Concordats, 93 Condorcet, 342 Confucius, 176 Congress, the representative in, 469, 470; decision of, in Mormon case, 215, 216 Conquest, authority, basis of, 222 Conscience, and the Roman law, 40, 41 ; the social, 117-ng, 123-125, 130, 214 Conservatism, 122; in America, 53; and war, 146 Constantine, system of, for church and state, 230, 231 Constantinople, 2 30, 440 Constitution of the United States, the, 131, 169, 170, 258, 2S9 Constitutions, and their function, 65, 66, 258 Contract theory of government, 33, 51, 192; attacks on, 54; originator of, 191 ; various forms of, 196-198, 338; rea- sons for its discredit, 198 Corea, 378 Corporations, awakened conscience in, 118; protected by the state, 310, 311 Coulanges, Fustel de, his "La Cite 1 Antique," 37 Covenanters, Scottish, 48 Crime, nation an organization to sup- press, 109 Crises, discipline and dictatorship in, 96-98 Croatia, 409, 438 Croix, De la, 334 Cromwell, 47-49, 14S, *47, 363 Cross-bow, invention of the, 377, 378 CruoS, Emeric, outline of peace plan of, 334, 335; his "Le Nouveau Cynee," 334 Cuba, intervention in, 5, 74, 369; and sugar trust, 386 Culebra, 466 Cultural forces, and the state, 138, 139 Culture, a national, 124, 125 Custom, community of, 161, 162 Cynics, the, teaching of, 184, 212, 330 Dano-Prussian war, 159 Dante, teaching of, 190 Darwin, dualistic hypothesis of, 24-27 Declaration of Independence, the, 212 Declaration of rights, a, 65 Declaratory Act, the, of George HI, 33, 53 Defoe, 2ii Degeneracy, state protection against, 280, 281 Deistic conception of government, 148, 149 476 INDEX Delcassd, Theodore, the new France personified in, 403, 404; dismissal of, 403, 407 Delegates, method of choosing, 69 Demagogues, 7, 63, 85 Democracies, three imperial, 73, 74 Democracy, natural history of, 21 et seq.; question concerning, 21; defini- tion of 22, 56, 78; etymology of, 22; ideals of, 22, 35, 78; an oligarchy, 23; as a sovereignty, 23, 24; inefficiency and extravagance of, 24, 316; evolu- tion of, 34, 35 ; in history, 36 et seq.; the embryo of, 37-40; gain to, from Roman doctrines of law, 41, 42; Puri- tan revolution and modern, 47; an effort to express popular will in action, 56; institutions of, 57 et seq.; aris- tocratic elements in, 58; manners of pure, 58; .its organs in war and in peace, 58, 59; most expensive form of government, 59-61, 87, 89, 372; a direct, 61-63; stagnation in a small, 61, 62; and party leaders, 61-63; dark sides of non-representative, 62; restraints on abuse of popular sover- eignty in a, 63; devices of, 67 et seq.; representation and suffrage, checks on pure, 70-72; men and systems in, 72, 83, 84; remedy for evils of, 72; im- perial policy of, 73, 74; what consti- tutes complete, 74; proudest boast of, 75; and the church, 76; formula and terms of, 77 et seq.; sovereignty and evolution of, 77, 78; authority of, 82; system of, dependent on majority, 83; equality of, 84; inequality in, 85-91; menaces to, 88, 89, 92 et seq.; true, astateof mind, 91 elseq.; a chameleon in its hues, 91 ; tyranny of, 98, 99, 116, 121, 126; in Germany, 99-105; and external forces, 103; gains of, 109 et seq.; makes for purity and mildness, 112; direct radical, 118-126; and efficiency, 127 et seq., 454 et seq.; medium of modern life, 127, 128; in war, 130 et seq., 145 et seq., 361, 435; artistic genius of, 135; forms of social order in evolution of , 149; abnegation of extremes in, 151; and the nation, zSSetseq.; and parliamentary system, 256; and American constitution, 259; dependent on enlightened citizenship, 260; supreme power in, 264; taxation and extravagance in federal, 316; high cost of living in federal, 317; essen- tially pacifist, 361; mobilization in a, for conduct of war, 383; and league of nations, 420; and war of 1914, 427; unsettled conceptions of, 443; peace as test of, 454 et seq.; efficiency of American, 454 et seq.; public opinion in a, 458 Denmark, as a nation, i59,"i6o; guaran- tee of integrity of, 417 Despotism, in ancient East, 222-228 Diderot, 343 Diogenes, 184 Diplomacy, American success in, 133, 134; secret, 369; ideal of publicity in, 377; first une of defense for nation, 463 Discipline, with numbers, 123 Discontent, virtuous, 118 Divine origin of government, 36 . Divine right, in the papacy, 44, 46, 93, 194; of kings, 49, 149, 100, 249, 363; of the people, 149; in ancient East, 222; and feudalism, 234, 235 Divorce laws in the United States, dis- crepancies in, 317 Domestic rights, expansion of, 92, 93 Draper, his " Civil Polity," 200, 201 Dual Alliance, the 396 Dual Monarchy, the, 409, 428 Dualistic hypothesis, the, 24-27 Durant, 332 Duty, 28, 29; to God and neighbor, 43; of suffrage, 79; and rights, gs, 214; new views about, 119; and liberty, 138; public and personal, 175, 176 Dynasty, the, use of, in history, 163, 164 East, the ancient. See Orient Ecclesiastical wars, 332 Economic, history and problems of peace, 385; peace, question of, 427, 428; transformation, and the Protes- tant Reformation, 245; unity, in a nation, 163, 165 Economy, political, 175, 311-313 Edmunds Act, the, 215, 216 Education, for participation in politics and society, 81, 125; lavish distribu- tion of higher, 87, 88; dangers in quality of teaching and expansion of courses, 113-115; secularized, 170; and the nation, 217; state action regarding, 289; in Germany, 105 Edward III, 68 Edward VII, new Britain personified in, 403, 404 Efficiency, of democracy, 127 et seq., 454 et seq. Egypt, 220; respect for property in, 36; democratic elements in, 74; changes of power in ancient, 74 Eisenach, congress of professors at, 312 Election, of representatives and dele- gates, 69 Elections, money cost of, 59, 80 Electoral college, American, 258 Elizabeth, Queen, her "Great Design," 333. 413. 446 Emigration, character of, 283; reform in rules of, needed, 285 INDEX 477 Empire, five ideals of, 358 Empirics, national, 17S Empiricism, 123 Engels, 295 England, absolutism in, 46; Puritan revolution in, 47; restoration and reform of 1688 in, 48; revolution of 1688 in, 48, 54; Puritan revival of 18th century in, 48, 49; democracy in, 121; community of custom in, 162; political thinking in, 171; agri- cultural laborers in, 239; Protestant Reformation in, 244; and coloniza- tion, 246; baron-burgess alliance in, 252; introduction of representation into, 252-254; origin of House of Commons in, 253; device of political parties in, 253, 254; land tenure in, 268; landlordism and small holdings in, 269; feudalism of, 269; social reforms in, 287, 293, 294; socializa- tion in, 293, 294, 383; labor evils in, 299; Christian socialists of, 307; the poor-laws of, 309, 310; socialism of the chair in, 312. See also Great Britain English, constitution, 216, 258; revolu- tion of 1688, 145, 164, 171, 248, 252; reform bill, first, 56 Entente, the, 400; secrecy of, 404; terms of, 405, 406 Equality, of democracy, 35, 84, 85; in Egypt and Chaldea, 37; taught by Seneca, 40; and Christianity, 43, 44; religious and civil, in American colonies, 54, 55; new ideas about, 118-120; of opportunity, 121; and radical democracy, 121; and humani- tarian liberty, 141; Lincoln's ideal of, 142; in ancient Greece and