ii!ir!i"i'""-^ HinlMfci 1 MERCER GREEN JOmm^ imm m ill IN; PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM ADDRESSES AND LETTERS BY MERCER GREEN JOHNSTON Author of "Plain American Talks in the Philippines." BOSTON SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY 1917 copymoht, 191t Sherman, French 6^ Company TO MY WIFE KATHERINE AUBREY A PERFECT COMRADE IN QUIET HOURS AND STORMY 38222' A NATIONAL CONFESSION The Power behind the Wind, The Power beneath the Wave: We need them both In very truth Our Nation dear to save. The Power behind the Sun, The Power beneath the Sod : We need them both I take my oath Our task to do for God. The Power behind the Brawn, The Power within the Brain: We need them both — All work, no sloth ! To do our duty plain. The Power above the Sky, The Power beneath the Soul: We need them both, O God of Truth, To cross our cross-marked goal. O Power that wrought in Christ, O Light that lit the grave — Lord God Most High — Lord God Most Nigh — We need thee, Lord, Speak Thou the Word, Our Nation's soul to save! CONTENTS PAGE I Patriotism and Radicalism .... 3 II Washington the Statesman . . .31 III Washington, First in the Hearts of His Countrymen ^7 IV Paxomaniacs: or Pacifists Run Mad . 47 V First Impressions of Nietzsche . . 77 VI The University and the Universe . . 123 VII Letters to Radicals 143 VIII The American Spirit 173 IX Crucified Belgium 1^7 I PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM A speech delivered in the Academy of Music, Baltimore, before the Open Forum, Sunday, April 1st, 1917, on the day before President Wilson de- livered his War Message, PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM My American Fellow-Citizens: This is a supreme moment of history, universal, national, personal. It would hardly be possible to exaggerate its solemnity. For you and for me, and for our Nation, it is the moment of moments. There is a time, we know not when, A place, we know not where, That marks the destiny of men, For glory or despair. This is such a time and such a place. " Multi- tudes, multitudes in the valley of decision : for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision." So the Voice that speaks to the souls of men and nations is crying, crying, crying, in trumpet tones. The ears that are deaf to that thrilling insistent cry are indeed dull of hearing. The heart that is not stirred by it, and lifted up by it out of its littleness and sordid meanness and bodily fear into an atmosphere of greatness, nobility, and valor, in which it breathes freely and joyously, is a dead heart (it seems to me), or else a heart that has undergone some sad change that makes it a stranger to the " hopes that make us men." In 3 4 PATRIOIISM AND RADICALISM my own heart this Voice sets the wild echoes flying ; silences that which is of the earth earthy ; summons me to self-sacrifice; makes my assurance doubly sure " That men may rise on stepping-stones Of their dead selves to higher things." Ah, it makes the immortal spirit within me stand on tiptoe and salute as its fellow across the Ra- vine of Death our young American poet, Alan Seeger, who wrote to his mother from that red field of honor in Europe in which all of him that could die now rests : " Death is nothing terrible after all. It may mean something even more wonderful than life. It cannot mean anything worse to the good soldier. " I have a rendezvous to keep with Death On some scarred slope of battle hill . . . And I to my pledged word am true, I shall not fail that rendezvous." This is indeed a supreme moment in the life of every American. The hour of our Nation has come. Even now the clock is striking the hour. It is the knell that summons our Country to heaven or to hell. Our individual responsibility for help- ing America make the answer that alone can save her soul is so great that we must, at peril of our own souls, shake ourselves free from every hin- drance and do our uttermost with heart and mind and spirit and body to enable her to make the PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM 6 answer for which the God of Nations is waiting, — the answer for which the God of Nations has been kept waiting overlong. The afternoon of the day I was asked to make this address, I climbed for the first time the two hundred and forty steps of the noble monument that now for nearly a century has given distinc- tion to this historic city, and stood at the feet of the heroic figure of Washington. From that commanding height I saw, as it were, not only all Baltimore, but " all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them." If Satan was there to tempt me with worldly ambition for myself or my Country, he found nothing in me, and kept dis- creetly in the background. But I had a strong feeling that the spirit of Washington was there, and I stood beneath the outstretched hand of the marble statue of the Father of our Country, try- ing to contemplate the life of the whole world from the highest and most selfless point of view. I praj'ed to the God of our Fathers to help me speak upon this occasion in a manner worthy of the presence of this great servant of His who has found greater favor in the eyes of mankind than any