Part 1 (2/2)

One must have lived in Germany to realize the absolute control of the State over the individual--the incessant surveillance, the petty regulations, the constant interference with private life. It was to escape just this vexatious control, with the arduous militarism in which it culminates, that so vast a mult.i.tude of Germans left their native land and came to the United States--not all of whom have shown appreciation and loyalty to the free land that welcomed them.

III

THE IDEAS FOR WHICH THE ALLIED NATIONS FIGHT

In contrast to the idea for which Germany now stands, the Anglo-Saxon instinctively and tenaciously believes in the liberty and initiative of the individual. We, of course, are no longer Anglo-Saxon. When De Tocqueville in 1831 visited our country, surveyed our inst.i.tutions and, after returning home, made his trenchant diagnosis of our democracy, he could justly designate us Anglo-Americans. That time is past; we are to-day everything and nothing: a great nation in the womb of time, struggling to be born.

Nevertheless, Anglo-American ideas still dominate and inspire our civilization. It is, indeed, remarkable to what an extent this is true, in the face of the mingling of heterogeneous races in our population.

As English is our speech, so Anglo-American ideas are still the soul of our life and inst.i.tutions.

This is evident in the jealousy of authority. We resent the intrusion of the government into affairs of private life, and prefer to submit to annoyances and even injustice on the part of other individuals, rather than to have protection at the price of paternalistic regulation by the state. We resent any law that we do not see is necessary to the general welfare, and are rather lawless even then. This shows clearly in our reaction on legislation in regard to drink. The prohibition of intoxicating liquor is about the surest way to make an Anglo-Saxon want to go out and get drunk, even when he has no other inclination in that direction. In Boston, under the eleven o'clock closing law, men in public restaurants will at times order, at ten minutes of eleven, eight or ten gla.s.ses of beer or whiskey, for fear they might want them, whereas, if the restriction had not been present, two or three would have sufficed.

Not long ago we saw the very labor leaders who forced the Adamson law through congress, threatening to disobey any legislation limiting their own freedom of action, even though vitally necessary to the freedom of all.

The general behavior under automobile and traffic regulation ill.u.s.trates the tendency evenmore clearly. Thinking over the list of acquaintances who own automobiles, one finds it hard to recall one who would not break the speed law at a convenient opportunity. Even a staid college professor, who has walked the walled-in path all his life: let him get a Ford runabout, and in three months he is exultant in running as close as possible to every foot traveler and in exceeding the speed limit at any favorable chance. These are not beautiful expressions of our national spirit, but they serve to ill.u.s.trate our instinctive individualism.

Especially are we jealous of highly centralized authority. De Tocqueville argued that we would never be able to develop a strong central government, and that our democracy would be menaced with failure by that lack. That his prophecy has proved false and our federal government has become so strong is due only to the accidents of our history and the exigency of the tremendous problems we have had to solve.

The same individualistic spirit is strong in England. It has been particularly evident, during the War, in the resentment of military authority as applied to labor conditions. The artisans and their leaders dreaded to give up liberties for which they had struggled through generations, for fear that those rights would not be readily accorded them again after the War. It must be admitted that this fear is justified. The same spirit was evident in the fight on conscription.

This att.i.tude has been a handicap to England in successfully carrying on the War, as it is to us; but it shows how strong is the essential spirit of democracy in both lands.

In France, the Revolution was at bottom an affirmation of individualism --of the right of the people, as against cla.s.ses and kings, to seek life, liberty and happiness. The great words, _Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,_ that the French placed upon their public buildings in the period of the Revolution, are the essential battle-cry of true democracy,--as it is to be, rather than as it is at present.

Through her peculiar situation, threatened and overshadowed by potential enemies, France has been forced to a policy of militarism, with a large subordination of the individual to the state. The subordination, however, is voluntary. That is touchingly evident in the beautiful fraternization of French officers and men in the present War. With our Anglo-Saxon reserve, we smile at the pictures of grave generals kissing bearded soldiers, in recognition of valor, but it is a significant expression of the voluntary equality and brotherhood of Frenchmen in this War. The reason France has risen with such splendid courage and unity is the consciousness of every Frenchman that complete defeat in this War would mean that there would be no France in the future, that Paris would be a larger Stra.s.sburg, and France a greater Alsace-Lorraine. While the subordination has been thus voluntary, surely the French soldiers, man for man, have proved themselves the equal of any soldiers on earth.

The anomaly of the first two years of the War was the presence of the vast Russian autocratic empire on the side of the allied democracies.

For Russia, however, the War was of the people, rather than of the autocracy at the top, and one saw that Russia would emerge from the War changed and purified. What one could not foresee was that, under the awakening of the people, Russia could pa.s.s, in a day, through a Revolution as profound in its character and consequences as the great explosion in France. It would be almost a miracle if so complete a Revolution, in such a vast, benighted empire, were not followed by decades of recurrent chaos and anarchy. If Russia avoids this fate, she will present a unique experience in history. The tendency to abrogate all authority, the spectacle of regiments of soldiers becoming debating societies to discuss whether or not they shall obey orders and fight, are ominous signs for the next period. Emanc.i.p.ated Russia must learn, if necessary through bitter suffering, that liberty is not license, that democracy is not anarchy, but voluntary and intelligent obedience to just laws and the chosen executors of those laws. Meantime, whatever her immediate future may be, Russia's transformation has clarified the issue and justified her place with the allied democracies. However long and confused her struggle, there can be no return to the past, and, in the end, her Revolution means democracy.

Thus, in democracy, the State exists for Man. Other forms of society seek the interest or welfare of an individual, a group or a cla.s.s, democracy aims at the welfare, that is, the liberty, happiness, growth, intelligence, helpfulness of _all the people_. Under all the welter of this world struggle, it is therefore these great contrasting ideas that are being tested out, perhaps for all time. What is their relative value for efficiency, initiative, invention, endurance, permanence; beneath all, what is their final value for the happiness and helpfulness of all human beings?

IV

MORAL STANDARDS AND THE MORAL ORDER

There is only one moral order of the universe--one range of moral as of physical law. For instance, the law of gravitation--simplest of physical principles--holds the last star in the abyss of s.p.a.ce, rounds the dew-drop on the petal of a spring violet and determines the symmetry of living organisms; but it is one and unchanging, a fundamental pull in the nature of matter itself. So with moral laws: they are not superadded to life by some divine or other authority. They are simply the fundamental principles in the nature of life itself, which we must obey to grow and be happy.

If the moral order is one and unchanging, man does change in relation to it, and moral standards are relative to the stage of his growth.

History is filled with ill.u.s.trations of this relativity of ethical standards.

For instance: human slavery doubtless began as an act of beneficence on the part of some philanthropist well in advance of his age. The first man who, in the dim dawn of history, said to the captive he had made in war, ”I will not kill you and eat you; I will let you live and work for me the rest of your life”: that man inst.i.tuted human slavery; but it was distinctly a step upward, from something that had been far worse.

Homer represents Ulysses as the favorite pupil of Pallas Athena, G.o.ddess of wisdom: why? Baldly stated, because Ulysses was the shrewdest and most successful liar in cla.s.sic antiquity. If Ulysses were to appear in a society of decent men to-day, he would be excluded from their companions.h.i.+p, and for the same reason that led Homer to glorify him as the favorite pupil of the G.o.ddess of wisdom. Thus what is a virtue at one stage of development becomes a vice as man climbs to higher recognition of the moral order.

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