Rome, 186, 330; in ancient Orient, 223; of states, theory of, 365; new definitions of, 388 Equity, no advance without, 34; the basis of, 41 Erasmus, 333 Ethics, political and personal, 175, 176 Euphrates, valley of the, despotism and religious awe in, 222, 223 Europe, triumph of democracy pre- vented in, 53; theories discussed and elaborated in, 53; reaction in, con- sequent on American bills of rights, 55; divided into free governments, 56; representative government in, 67, 68; mediaeval, 75, 145, 233 rf seq.; transformation of state system of, 133; in a measure American, 137; colonization epoch in, 245, 246, 383, 400; Roman and Teutonic branches of state system of, 247, 248; doctrine of state-interference in, 279; con- gestion of population in, 282; forma- tion of federal republics in, 317; public law of, transformed, 362; and seven epochs of international law, 363; religious rivalries in, 394; self- government of states of, 370; ques- tion of control in southeastern, chief cause of the war, 408; reconstruction of map of, 411, 412, 415-419, 428, 429; passion for nationality in, a menace to peace, 456; subject peoples of, 447; small neutral states of , 448 Exclusiveness, 86 Extravagance, of democratic govern- ment, 24, 59-61, 87, 89, 361, 372 Fable of the fish, 127 Family, the, primitive, 28; monogamic, 29, 30, 92, 202, 203; abnormal ex- pansion of, 29; levelling influences in, 92, 93; parallel to, in business, 95; new views about, 120; survivals of joint, i8r, 182, 204; derivation of the state from, 198, 199; earliest form of society, 202, 203; in ancient Oriental monarchies, 221; and feudalism, 237 Far East, Japan and Czardom in, 362. See also Orient Farm loans, 274 Federation of tribes, 204; of nations, 217 Fenelon, peace movement in French literature begun by, 339 Feudalism, ofthechurch, 75, 76, 237,238; only political system of Middle Ages, 189; in the state, 234-237; and divine right, 234, 235; effect of, feudalizing of empire, 234, 235; social organism of, 205, 235-237; in cities, formal and incomplete, 238; oppressor of agricultural laborers, 239; and en- largement of political units, 241, 242; at beginning of modern state, 249; in England, 252, 268, 269; and war, 324 Fichte, teaching of, 351-353, 355 Filanghieri, 288 Finland, Teutonism in, 400 Finns, 449, 450 Fiume, Italian claim to, 428 Fleury, Cardinal, 341 Florence, seven famous men of, 241 Force, as sanction of conduct, 77, 78, 120; theory of.'and the nation, 196; moral, stronger than physical, 359, 360; mind triumphant over brute, 371 Fourier, 292, 351 France, democracy of, 55, 56, 73, 107, 108, 128; elections in, 69; party government in, 71; democratic aris- tocracy in, 79; the two Terrors in, 83 ; in war, 129; efficiency of, 129, 130; bureaucracy of, 129, 130; offices and taxes in, 132, 133; wars of radical 478 INDEX democracy in, 148; nationality in, 158; and French-speaking peoples, 160; a nation by dynasty, 164; the Reformation in, 244; and coloniza- tion, 245, 369, 396; nearest approach to an organized socialism, 257; social- ism in, 291-295, 383; socialism of the chair in, 312; insurrection of June 26, 1848 in, 292, 293; feudal absolutism of, 299; and treaty of Utrecht, 340; radicalism in, 351, 383; expansionist policy of, before the war, 369; ques- tion of kind of government for, 372; and popular participation in inter- national arbitration, 376; destruction of churches of the Kremlin by, 387; conquests of, under Napoleon, 388; and Italy, 396, 403, 404; annexation of Tunis by, 396; and the Entente, 400; terms of Entente concerning, 405, 406; awakening of new spirit in, 403, 404; secret diplomacy of, 404; internal politics and foreign relations of, 408; claim of Alsace-Lorraine, 421, 422, 460; and German colonies, 425; object of, in war of 1914- 1918, 433 Franco-Prussian War, 293 Fraternity, and democracy, 84 Freedom, derivation and use of the word, 79; a democracy not, 83; and servitude, 138; Rousseau's doctrine of, Si Free man, ultimate fact in social evolu- tion, 305 Freemen, embryo of democracy among, 38; and validity of laws, 42; and cul- ture, 124, 125 Free-thinkers of the 18th century, 4; and the city-states, 39; in American colonies, so; in France, 71, 107 Free-thinking, growth of, in the United States, 314 Free trade, 428 French Convention, the, 263 French, democracy and its influence, 55, 56; doctrines of sovereignty, 46; liter- ature, peace movement in 340; litera- ture, view of warfare in, 327, 328; Republic, 158 French Revolution, the, 14s, 164, 170, 179, 197, 248, 257, 291, 3S4 Gaius, school of, 41 Gardiner, his "Cromwell's Place in History," 49 Gargantua, 150 Gebel, 228 Geneva, absolutism in, 46; the Reforma- tion in, 244 Genius, American artistic, 135 Gentlemen's agreements, 63, 40s Gentz, 416 George III, Declaratory Statute of, 53; an absolute monarch, 178 Geographical unity and nationality, 160 German, idea of liberty, 99-102; ascen- dancy, first phase of, 396; emigration, 426; mind, 398; philosophers, 345 el seq.; state, 103, 104 German Empire, creation of, 103, 104; government of, 157; warning of, 165; force theory proclaimed by, 196; a jural nation, 210; state and church in, 394. See also Germany German Imperial Council, 69 Germany, anarchy in, 8; democratic state of mind in, 99-105; discipline in, 105; universities in, 115; bureau- cracy of, 129, 130, 405; efficiency of, 129, 130; nationality in, 157, 165; a nation by dynasty, 164; and the Holy Roman Empire, 234; Protestants and Roman Catholics in, 245, 394; the Reformation in, 244; and revolution of 1789, 257; socialism in, 295; feudal absolutism in, 299; Christian social- ism in, 307; state-socialism in, 310; socialism of the chair in, 312; unset- tled government in, 314; the super- man of, 315; peace movement in, 340; before Kant, 34s; history of, since Kant, 353-356; Prussianization of, 353; political propaganda of, 354; economic penetration of, 354; unity of, 354; extinction of small states in, 364; expansionist policy of, before the war, 368; people in, misled by rulers, 383; vandalism of, 387; ascendancy of, 396; economic trans- formation in, 396, 397; increase in population of, 397; transformation of spiritual into material ideas in, 398; arrogance of military caste in, 398; policy of peaceful penetration, 398- 400; campaign for world conquest to be pacific, 398, 399, 401 ; attitude of, toward colonies, 400, 401; and opportunism in politics, 400; world policy of, 400-403; "Baltics" in, 401; alliance of, with Austria-Hungary, 395, 396, 401; dream of world conquest, 402, 405; aspirations checked by dip- lomatic revolution, 403; claim to Alsace-Lorraine, 421,422; question of reparation, restitution, and guaran- tees by, 423-425; disposition of col- onies of, 425, 426; desire of, for access to North Sea, 428; worship of the German genius in, 442, 443; Middle Europe plan of, 44s; and enduring peace, 446; subject peoples of, 447; appeal of, to nationality, 456; ex- clusion of, from Pacific sphere, 468. See also German Empire. Ghent, Treaty of, 375 INDEX 479 Gladstone, 287 Goethe, 355 Gondard, Ange, 334; plan of, for world peace, 343 Gotthard railway, the, 429 Government, contract theory