mortal that ever governed a great state. So, as I speak to-day, forgive me if I am some- what more conscious of the presence of the spirit of Washington than of your presence. It pleases and helps me to think that he honors us with his presence this afternoon. That he is the unseen guest of honor upon this stage. And that he 6 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM comes attended by those valiant companions in arms and statecraft who helped him to bring down America out of heaven on to earth — and America that God had prepared as a bride adorned for her husband and held aloft until He found men with vision and virtue and valor enough to be entrusted with her. If the stage is not too crowded I should like to admit another great spirit wliose fame has gone out into all the world. The earthly tenement of this great soul was made, — so Lowell tells us, who calls him " our Martyr-Chief " and even " The first American," — out of " the sweet clay from the breast of the unexhausted West." That eartlily tenement, fifty-two years ago, in troublous times like these, in a building like this, in a sister city, was shattered by the foul deed of a fanatic. Even so, such was his largeness of heart, I make no doubt the spirit of the Savior of this Nation is as ready as the spirit of the Founder of this Na- tion, to grace with his presence every occasion where Americans take thought for America. I have a feeling that great Lincoln's spirit comes down from one of the boxes on the left to take his place among his peers on the stage. I trust that the presence of this goodly com- pany of American patriots with which my warm imagination has filled this stage will be an embar- rassment to no person in this theatre. Certainly the presence of those who have made and pre- served us a nation will be a cause of no embarrass- PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM 7 ment to any one who has a God's right to call himself an American citizen. If apologies or ex- planations are in order, they will have to come from the house. None will be forthcoming from the stage. But I hope there is absolutely no need of apologies or explanations. I hope there is good ground for believing that if some such resolution as this were proposed — " Resolved, we join no part}', we countenance no cause, that does not honor the American flag, in public and in pri- vate, above all other flags, and keep step to the music of the Union " — the resolution would be carried by an overwhelming majority, if not with entire unanimity. — Even among the Twelve Apos- tles and Washington's Generals unanimity was not always attainable. A moment ago I was speaking of the splendid column that stands in this city as a memorial of Washington. As I speak I can see in my mind's eye that yet loftier marble shaft that stands on the bank of the Potomac in his honor. Once I walked down it all the way reading the testimonies to his greatness and nobility graven in marble that have come from almost all lands under the sun. If you are ever tempted to discount the character or the achievements of Washington, before 3'ou reach a final conclusion, you ought to walk up or down that monument and read the evidence in the case of Washington against the World. It is piled up there in imperishable marble five hundred feet high. The sight of it makes one slow to join 8 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM issue with Webster when he says : " America has furnished to the world the character of Washing- ton ! And if our American institutions had done 14 nothing else, that alone would have entitled them to the respect of mankind." It is true of Wash- ington in a greater degree than of any other statesman who has fought the battles of human liberty that " the world is gone after him." Wherever on this earth the cause of human liberty is intelligently loved, there the name of Washing- ton is sincerely revered. There is yet another patriotic American land- mark that rises before me in imagination as I speak. That is the Bunker Hill Monument, a mighty mile-post on the road of liberty and jus- tice, of world-wide and everlasting significance. Deserving as it is of a niche in the memory of every liberty-loving soul by reason of the heroic struggle it commemorates, it is still more memor- able by reason of the great orations delivered by Daniel Webster at the laying of its corner-stone in 1825 and upon the completion of the monument in 1843. I have already made a brief quotation from the latter of these. I could wish that you took your American citizenship with sufficient seri- ousness to read them both through from beginning to end at this time. Let me hope that you will do so. But I want you to hear further from the second of these great republican documents this afternoon. " And even if civilization should be subverted," PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM 9 declares Webster, " and the truths of the Christian religion obscured by a new deluge of barbarism, the memory of Bunker Hill and the American Rev- olution will still be elements and parts of the knowledge which shall be possessed by the last man to whom the light of civilization and Chris- tianity shall be extended." Again — and here he speaks to the very times in which we are living : " Woe betide the man who brings to this day's worship feeling less than wholly American! Woe betide the man who stands here with the fires of local resentments burning, or the purpose of fomenting local jeal- ousies and the strifes of local interests festering and rankling in his heart! Union, established in justice, in patriotism, and the most plain and ob- vious common interest, — union, founded on the same love of liberty, cemented by blood shed in the same common cause, — union has been the source of all our glory and greatness thus far, and is the ground of all our highest hopes. This column stands on Union. I know not that it might not keep its position, if the American Union, in the mad conflict of human passions, and in the strife of parties and factions should be broken up and destroyed. I know not that it would totter and fall to the earth, and mingle its fragments with the fragments of Liberty and the Constitu- tion, when State should be separated from State, and function and dismemberment obliterate forever all the hopes of the founders of our republic, and 10 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM the great inheritance of their children. It might stand. But who, from beneath the weight of mor- tification and shame that would oppress him, could look up to behold it? Whose eyeballs would not be seared by such a spectacle.'' For my part, should I live to such a time, I shall avert my eyes from it forever." Again : " If there was nothing of value in the principles of the American Revolution, then there is nothing valuable in the battle of Bunker Hill and its consequences. But if the Revolution was an era in the history of man favorable to human happiness, if it was an event which marked the progress of man all over the world from despotism to liberty, then this monument is not raised \nth- out cause. Then the battle of Bunker Hill is not an event undeserving celebrations, commemora- tions, and rejoicings, now and in all coming times." Finally, Webster speaks of " our agony of glory, the war of Independence," and brings his oration to a close with this passage that ought to find cordial welcome in every American heart: *' We have indulged in gratifying recollections of the past, in the prosperity and pleasures of the present, and in high hopes for the future. But let us remember that we have duties and obliga- tions to perform, corresponding to the blessings which we enjoy. Let us remember the trust, the sacred trust, attaching to the rich inheritance which we have received from our fathers. Let us PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM 11 feel our personal responsibility, to the full extent of our power and influence, for the preservation of the principles of civil and religious liberty. And let us remember that it is only religion, and morals, and knowledge, that can make men respect- able and happy, under any form of government. Let us hold fast the great truth, that communities are responsible, as well as individuals ; that no gov- ernment is respectable which is not just; that without unspotted purity of public faith, without sacred public principle, fidelity, and honor, no mere forms of government, no machinery of laws, can give dignity to political society. In our day and generation let us seek to raise and improve the moral sentiment, so that we may look, not for a degraded, but for an elevated and improved fu- ture. And when both we and our children shall have been consigned to the house appointed for all living, may love of country and pride of country glow with equal fervor among those to whom our names and our blood shall have descended ! And then, when honored and decrepit age shall lean against the base of this monument, and troops of ingenuous youth shall be gathered round it, and when the one shall speak to the other of its objects, the purposes of its construction, and the great and glorious events with which it is connected, there shall rise from every youthful breast the ejacula- tion, " Thank God, I — I also — am an Amer- ican I >' I trust there is no one within sound of my voice 12 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM who calls himself an American citizen, and avails himself of the privileges of an American citizen, who cannot, in such an hour as this, make that ejaculation with some degree of fervor. Born as I was in the state of Mississippi at the beginning of the Reconstruction Period that followed the close of the Civil War, on a plantation that suf- fered from both armies during that war, and in a family that was reduced from affluence to penury by it, there was a time in my life when the degree of fervor with which I acknowledged my birth-right as an American was not very great. I remember well when the flag of the Southern Con- federacy under which my father fought for four years was dearer to me than the Stars and Stripes, and when I felt caUed upon as a good Southerner to tackle any boy of my size or thereabouts who admitted he was a Yankee ; but I thank God with all my heart that, all unconsciously, my Ameri- canism grew with my growth, and did so under southern skies, and that by