of, 33, 51, 54, 191, 192, 196-198, 338; divine origin of, 36; city, 71, 144; party, 60, 61, 71, 72, 253, 458; corruption in, 61; representative system of, 67 et seq.; commission form of, 71; bad men and good, 83, 208, 210; "good," and "self," 123; a deistic concep- tion, 148, 149; inconsistencies in, 150; as a science and as an art, 169, 170; directive and coercive powers of, 207, 312; parliamentary, 256; unity of, and nation, 257; constitutional, 258; limitation of scope of, 288, 289; fed- eral representative, most efficient type of, 323; only with consent of governed, 459 Grant, as a leader, 147 Gratian, teaching of, 43, 44 Great Britain, rjlutocracy of, 52; party government in, 71; democracy of, 73, 74, 112, 129, 130; colonies of, 73, 74, 368, 369; democratic monarchy in, 78; woman suffrage in, 112; in war, 128, 129; constitution of, 131, 216, 258; nationality in, 158; con- stitutional ministry of, 227; forma- tion of, as a nation, 163, 164; and treaty of Utrecht, 340; expansionist policy before the war, 368, 369; secret diplomacy of, 375, 404; Ger- man ascendancy in, 396; and the En- tente, 400; menace of German rivalry to, 403, 404, 408, 422; terms of En- tente concerning, 40s, 406; an< i Bal- kan control, 407; control of Meso- potamia and Suez Canal, 411; change in policy of, 414, 41s; interests of, in Egypt, 41s; and integrity of Den- mark, 417; Cyprus taken from Tur- key by, 419; reasons of, for entering war of 1914-1918, 408, 422; and German colonies, 425; declared object of, in war, 433; and restoration of Poland, 437; control of, in Asia Minor, 460; naval bases of, at Hali- fax and the Bermudas, 466. See also England Greece, the city-state of, 29, 182-187, 204, 229; politics of, 39; tyranny in ancient, 98, 99; and Persia, 224; the people of, 225; commonwealths of, 228; collective will in, 229 Greeks, the, church of, 93 ; philosophy of, 184; learning of, brought into western Europe, 240; constructive thinkers, 328; attitude of, toward war, 330; peace idea of, 330, 331 Gregory the Great, 194 Grey, 404 Grotius, Hugo, 334; his doctrine of man, 325; and the secular principle of right, 337; his treatise on the law of war, 337, 338 Guadaloupe Hidalgo, Treaty of, 376 Guam, 467 Guantanamo, 466 Guarantees, from Germany, 423 Habit, as sanction of conduct, 78; com- munity of, 161, 162 Hague Tribunal, 366 Hamilton, and the Treasury, 72 Happiness, the pursuit of, in; feeling, the condition of, 136 Harrington, 49 Hartman, 355 Hawaii, 74, 465, 467 Hegel, his doctrine of the state, 139, 201; philosophy of, 327, 352, 353; followers of, 353 Heine, 355 Hellenes, the, 159 Hellenism, the morality of, 240 Henry IV, 46, 413; plan of , for Christian Republic, 333, 340-342 Heraclitus, 40 Heredity, in choice of kings, 46, 58 Heresies, political, 193 Hero warrior, cult of, in Prussia, 353 Hero-worship, 324 Hippothade, 150 History, and origin of man, 28; false keys to, 30: and theory, 171; and philosophy, 177, 178; and the nation, 172; and the state, 220; and war, 324 el seq.; philosophy or, 347, 348 Hobbes, 51, 171, 192; his form of the contract theory, 196, 197; his doc- trine of morality of man, 32s; and wolf -theory of man, 352 Hohenzollerns,the, Germany under, 210, 354 Hohenzollern dynasty, the, 164, 351 Holland, and the force theory, 196 Holland, in Middle Ages, 239; economic ascent of, 245; and colonization, 246; and revolution of 1789, 257; progress of, 448 Holly Alliance, the, 353, 354, 364, 413, 414 Holy Roman Empire, the, 205, 232, 234 "Homo sapiens," 26, 27 Horace, 331 Hotman, Francis, 46, 191 House of Commons, representation in, 68 Hugo, Victor, 327, 351 Huguenots, the, 244 Human laws, 31 Humanists, the, 333 480 INDEX Humanitarian liberty, doubtful value of, 140, 141 Humanitarianism, 4, 12, 13 Hume, his "Origin of Government," 200 Ideal, abuse of the word, 141, 142; ideals of to-day the facts of to-morrow, 377 378; ideals of peace and possible at- tainment, 434 el seq. Ideologues, 179 Immigration, to the United States, 136, 137. 17°) 276, 461, 463; restriction of, 280, 281; character of, 283; and naturalization laws, 284; reform in rules of, needed, 285; German, 426 Imperial democracies, 73, 74 Inconsistencies, in all governments, 150 Independence, theory of state, 365, 366; new definitions of, 388 Independents, Calvinistic, 46, 47 India; democratic elements in, 73-75, 106; non-historic, 220; society in ancient, 221; despotismin,225; over- population of, 282; idea of peace in early, 329 Individual, the, product of the state, 32-34; and the nation, 176, 181, 182, 211-215; relation of, to sovereign, 181; in ancient Oriental monarchies, 221, 222; causes producing character and value of, 236; in Middle Ages, 236; emancipation of, from power of society, 247 et seq.; and the land, 261; progress of, and society, 306; danger in weakening responsibility of, 309, 310, See also Man Individualism, 436; and equality, 43; and the Teutons, 233 Individualistic hypothesis of man's ori- gin, 25, 27 Individuality, the struggle for, 32, 33; meaning of, 211, 212; growth of, in Byzantine empire, 231; evolution of, 233-243; sturdiest, produced in 16th and 17th centuries, 251 Industry, of ancient East, 223 Inequality, of brains and wealth, 85; passion for, a menace to democracy, 86-91; created by place-holders, 143 Inherent rights, 40, 347 Interest, community of, 162 Interests, representation of, 69, 70 International arbitration, popular par- ticipation in, 376, 377 International Court, problems for, 436 et seq., 361 International justice, 360, 361 International law, 9; a new sanction for, 350-363, 381-383; seven epochs in development of, 363, 364; Whea- ton's definition of, 364; 10th century conception of, 376; in embryo, 385; violations of, cause for war, 457 International relations, legal ability and technicality in control of, 376, 377; new principles in, 373, 374; unstable equilibrium of, 393 International rights, coercive and direc- tive, 218 Intervention, foreign, 5; state, an ad- vance toward permanent peace, 381, 382; Metternich doctrine of, 417 Invention, American efficiency in, 132 Investigation, 168, 176, 202 Ireland, 437; Protestants and Roman Catholics in, 245; landlordism in, 269; oppression in, 48 Isaiah, the teaching of, 326 Islam, democratic teachings of, 75, 106, 359 Isocrates, 330, 331 Italy, the city-state of, 29; democratic state of mind in, 106; in war, 129; early, not a nation, 159; and Italian- speaking peoples, 160; and dynasties, 164; in Holy Roman Empire, 234; and revolution of 1789, 257; expan- sionist policy of, before the war, 368; extinction of small states in, 364; and France, 396, 403, 404; terms of Entente concerning, 406; policy of, 410; unity of, 416; recognized as sixth great power, 418; claims of, 428; object of, in war, 433 Japan, 220; aristocratic temper of, 75; democratic state of mind in, 106; in war, 145; theocracy of, 182; limited autocracy of, 372; and Corea, 378; and China, 388; the question of, 440, 445,446; control of , in Pacific, 460, 465, 467, 468 Jefferson, Thomas, 65, 144, 170, 198 Jessels, his counsel of perfection, 359 Jesuits, the, and divine right in the pa- pacy, 46; political teachings of, 192 Jews, the, contract between king and people among, 37; in France, 71, 107; theocracy of, 193; war code of, 329 Joint families, survivals of, i8r, 182, 204 Jones, Sir William, 219 Judaism, idea of ideal peace in, 329 Jugo-Slavia, 436, 437 Jural society, the nation as a, 210 Jus gentium, the, 41, 195 Jus naturae, the, 40, 311 Justice, the problem of organized na- tional state, 306; firm foundations for international, 360, 361; meaning of social, 367, 368 Kant, Iramanuel, 334; and German thought, 103; and modern phil- osophy, 328; the Germans before, 345; philosophy of, 345; his doctrines of perpetual peace, 346-350, 366, 382; INDEX 481 his doctrine of natural rights, 347; his peace philosophy of law, 347; his peace philosophy of history, 348; ori- ginality and advance of, 350; betrayal of, in Germany, 35I-3S3J conse- quences of betrayal of, 356 Ketteler, von, 307 Kings, hereditary succession of, 46, 58, 253; divine right of, 49, 149, 190, 249, 363 Kingship, 22, origin of, 76 Kingsley, Charles, quoted, 161; teach- ing of, 294 Klaatsch, Professor, 26 Kluchevsky, 106 "Kultur," 352 La Boetie, his "Contre-Un," 126 Labor, unionization of, 118; legislation regarding, 289; and property, 293; co-operation of, 294; right to full share in product of, 295; and wages, 296-300; reforms accomplished for, 300; agitators in the United States, 313, 314 Land, the, man's relation to, 261, 262; reaction of, on inhabitants, 26s; and social institutions, 267; forms of tenure of, 267-269; joint-ownership of, 271; nationalization of, 271- 274; freehold ownership of, 272; private ownership of, 272-274; the state, and titles to, 273; law of dimin- ishing returns in, 273; state loans on security of, 274; development of, in relation to dwellers on, 274 Landlordism, 269 Language, as evidence of man's social origin, 26, 28; influence of, 141, 142; changing usages of, 155; and nation- ality, 160, 165; and international courts, 442 Languet, Hubert, teaching of, 191, 196 Lansdowne, 404 Lasalle, doctrine of, 287, 295, 296 Latin race, 164 Laud, Archbishop, 48 Law, human and natural, 31; trans- formation in conception of, 39; natural, 40-44, 48, 212; moral, 41; positive, 41; validity of, based on popular will, 41, 42, 191; public and private, 173; regulations, nearest thing to, 181; and force, 196; trans- gressing of, 210; and the nation, 2x7; most scientific code of, product of French Revolution, 257; and religion, 337; differences of sanction behind municipal and international, 359, 360; direct popular control in public, 378, 379- See also International law Law-making and popular sovereignty 191 Lawlessness and democracy, 112 Lawrence, Lord, 358 Lawyers, in the American colonies, Js Leadership, desire for, 6, 7, 323; in war, 147; in the United States, 431 League of Nations, 8, 133, 390, 420 Lecky, 138 Lee, 147 Legal rights, 213, 214 Legality, the foe of equity, 34 Legislation, art and science of, 288; limitation of, 288, 289; remedial and directive, 289, 290; responsibility for, 317; precepts of wisdom behind all, 360 Leibnitz, doctrine of, 340, 341 Lessing, 34s Levellers, the, political writings of, 49 Lex Regia, the, 42 Liberalism, in America, 53 Liberty, the enjoyment of order, 32, 33; impossible without the state, 34; prop- erty the cornerstone of, 36, 37, 234; non-existent in ancient world, 42; Rousseau's idea of, 51 ; self -denial the price of, 60; derivation and use of the word, 79; in a democracy, 82, 83; German idea of, 00-102; new ideal of, no, in; and servitude, 138; and duty, 138; humanitarian, 140, 141; in ancient Rome and Greece, 186; advancement of personal, 206; un- known in ancient East, 223, 224 Life, new ideal of, 109, no; medium of modern, 127, 128 Lincoln, ideal of, 142; as a leader, 147 Literature, political, 170, 171 Liverpool, 99 Locke, 49, 171, 334; teaching of, 51, 192, 288; his form of contract theory, 197; his doctrine of morality of man, 325; a peace supporter, 338 London, peace conferences at, 417-419 Lords, English House of, 253 Lorraine, 160 Loyalists, American treatment of, 34 Luther, 194, 243 Lutheranism, 45, 244 Lyall, Sir Alfred, 219 Macaulay, 245 Macedonians, the, 389 Machiavelli, teaching of, 191, 333 Madison, James, 55 Marian, Admiral, 466 Maine, Sir Henry, 219 Maistre, Joseph de, 325 Majority, and minority, relations of, 66; rule, and popular will, 52, 57, 58; rule, in the United States, 277 Malthus, teaching of, 293, 294 482 INDEX Malthusians, the, 294 Man, social origin of, 25-34, 92, 337! a political animal, 26, 141; associated and personal, 57; worth of, as man, 95, 247, 250; natural, 141, 142; doctrine of unity of, 18s, 340; and his sur- roundings, 207, 208; emancipation of, from power of society, 247; relation of, to the land, 261, 262; free, the ultimate fact in social evolution, 305; efforts to ameliorate, 307; conflict, the condition of existence of primi- tive, 324; doctrine of morality of, 325; Hebrew view of worth and brotherhood of, 326; Kant's concep- tion of, 348; the wolf-theory of, 352; war, habitual state of, 357. See also Individual Manhood, special type of, 124 Maupassant, 327 Marcus Aurelius, 185 Marius, 125 Markets, contest for, 358 Marriages, improvident, a source of population trouble, 285 Marshall Islands, Japan's occupation of, 465, 467 Marsiiius of Padua, teaching of, 44 Marx, 13, 14, 287, 29s, 2gg, 300, 351 Marxism, 5, 104, 212, 328; basis of, 296-298 Materialistic philosophy, 195 Maurice, teaching of, 294 McClellan, 147 "Measures, not men," misleading phrase, 84 Mecklenburg duchies, government of, iS7 Mediaeval state, the, 233-246, See also Middle Ages Medisevalism, 75, 115, 326 "Melting-pot," the, 136, 137, 389, 457 Men, bad, and good government, 83, 208, 210 Menshevism, is Mephistopheles, 374 Mesopotamia, 411 Metaphysical thought, change from, to historical, 191, 192 Metternich doctrine of intervention, 150, 417 Mexican War, 37s Mexico, 150, 245, 386, 420, 447; treat- ment of Americans in, 361 Middle Ages, the, Catholicism in, 43, 44; secular allegiance in, 161; essentially unpolitical, 189; spiritual and tem- poral power in, 190, 191; nationality in, 233 et ieq.; the nation and the sub- ject in, 236; agricultural laborers in, 239; revival of human spirit in, 239- 241; renewed commercial enterprise in, 240; discovery and settlement in, 240; new birth of fine arts in, 241; completed sense of personal responsi- bility in, 243; church and state in, 332; ecclesiastical wars of, 332 Middle Empire, the, regeneration of, 388 Might and right, 123, 196, 328 Militarism, temporary, 58; German, 101, 102, 351 Military, service, 96, 120, 351; system, in America, 132; preparedness, 382, 383 Mill, John Stuart, 173, 288 Milton, political works of, 49; his con- cept of a nation, 201, 218 Minority, and majority, relations of, 66; representation, 69 Mirabeau, 201 Mississippi Valley, settlement of, 266 Mobs, 144 Mohammedanism, 45; and democratic assertion, 75 Monarchy, hereditary, 46, 58, 253;/ democratic, 58, 78; in struggle for ascendancy, 72, 73; in warfare, 147; the Oriental, 220 el seq.; in Middle Ages, 241 Monogamic family, the, 29, 30, 92, 202, 203 Monroe Doctrine, the, 467 Montesquieu, 325, 342 Moral, law, 41; rights, 213, 214 Morality, crude concepts of, 119-123; political, 169 More, 171 Morley, John, 10s Mormons, 215, 216 Mulford, quoted, 200 Municipal law, g, 359 Museums, 135 Napoleon Bonaparte, 10, 56, 107, 147, 150, 178, 3Si, 378, 388 Napoleon, Louis, 292 Napoleonic wars, the, 291-293, 354 Nation, the, destroyed by socialism, 7, 304; and democracy, 155 et seq.; divergent meanings of the word, 156- I5g; and people, 157, 158; element of size in, 159, 160; geographical unity and natural boundaries of, 160, 165; community of custom in, 161; com- munityof interestin, 162; community of rights in, 166; and religion, 161, 217; and education. 