the time I reached my majority, and was accorded the privilege of cast- ing an American ballot, I was altogether an Amer- ican, and able and ready to say with the greatest degree of fervor, and out of a heart void of offense towards God, towards humanity, towards my own or any other nation, " Thank God, I — I also — AM AN AMERICAN ! " Now when I call myself an American, I mean an American who could not only pass muster in the presence of Washington and Lincoln, but who PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM 13 would feel no sort of embarrassment if they were to turn the X-Ray on his mind and heart. And when I speak of Washington and Lincoln I mean the whole Washington and the whole Lin- coln. I mean the Washington who was " first in war " as well as " first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen." I mean the Washington who, while he wisely kept the country out of war while it was recovering from the stress and strain of the Revolution, and finding itself, wrote these words in his Farewell Address : " If we remain one People, under an efficient government, the pe- riod is not far off when we may defy material in- jury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected ; when belligerent nations, under the im- possibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by our justice, may counsel." I mean the Lincoln of war as well as the Lin- coln of peace. I mean the Lincoln who was ready " To front a lie in arms and not to yield." I mean the Lincoln who on the battlefield of Gettys- burg in 1863 concluded his oration with these words : " It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to 14 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM that cause for which they gave the last full meas- ure of devotion ; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain ; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of free- dom, and that the government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth." I mean the Lincoln who turned a deaf ear to the foolish, sentimental plea for a " peace without victory," and in his Second In- augural address in 1865, after expressing surprise that " any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces," uttered these solemn words : " Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, that the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." Having said this, it is hardly necessary for me to attempt to characterize the peace-at-any-price propaganda that is being carried on in our Coun- try to-day with such rampageous zeal. And yet, perhaps, it would be uncandid in me to let this occasion pass without making it perfectly clear where I stand in this matter. I stand four-square PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM 15 against it, morning, noon and night. I stand four- square against this pacifist brain-storm of 1917 as I stood four-square against the somewhat similar pacifist brain-storm of 1898, with this difference, that my convictions are now nineteen times stronger than they were nineteen years ago. And I have by no means kept my convictions laid up in a napkin during these years. I have carried them with me openly around the world, and into all my social, political, ethical and religious studies and activities. I believe now as I believed then that this propaganda (from whicli all advocates of reasonable and righteous peace now hold aloof) is a symptom of disease and not of health, of de- cadence and not of progress, of darkness and not of light, of death and not of life. I believe now as I believed then that the outstanding figures in this propaganda are blind leaders of the blind, scorch- ing for the ditch. I believe now as I believed then that such an outburst as this is a cause not only for national but human humiliation. I have read an enormous mass of the literature pertaining to this subject, and the more of it I read the more strongly am I convinced that the spokesmen and spokes-women of the propaganda (whatever they call themselves. Socialists, Pacifists, or what not) are vying with one another in " foaming out their own shame." With Ferdinand Brunitiere, editor of the Revue des deux Mondes, I profoundly be- lieve that " Pacifism is essentially and funda- mentally a coward's creed. Cowardice is based on 16 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM the profound conviction that death is the greatest of evils because life is the greatest of goods. But for the honor of humanity it must be said that neither sentiment is (generally believed to be) true. No, indeed ; life is not the greatest of goods, for it is the fundamental principle of morality that many things ought to be preferred to life; and death is by no means the greatest of evils, since our true manhood is undoubtedly to be measured by the height to which we rise above the fear of it." Yes, Pacifism is essentially and fundamentally a coward's creed ! The taint of fear is in it ! The very taste of it makes my heart sick ! I will not go so far as to say that every pro- fessor of this coward's creed is a coward. There may be exceptions — so strange are the workings of the human mind. But at the best the plea of the pacifist is a cowardly