217; and trade, 217; and dynasties, 163, 164; as sovereign and moral organism, 166; and the individual, 181, 182; personal elements in the primitive, 180 et seq.; basis of authority in primitive, 180; nature and origin of, 193 et seq.; supernatural authority in, 193; and the family, 198, 199; a jural society, 199, 200, 210; as an economic society, INDEX 483 200; a moral organism, 200, 201, 215, 216; directive, not coercive, 207, 216, 218; classes in, 208-210; and individual, 211-215; rudiments of, in ancient East, 220; the Oriental, 219 et seq.; beginnings of true, 235; and the subject in 13th century, 236 Nation, the modern, 247 et seq.; essen- tial qualities of, 248; confusion of powers in, 248-250; spiritual and temporal powers in, 249, 250; personal responsibility and the public good in, 251; relation of, to its terri- tory, 265-267; and the people, 275 et seq.; heterogeneous elements in, 276J enormous territory and popula- tion of, 276, 277; and decline of public spirit, 278; and religion, 289; and social classes, 291 et seq.; and the individual, 305 et seq.; problems of, 306; the socialized, a probability, 313 Nations, co-operation among, 358; general association of, 413 et seq.; interdependence of, 468 National, culture, 124, 125; evolution, the goal of, 379 Nationalistic societies in New York, 436, 461 Nationality, influence of, 76, 96, 97; and the universal church, 189; be- ginnings of, in 13th century, 235; common interest the bond of, 275; unity X>f, 385; expansion of idea of, 388, 389; the problem of, 436 el seq.; right of, 436, 440; passion for, a menace to peace, 456 Nationalization of land, 271-274 Naturalization laws, American, 284 Natural, meaning and use of the word, 141, 142 Natural law, 31, 40-44, 48, 212 Natural rights, 48; principles of, 40, 41; meanings of phrase, 212-215- Natural science, and war, 378 Naturalists, and origin of man, 25 Nature, its influence upon man, 262 Navy, American, in Civil War, 148 Negro suffrage, 113 Neighbor, love of, 326, 328 Netherlands, the, Reformation in, 244; progress in, 448 Neutrality, armed, 414 New England, theocracy in, 195 New York City, nationalistic societies in, 436, 461 ; slums of, 461 New York State, new constitution de- clined by, 66 Nicholas, Czar, 401, 405 Niebuhr, 194 Nietzsche, 356 Nile, valley of the, despotism and re- ligious awe in, 222, 223 Noachian laws, the, 329 Non-intervention, doctrine of, 459 Non-representative democracies dark sides of, 62 Norsemen, 240 Norway, government of, 157 Office-holders and office-seekers, 88-91, 97, 132, 444, 44s Oligarchy, democracy and, 23, 125; government by, 6i; the Carthagin- ian, 228 Opportunity, equalization of, 121 Orient, the, thought in, 3; democratic state of mind in, 74, 75, 106; idea of servitude as freedom in, 138; the- ocracies of, 181, 182; unconsciously historic, 219-221; nationalities of, 440; training of men to represent the United States in, 464 Orient, the ancient, rudiments of nation and state in, 220; monarchies of, de- fective in political ideas, 221; bond- age in, 222-225; social conditions in, 223-228; vast extent and degree of monarchies in, 224; people of, 225, 226; methods of despotism in, 225; ignorance and self-indulgence in, 226; system of eastern, 227; rulerin, analog- ous to patriarchal chief, 227; artificial and unorganized society in, 227, 228; the city-state of, 228, 229 Origin of man, theories of, 25-34, 92, 337, Otto the Great, 234 Ottoman empire, nationalities in, 456 Owen, 292-294 Pacific coast of the United States, 460 et seq.; question of national policy on, 462; Oriental students of, 463; community of feeling on, 464; strategy of, 465, 466; diplomacy of, 467 Pacific Ocean, the, rivalry for control in, 362; naval strategy of, 466 Pacifism, 122, 324, 326, 337 et seq.; of followers of Waldus, 332; of the Quakers, 333, 338, 3391 a fallacy the basis of, 386 Paine, Thomas, 342 Panama Canal, 392, 411, 427, 428, 466 Pangloss, Doctor, 73 Pantagruel, 150, 151 Panurge, 150 Papacy, the, divine right in, 44, 46, 93, 194; an Italianate principality, 76 Paris, Treaty of, 1898, 376; peace con- gress of 1856 at, 418 Parliament, British, 99, 253 Parliamentary government, 256 Parties, political, 60, 61, 71, 72, 458; origin of, 253 484 INDEX Party leaders. See "Politocrats" Patriarchal system, the, 180-182 Patriotism, and peace, 442 Pax Romana, the, 357 Peace, sacrifice necessary to secure, 7, 8; and state sovereignties, 10; faction and party in times of, 58; and de- mocracy, 130 etseq.; and international relations in Middle Ages, 242; state federation and world, 323; embryonic philosophy of, 325; the Hebrew view of, 326; first true philosophy of, 328; difference between idea and phil- osophy of, 328; Christian doctrine of, 332; treatises on perpetual world, 333, 334. Cruc6's conception of a court of, 334, 335; and the ultra- theologians, 33s, 336; suggestions for enduring, 337 et seq.; St. Pierre's pro- ject for, 340-343; 18th century eager 'or, 345; four types of plans of, 345; Kant's doctrine of, 346-350; possi- bility of a permanent, 358; principle of lasting, 350; 19th century concept °f, 365-367; new vision of, 367; on basis of levelling, 367 et seq.; by rep- resentatives, 381; problems of, 384 et seq.; and economic and social re- forms, 390; without victory, 416; minimum terms of, 430, 431; public opinion and terms of, 431, 432; con- flict of ideals of, with possible attain- ment, 434 et seq.; armed truce first step toward, 434; and socialized democracy, 436; and question of na- tionalities, 436-438; enduring, must find middle course, 438; with honor or dishonor, 447; Allies' terms of, 447; doctrine of perpetual, a working hy- pothesis, 453; as test of democracy, 454 et seq.; enduring, dependent on justice and fairness of settlements, 468 Peace Conference, the, problems before, 384 et seq.; decisions of, based on re- sponsibility for war, 407; America at, 41S; primary questions before, 419 et seq.; rectifying map of Europe, first business of, 419 el seq. t 428-430; question of territorial aggrandize- ments at, 420; primary considerations of, 420-422; and reparation, restitu- tion and guarantees, 423-425; and question of colonies, 425, 426; and question of economic peace, 428; en- forcement of conclusions reached by, 428; minimum terms of peace of, 430,431 Peace Congresses, conduct of 19th cen- tury, 416; enumeration of, since 1815, 4i7 Peace society, first, 333 Pearl Harbor, 467 Perm, William, 334; his "Towards the Present and Future Peace of Europe," 339. 34S Pensions, American system of, 132; Civil War, 310 People, distinguished from nation, 156- IS8 Perfectibility, of human nature, 35, 120, 207, 313, 340 Pericles, 98, 229 Persia, and Greece, 224; partition of, 368 Personality, relation of, to organized society, 214, 215, 248; in ancient East, 223; of the state, 95, 96, 102, 103, 287; 288 Phenicia, the city-state of, 228, 22g Philanthropy, democratic ideal of, no Philippines, the, 74, 369, 467 Philosophy, and history, 177, 178; Greek, 184; political, of Middle Ages, 190-192; substance of a true, 328 Physical evolutionists, 199 Physical science, 30, 173 Pitt, the elder, 33 Place-bribery, 143 Plato, 40, 171, 184, 185; bis "Republic," 330 Plutarch, 194 Plutocracy, American, 23, 52; and democracy, 52; French, 56; and servility, 134 Plutocrats, 00 Poland, partition of, 363; restoration of, 437; and nationality, 436 Poles, 449, 450 Political economy, 175; and historical school of socialists, 311; classical, 312 Political, education, 81; organism, power to create, 77; rights, equal, 85-87; systems, 123 Political science, 168 et seq.; the facts of, 172-174; and public and private law, 173; distinguished from natural science, 173; and sociology, 174; a department of ethics, 175; the supreme truth of, 191 Political theory, 3, 4, 171; futility of, in ancient world, 42; the course of, 180 et seq.; character and influence of , in ancient Rome and Greece, 1S4- 186; in Middle Ages, 190-192 Politicians, professional, 61-63 Politics, and western thought, 3, 4; democratic state of mind in, 95, 96; education for intelligent participation in, 125; art of, 169, 170, 172; litera- ture concerned with, 170, 171; in- fluence of Reformation on, 243-246; confused, in beginning of modem state, 249; ideals of, 365; past and INDEX 485 present in, 371; German opportun- ism in, 400 "Politocrats," 23, 63, 70, 80, 89-91, 107 Polybius, 185 Polygamy, in Jewish history, 203; Mor- mon, 21s, 216 Poor-laws, effective, 310 Popular control in public law, 378, 379 Popular sovereignty, 44, 46, 48, 51, 55, 63, 77, 78, 263 Popular will, and autocracy, 6; the foundation of power, 52; and de- mocracy, 56, 148; embryonic, 57, 58; in majority, 57, 38; money cost of expressing, 59, 60 Population, restriction of, 281 ; increase in world, 282 et seq.; relief from con- gestion of, 282, 283 Porto Rico, 74 Portugal, and colonization, 240, 24s Positive law, 41 Posterity, duty to, 387 Practical ability, 131 Prator peregrinus, the, 41 Prefecture, the French, 107 Prehistoric investigation, 202 Presbyterians, Scotch, 195 President, American, term of office of, 71; the electoral college for choosing, 238; powers of, enlarged in war time, 45S Progress, human, 177 Progressives, 4 Proletariat, the, 88, 299, 300, 303, 3°4 Property, first word in civilization, 34; the foundation of personal liberty, 36, 37; sanctity of, 192; safeguarded in ancient East, 220; and liberty, 254; dependent on the state, 273 Prophet-worship, 324 Protestant Reformation. See Reforma- tion, Protestant Protestants, in France, 71, 107; and socialism, 307 Proudhon, 308 Province, the Roman, 230 Prussia, kingdom of, 103; a nation by dynasty, 164; and universal military service, 3Sr; cult of the hero warrior in, 353; religion in, 394; disruption of, 437 Psychological evolution, 30 Psychologists, social theory of, 25-28 Public opinion, misleading concept of, 81; expressed in international affairs, 43L432 Public service, and democracy, 60, 132 Puritan, revolution in England, 47, 48; revival in 18th century,_48, 49 Puritanism, 47 et seq.; pivotal idea of, Pushkin, quoted, 3S Quakers, the, pacifism of, 333, 338, 339 Race, and the nation, 164 Radicalism, red, 5, 6; new views of, 119-123; experiments in, 122; battle with, 146 Real estate, safeguarded in earliest civilization, 36, 37 Reason, and experience, 2r4; tendency toward, as principle of conduct, 240 Recognition, American doctrine of, 150 Red Terror, the, 263, 264 Refinement, 124 Reform, a problem of organized nations, 306 Reform Bill of 1832, British, 56, 99 Reformation, Protestant, 242-248, 332; and right of private judgment, 45; pivotal doctrine of, 243 ; form of, 243, 244; influence of, on politics, 244-246; economic results of, 245, 246 Reformed churches, absolutism of, 46 Religion, and nationality, 138, 161, 164, 165, 217, 289; and law, 337 Religious, democracy, 45; equality, in American colonies, 54, 55; liberty, in modern nation, 247, 249; rivalries, in Europe, 394 Renaissance, the, 240, 241, 247 Reparation, by Germany, 424, 425 Representation, origin and history of, 67, 68; forms of, 68, 69; of minorities and interests, 69, 70 Representative system of government, 67 et seq.; check on pure democracy, 70-72 Representatives, method of choosing, 69 Resources, natural, influence of, 267; of the world, 282; conservation of, 387, 388 Responsibility, personal, for the public good, 251 Restitution, by Germany, 424, 423 Revolution, American, 131, 132, 145, 164, 248, 254-257; French, 145, 164, 170, 179. 197. 248, 257, 291, 354; English, of 1688, 145, 164, 171, 248, 252; world, of 1789, 164, 257, 354; of 1798, and democracy, 291; Turk- ish, 408 Revolutions, democracy and petty, 65, 144; changes effected only by, 265 Ribot, 419 Ricardian economy, 312, 313 Right, secular principle of, 337; a new public, 423 Rights, of the individual, 28, 29; a gift of society, 33; inherent, 40, 347; natural, 40, 41, 48, 212-215; princi- ples of universal and of natural, 40, 41; bills of, 55; declaration of, 65; equal civil and political, 85-87; social, 87, 215, 216; expansion of domestic, 486 INDEX 92, 93; false emphasis on, 95.' com- munity of, 166 • Rocky Mountains, 266 Rodbertus, doctrine of, 296 Roman Catholic church, and modern democracy, 76; reforms in, in France, 257. See also Church. Roman Catholicism, ideals of mediseval, 43, 44; and divine authority in church and state, 93, 194, 195; and economic transformation, 245; in Germany, 307; increase of, in the United States, 170, 314; and national- ism, 394 Roman Catholics and Protestants in the United States, 278 Roman, church, equality in, 75, 76; concept of peace, 331; provinces, 230; system of government, 40-42 Roman Empire, a tyranny, 29; and the church, 188, 189; and the province, 230; international law of, 363 Rome, politics of, 39; system of govern- ment of, 40-42; democracy of, 74; oligarchyof, 12s; acivitas, 159; com- munity of habit in, 161, 162; the city- state of, 182-187, 204, 229, 230; col- lective will in, 229, 230; church and state in, 231; devastated by war, 327 Rondibilis, 150 Roumania, 437 Rousseau, 30, 55, 213, 334. 34*> 34S. 382; and the free man, 51; and Kant, 103, 347, 348; his form of the contract theory, 192, 197; on might and right, 196; his idea of popular sovereignty, 263; attitude of, toward emigration, 283; his "Extract" a contribution to peace Utopias, 342 Rousseauists, 212, 263 Rulers, democratic attitude toward, 96 Russia, 130, 138, 372, 3g6, 404, 411, 430, 437; anarchy in, 8, 15, 29s, 314. 