plea. It feels after and finds and gives countenance to the coward. The man who makes it may not himself be a per- sonal coward, but he stoops to conquer the coward and enroll him under his banner by an appeal to his cowardice — by the abuse of valor and the praise of poltroonery. Brave pacifists there may be, but if seeing is believing, cowards take to the rose-water of pacifism at the sound of the trumpet as ducks take to water. It is my deliberate judgment that the peace-at- any-price propaganda that has swept through our Country like an epidemic of German measles since the Kaiser constituted himself vicegerent of PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM 17 Frightfulness is contrary to patriotism as it has been understood in America from the days of Washington to the days of Lincoln, and as it is understood now by the normal American heart. Doubtless there are those to whom I speak (for this hall has echoed with pacifist pleas of late) who will not only admit the difference to which I call attention, but who make a boast of it, and who have little room in their hearts for the old- fashioned kind of patriotism — the kind of pa- triotism that made and that has preserved us a Nation. Possibly there are those present who have scant regard, much less love, for the great names of American history ; who would not willingly give a place of honor on this stage even to General Wash- ington, unless they could first take from him his sword and swear him to blind loyalty to their par- ticular propaganda. I am tempted to say their pet, petty propaganda. Possibly — would to God I overshoot the mark ! — possibly, there are those here who have little respect, less honor, and no love for the American Flag; who are irritated rather than inspired by the display of the Stars and Stripes ; whose social and political hopes fly freer under some other sym- bol to which they have given or are tempted to give their highest allegiance; who have surren- dered to the fear that our national emblem does not to-day (however it may have been in the years gone by) stand for human freedom, but rather for 18 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM industrial bondage, and who, because they have made this surrender, are ready to surrender, if they have not already' surrendered, the Flag to a small but financially powerful group of our fellow- citizens whose chief place of business is Wall Street; who, in a word, regard the Stars and Stripes, not as the flag of democracy, but of plu- tocracy, — not as the flag of the people of the United States of America but of Wall Street. Granted that the thoughts of some of those of you who sit before me have been or are running in some such channels as I have intimated, what shall I say to you, my fellow-citizens, now that our Country is on the very verge of war with Germany? I hope you know me well enough to make it un- necessary for me to protest that whatever I say I shall say out of the abundance of a heart that beats in profoundest sympathy with those whose watchword to-day is Social Justice. That I am no blind defender of our present so- cial and industrial system many of you know full well. Here in Baltimore, as yonder in Newark, and elsewhere, I have, Avdthout regard to conse- quences, expressed my conviction, in the most un- compromising language I could command, that this system is unjust, and must be radically re- formed or revolutionized. There is no one into whose face I look who hates social injustice more than I do. I mean the kind PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM 19 of social injustice that flourishes like weeds on American soil, and nowhere more luxuriantly than under the very shadow of the Statue of Liberty. There is no one into whose face I look who, when silence was golden, has more fearlessly denounced the iniquities and injustices of our mammonized society ; and no one, perhaps, who has had to pay a greater price for the privilege of free speech along these tabooed lines. It ought not to be necessary for me to declare to you that I am the sworn enemy of Mammon, and the uncompromising opponent of every man, every group of men, and every social institution and every social system, that does him honor or serves him through fear. This is no secret, for I have publicly slapped his face and challenged him to mortal combat. Between Mammonism and my- self there is war to the knife, the knife to the hilt, the hilt to the hand. What I call Mammonism is sometimes called Capitalism. That is what it is generally called by Socialists. Well, so far as Mammonism and Capitalism are one and the same thing — and if they are not inherently one and the same thing they are in danger of becoming one and the same thing, and even now are devilishly alike — what I have said of Mammon and Mam- monism holds true of Capitalism. I am for Man- hood, not Things. I am against whatever is against men. If Money magnifies itself and mini- mizes Manhood, I am against Money, lock, stock 20 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM and barrel. I am for Humanity as against Prop- erty, morning, noon and night, breakfastless, din- nerless and supperless if need be. I am a pretty radical sort of