383, 449; democracy in, 106; in war, 129; under the Czars, 157, 227; nationali- ties in, 157, 158, 370, 456; a nation in primitive Oriental sense, 220; social classes in, 228; agricultural laborers of, 239; increase in population of, 282; treatment of Americans in, 361; ex- pansionist policy of, before the war, 368; Russification of, 389, 400, 401; menace to Germanism, 400; and the Entente, 400; natural ally for Ger- many, 401; expansion of, across Asia, 396, 403; terms of agreement with, 405; and Balkan control, 407; polic- ing of, 412; and integrity of Denmark, 417; desire of, for free outlet to Me- diterranean, 428; object of, in war, 433; Great and Little, 449, 450 Russian Duma, the, 104 Russian Terror, the, 264 Ruthenians, 449, 450 St. Augustine, 194 St. Pierre, Charles, 334, 382; project of, for perpetual peace, 340-343, 345 St. Simon, 292, 351 Saintine, 211 Salisbury, Lord, 401, 404, 407 San Francisco, midway point of Ameri- can possessions, 466 Savagery, traces of primitive, in modern customs, 203, 204 Scandinavia, the Reformation in, 244; progress in, 448 Schmoller, Gustav von, 99; quoted, ico, 101 Schopenhauer, 328; style and graphic power of, 355 Schultze-Delitsch movement, the, 307 Schwarzenberg, 178 Scotch Presbyterians, 19s Scotland, absolutism in, 46; royalty and Presbyterianism in, 48; in Middle Ages, 239; the Reformation in, 244, 245; land tenure in, 268, 269 Scottish Covenanters, the, 48 Seas, freedom of the, 414, 428, 460 Secret diplomacy, 58, 369, 375, 404, 406 Self-assertion, 86 Self-denial, 131, 138; new views about, no Self-depredation, American character- istic, 134 Self-government, misleading term, 81, 82; and good government, 123; of European states, 370 Self-help, importance of, 309 Self-knowledge, American, 134, 135, 457 Seneca, 40, 331 Servia, 437 Servians, aspirations of, for Servian empire, 409 Servility, and American democracy, 134 Servitude, voluntary, and freedom, 138 Shakespeare, 201, 360 Shelley, 43 Shemites, the, city-states of, 38 Sicilies, the two, neutrality of, violated, 15° Sidgwick, 312 Sidney, 49 Sidon, 165, 228 Simon of Montfort, 253 Slave, the, 314, 400, 402; race, 164 Slavery, the new, 142, 143; influence of the land on, 266 Slavism, 437 Smith, Adam, 313 Snobs, 102 Social classes, in 19th century, 291 it seq.; in the United States, 208-210; no rigid, 303-305 INDEX 487 Social conscience, the, 117-119, 123-125, 130, 214 Social contract theory of government. See Contract theory Social democracy, in Germany, 104; in the United States, 313 Social Democrats, 307 Social justice, 95; meaning of, 367, 368 Social origin of man, 25-34, 92, 337 Social rights, 87, 215, 216 Social unrest, 117 el seq. Socialism, 5, 7, 12-16; and the war, 8; three classes of, 14; menace of extreme, 286, 287; in France, 291- 294; in England, 293, 294; in Ger- many, 295; the prophets of, 295, 296; doctrine of, 296-298; terminology of, 299; and state control, 301; fallacies of, 302-304; destructive to the na- tion, 304; in the sense of improve- ment, 306; Christian, 307-309; his- torical school of, 311, 312; of the chair, 312, 313; in Europe, 314 Socialists, Christian, 3, 294, 307-309; historical school of, 311, 312 Socialized democracies and peace, 436 Sociology, 169, 174 Socrates, 40, 184 Sophists, the, 40, 42; view of war of, 326 South Africa, wars in, 148; public lands of, 270 Sovereign, relation of, to individuals, 181 Sovereignties, state/ number of, and pos- sibility of peace, 10 Sovereignty, no means to enforce, 23, 24; unlimited ecclesiastical, 44; definitions of, 46, 166, 263, 388; popu- lar, 46, 48, 51, 55, 263; restraint on abuse of popular, 63; popular and evolution of democracy, 77, 78; not exerted by individuals, 82; the doc- trine of, 191, 192; Oriental theory of national, 193; relation of individual to, 259; dependent on territory, 261- 265; theory of state, 364, 365 Spain, 406; democratic state of mind in, 106; neutrality of, violated, 150; economic descent of, 245; and colon- ization, 245; and revolution of 1789, 257 Spanish- American War, the, 131, 366, 376, 378, 392 Sparta, tyranny in, 98, 99; a PoKs, 159; restriction of population by, 281 Spencer, Herbert, 195'; quoted, 289 Spinoza, 325, 327 State, the, genesis of, 24-29; primitive form of, 28; an organism of organ- isms, 30, 31; individual the product. of, 32-34; liberty impossible without, 34; popular sovereignty in, 44, per- sonality of, 95, 96, 102, 103, 287, 288; and democratic state of mind, 95, 96; personality of, limited, 102; German idea of, 103; cultural forces entrusted to, 138, 139; separation of church from, 47, 187-190, 249, 250, 332; an institution ordained of God, 194, 195; rudiments of, in ancient East, 220; and history, 220; and church in Byzantium, 231; mediaeval, 233 el seq.; modern, 247 el seq.; purely economic, impossible, 304; coercive and directive powers of, 311, 312; federation and world peace, 323; and war, 326, 327; idea of a super- state, 363; and reciprocal independ- ence, 365, 366; intervention, an ad- vance toward peace, 381, 382 State-interference, doctrine of, 279; in society, 287, 288; demanded by socialists, 301; evils of, 309, 310; in the United States, 318 State socialism, 13, 14, 87, 279, 309, 310, 444 State system, European, transformation of, 133 State papers, kinds of, 393 States, American, laboratories for test- ing novelties, 143, 144; constitution of, 259 States' rights, the question of, 170 Statesmanship, 415 Statesmen, field of study for, 172; and history, 178 Stoecker, 307 Stoicism, maxims of, 184, 185, 229, 231 Stoics, the, and inherent rights, 40; phil- osophy of, 184, 185; concept of fra- ternity of, 330 Strachey, Sir John, 219 Stranger, the, as an enemy and as a friend, 326 Strategy, greatest thing in war, 147; of peace, 148 Suarez, 192, 194, 207 Suez Canal, 411, 427 Suffrage, expansion of, 61-65; privi- leged, 63; limitations in exercise of, 64; universal, a check on pure de- mocracy, 70-72; as a duty, 79; wo- man, 59, 80, 112, 113; negro, 113 Sulla, 125 Superman, the, 124, 315 Super-state, idea of a, 363 Sweden, national opinion in, 344 Switzerland, pure democracy in, 79; neutrality of, 112; community of rights in, 165, 166; in Middle Ages, 239; Protestants and Roman Catho- lics in, 245; and revolution of 1789, 257; and the Gotthard railway, 429; progress in, 448 Syria, 460. Syrians, 439 488 INDEX Tacitus, 331 Talent, career open to, in Orient, 75 Taxation, as a gift, doctrine of, 33; basic to all government, 68; and de- mocracy, 89, 96, 143; without repre- sentation, 255, 256; and public ex- penditure, 316; for prosecuting war, 366; and social justice, 367 Teachers, inadequacy of .preparation for, 114 Teutons, free spirit of primitive, 188; and individualism, 233 Terence, 185 Territory, sovereignty dependent on, 261-265 Theocracy, survivals of, 181, 182; Jew- ish, 193; in American colonies, 19s; in Nile and Euphrates Valleys, 222, 223 Theologians, of 17th century, 33s, 336 Theory and history, 171; relation of, to fact, 193 el seq. Thiers government, the, 373 Thirty Years' War, the, 159, 340 Thought, partial emancipation of, 39 Thucydides, 325 Tocqueville, De, 443 Tories, American, 50 Toryism, concept of representation of, 68; and taxation, 255, 256 Totemism, 27 Tours, the Abbe of, his project for per- petual peace, 340-343 Town government, new forms of, 144 Townshend, 