a democrat. I believe not only in ecclesiastical and political but also in industrial democracy, and if there are any further developments of democracy while I am on earth I fully expect to believe in them. My de- mocracy runs the whole gamut. My democracy is bound for the ultimate goal of democracy, and is prepared for a head-end collision if it is neces- sary to reach its goal. I am not afraid of the term revolutionist in connection with my democ- racy. I hold in high honor the American rev- olutionists of 1775, and I am very far from think- ing that revolution worked its perfect work on American soil during what we call the Revolution- ary War. I am very far from thinking that after 1783 there was no further need for the wheels of social progress to turn, to revolve, to make rev- olutions, beneath the flag under which political freedom was won. On the contrary, I believe there is absolutely essential social progress to be made here in America which will be made only through revolution. The revolution may be sud- den, or it may be gradual, but it will be none the less revolution. Not only must individual Amer- icans be born again, and then again and again, if they are to achieve their intellectual and spiritual possibilities. This Nation must be bom again, and then again and again, if it is to achieve its PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM 21 democratic possibilities. And Re-Birth means Revolution. I trust that if there has been any disposition on the part of any of you to distrust my social vision or my social sympathies the cause of that distrust has now been largely removed. Certainly it is not as a conservative or a representative of con- servatism, and just as certainly it is not as a capi- talist or a representative of Capitalism, that I make my plea for old-fashioned patriotism to this audience in which radical social sentiment is so dominant. I know that many of you to whom I speak are Socialists, and that a good many of you Socialists are members of the Socialist Party. I recall that the last time I spoke from this platform to such a meeting as this I said in answer to a question in- tended to get the answer it got that I thought Americans who believed in Socialism ought to join the Socialist Party, and that I myself ex- pected to join it. But I have not joined the So- cialist Party. And I am making no move to join the Socialist Party. And I would not advise any American to join the Socialist Party. I have un- dergone a change of heart towards the Socialist Party. And I will tell you why. Some of you may not like the reason, but times like these call for plain and fearless speech. I do not think so well of the Socialist Party as I did several months ago for the reason that I know a great deal more about the dominant element in the Socialist Party aa PATRIOTIS^I AND RADICALISM now than I did then, and the more I learn about the dominant element of this party the more de- termined am I, in the year 1917 when Germany is threatening the well-being of human life on this earth, not only not to be dominated by, but not to have any party comradeship with, the eighty thou- sand Americans who constitute the Socialist Party. The more I looked into the utterances and the activities of the Socialist Party since the begin- ning of the great war in 1914, the clearer it be- came to me that the Socialist Party in America is dominated by men who are not American, but Pro-German, in sentiment. Many of these men are not only unAmerican, they are actually anti- American. They are both alien-minded and alien- hearted. Many of them despise and are at enmity with American ideals that I have long cherished, and been inspired by, and for which I am ready to lay down my life. Whatever it may have been in the past, whatever it may be in the future, at this critical juncture of human affairs the Socialist Party of America must be reckoned among the foes, not among the defenders, of the Rights of Man. The Socialist Party of America is busily giving aid and comfort to the conscienceless ene- mies of mankind. The Socialist Party of Amer- ica is conducting itself as though it were a toy or a tool of Hohenzollernism ; as though it were branded on the bottom, " Made in Germany." The Socialist Party of America is not only out of touch with things American, it is out of touch with PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM 23 things truly and wholesomely democratic. If it is not a traitor to, it is purblind to, the larger democratic hopes of humanity. Therefore the So- cialist Party of America is no fit place for a real American to be in the year 1917. Indeed, it is not a fit place for any man to be in whose heart God has set the great hope of a world-wide Broth- erhood divinely democratic. Some of you to whom what I have just said is least palatable know that I am not alone in mak- ing this discovery with regard to the Pro-German- ism of the Socialist Party. You know that the discovery has been made by some of the most prominent Sociahsts in America, and you know that every day men of national reputation who have for years been identified with the SociaHst Party are leaving it, and leaving it because they distrust both the