255 Trade, and the nation, 217; routes of the world, free highways, 362; free, 428 Treaties, 362; American success in mak- ing, 133; and a United States of the World, 362; violation of, 367; popu- lar participation in making of, 376, 377 Tribes, federation of, 204 Trieste, Italian claim to, 428 Triple Alliance, the, 396, 429 Tripoli, 406 Tropics, the, resources of, 282 Trouillogan, 150 Truce, an armed, first step toward peace, 434 Trusts, and representation of interests, 70; and the war, 386 Turkey, a nation in primitive Oriental sense, 220; fanatical element of, 394; alliance of, with Germany, 401, 402; plan to dismember, 406; plea for expulsion of, from Europe, 414, 415; under international police force, 439 Turkish Revolution, the, 408 Twelve Tables of Rome, the, 41, 161 Tyranny, rise of, 38, 39; government by, 61; in democracies, 98, 99, 106, 116, 121, 126 Tyre, 228 Ukraine, the, efforts of, for national existence, 449, 450 Ulpian, school of, 41 Unions, labor, 118 United States of America, the, at war and at peace, 58, 59; democracy in, 79 el seq., 106; free education in, 113-115; constitution of, 131, 169, 258, 259; in war, 131-133; political results of wars of, 131; military system of, 132; efficiency of, in inven- tion, 132; success of, in diplomacy, 133. 134; immigrants in, 136, 137, 283, 284, 389, 4S7. 461, 465; rever- sion to colonialism in, 137; new slavery in, 142, 143; novelties tested by states of, 143, 144; army and navy of, in Civil War, 148; economic unity in, 163; political speculation in, 169-171; existence of, great fact of the hour, 178; contempt of, for em- pirics and ideologues, 178, 179; social classes in, 208-210; and law-breakers, 210; progress of, as Protestant coun- try, 245; amendment of constitu- tion of, 258, 259; state constitutions of, 258, 259; democracy socialistic in, 259; reaction of land upon peo- ple in, 265-267; influence of physical characters in, 265-267; homesteading in, 269, 270; supply of public lands exhausted in, 269, 270; the land ques- tion in, 270-274; metayer system in, 270, 272; enormous increase in popu- lation of, 276, 277; desire for least government in, 277; political and social system of, 277 el seq.; majority rule in, 277; decline of public spirit in, 278; practical Christianity in, 278; state-interference in, 279-281, 289, 290, 310, 311, 315, 318; abuse of state protection in, 280; na- turalization laws of, 284; radical reform in rules of immigration needed in, 284, 285; moral remedy for threatening dangers from overpopu- lation in, 285-288; government re- gulation in, 288-290; a duty to com- bat the socialistic danger in, 301, 302; Christian socialism in, 307; state socialism in, 310, 311; social de- mocracy in, 313; social conditions in, before the great war, 313, 314; in- crease of Roman Catholicism in, 314; restoration of checks and balances of power in, 315, 316; relative impor- tance of local and general government in, 316; taxation and public expendi- ture in, 316; high cost of living in, 317; sectionalism in, 317; concepts of peace in, 357 el seq.; in war of 1914- 1918, 314, 361 el seq.; reasons of, for entering war, 361, 369, 370, 381; a world-power, 362, 369; and expan- INDEX 489 sion, 369; and political liberty, 373; constitutional government of, 372, 373! public opinion consulted in wars, 375; an example in harmonizing municipal with public law, 379, 380; confidence in administration during war, 391; unity of action of, in war, 391; Germans in, 402, 425, 426; aims and ideals of peace, 411, 412; and settlement of map of Europe, 411, 412, 416; and economic question in peace settlement, 427; ready to en- force terms of peace, 431; admirable course of administration in, 431; public opinion regarding terms of peace needed in, 431, 432; object of, in entering war, 433; after-war prob- lems of, 43s el seq.; shifting nature of democracy of, 443-445; church and state in, 444; transformation of society in, 444; efficiency of, 446, 454, 455; a model member in family of democratic nations, 446; obliga- tions toward European states, 448, 449; desire of, for world-wide em- pire of justice and reason, 451; peace as test of democracy of, 454 el seq. ; the dictating of peace by, 45s; self- knowledge would be world-knowledge, for, 457; conspicuous example of co-or- dinating municipal law with inter- national law, 457; first to declare war in support of international law, 457; Atlantic and Pacific questions of, 460 et seq.; training of representa- tives to the Orient, 464; the east and the west in, 469 United States of Europe, a, 362, 380 United States of the World, a, 362 Universal rights, principles of, 40 Universities, new task for, 115-117 Utilitarianism, 214 Utrecht, Treaty of, 340, 362, 363 Verdun, Treaty of, 402' Versailles, Treaty of, 10 Vico, 348 Vienna, Congress of, 164; Treaty of, 10, 362, 414 . , . ,„ Village tenure, survivals of, 208 Virgin Islands, the, 466 Virginia Bill of Rights, the, 55 Virtue, personal, and communal, ng, i2i, 184, 319; personal, and democ- racy, 260; industrial, 138 Voltaire, 340 Vote, the, personal choice in, 57 Voter, the, qualifications of, 64 Waldus, pacifism of, 332 War, civilized, 32; democracy in, 58, 59, 127 et seq., 145, 427, 435; and his- tory, 324 et seq., 370, 371; the law of the world, 325; as a condition or a crime, 327; Hebrew attitude toward, 329; Greek attitude toward, 330; Grotius's treatise on law of, 337, 338; the actuality of history, 357; loans, 366; and the referendum, 366; popu- lar participation in making, 375; and natural science, 378; costs of, 383; mobilization for conduct of, 383 ; and capitalists, 386; the background of every, 388 War of 1914-1918, the "Great War,'' 7; Germans in, 100; and democracy, 127 et seq., 145, 427, 435; Europe re- volutionized by, 314, 315; reasons of the United States for entering, 314, 36r, 369, 370, 381; statement of causes of, necessary, 390, 391 ; origins of, 393 et seq.; causes of, in Balkans, 395; respective responsibility of belligerents, 406-408; chief and con- tributing causes of, 408; Great Bri- tain's reasons for entering, 422; ob- jects of Allies in, 433 War of Independence, accepted doctrine at close of, 55 War, of 1776, I3r; of 1812, 131; of 1848, 131 Washington, George, a consummate strategist, 147; and theocracy, 194 Washington, D. C, society of, 89, go Wealth, normal process of accumulating, 303 Weak, protection of the, 87 West Indies, 369 Westphalia, Treaty of, 340, 362, 363 Wheaton, his definition of international law, 364, 383 Whigs, in England and America, 49, 50 Will, popular. See Popular will William II, 401; policy of, 396; mouth- piece and tool of bureaucratic regime, 405 Wilson, President, 447; quoted, 419, 420 Windward Islands, the, 466 Wisconsin, 122 Wolff, 295, 383 Woman suffrage, and increased cost of elections, 5g, 80; universal, 63; in America, 113; in Great Britain, 112 Women, and the new social and econ- omical politics, 116, 117 Words, changes in meaning of, 155, 156 Work, compulsory, 121; and economic transformation, 245 Zoroaster, teaching of, 329 1 111 I lilii! i iiiiii ■ii'i" Hi' I ll I! ! ' I!! i I i J 111 1 ''K ; lljjijiii 1 111 lljii • !iif 1 i