Americanism and the Socialism of the dominant element of the party. I dare say what I have said — oiTensive though it may seem to some of you to be — because I can- not but believe that deep down in the heart of every man born under the American flag, and every man who of his own free will has come to dwell under that flag, there is a real love for the demo- cratic and fraternal ideals for which that flag has stood, for which that flag stands, and for which that flag, without being dishonored, may yet stand. The American Flag stands, or may without being dishonored be made to stand, for the whole 24 rATRIOTIS:M AND RADICALISM of human justice, the whole of human fraternit}', the wliole of human equalit}' of opportunity. That Flag was born to be borne onward and up- ward by the vanguard of Human Freedom. Be- neath it " whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report " find their natural abiding place. It is the friend- liest Hag that floats. It was first raised by the friends of humanity. It has never been surren- dered to the foes of mankind, whether individual, or corporate, or class. It is base disloyalty not only to that flag but to the brave brotherly hopes of which it is sj'mbolic even to entertain the thought of surrendering it. No man with a real freeman's soul could see in it the emblem of slavery. It is a shameless, self-dishonoring slander to speak of the flag raised b}' Washington and kept aloft by Lincoln as the flag of Wall Street. Of the social and industrial crimes committed beneath the Stars and Stripes I do not need to be told. I know the whole hateful story of preda- tory wealth in the " land of the free and the home of the brave," by chapter and verse. I know that some of the chapters are as cruel as hell. I know there are pages of this story of American business that are as inhuman as though they were ripped from the blood-stained diary of some Paris Apache. American greed for gold has kept my patriotism on the cro^s for a score of con- PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM 25 scions years. I know the burning shame of it ! My loyal heart is intimately acquainted with the agony of it ! But I know that the American Flag is not re- sponsible for the brazen sins against social justice and fraternity committed on American soil by privileged Americans against unprivileged Amer- icans. The Stars and Stripes did not inspire those sins. The Stars and Stripes do not eclipse or blot out those sins. The Stars and Stripes do not justify those sins. No American citizen, not the most sordid, dare plead his loyalty to the Stars and Stripes for the social or industrial un- doing of another American. If the American business savage finds sanctuary in the shadow of the Stars and Stripes, the fault is not the Flag's. The fault lies with the sons of freedom who have fallen asleep or sold them- selves for a song beneath that Flag. The fault lies with those who have forgotten or never learned the meaning of the Flag, and who therefore held it cheaply, and who, because they held it cheaply were too ready to surrender it to the foes of those that Flag was born to befriend. Believe me, my fellow-radicals, it is the great- est kind of folly to flout the Flag for the social ills of which you justly and indignantly complain. Line upon line, star after star, that Flag gives the lie to those who would use it for purposes of oppression. When I see those gathered beneath it who for gain are ready to take their brethren by 26 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM the throat, its red stripes seem to me to be tongues of fire threatening their destruction. There is no redder red, there is no more significant red for the liberty-loving man in any flag on this earth, than the read^^-to-die-for-freedom red of the Amer- ican Flag. There is no propaganda looking towards larger justice and nobler fraternity that cannot be car- ried on beneath the American Flag, and carried on in utter loyalty to it. Every honorable politi- cal, social, or industrial propaganda ought to find in that Flag a mighty inspiration. That Flag is the handiwork of radicals, of revolutionists, and I care not how radical, how revolutionary, you may be, if your aims and your methods are hon- orable, if you mean to reach your goal under the American Constitution as it exists, or as you can get it constitutionally amended to read, you will not find a friendlier symbol under the sun than that Flag. To me, my friends, this Flag is unspeakably dear. Next to the Cross, it is my highest, holiest symbol. I love it passionately. I could not pos- sibly stand by and see dishonor done to it. I would account it a sweet and gracious honor to die for it. I beg you — those of you who have been most aggravated by the iniquities and injus- tices of which this Flag has been an involuntary witness — I beg you, not to be tempted into any kind of disloyalty to this Flag. Not ever, but most especially not now. Not now, my friends. PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM 27 not now ! For America's sake, for your own sake, for Democracy's sake, for the world's sake, I beg you not to be disloyal, in thought or word or deed, to the Stars and Stripes at this crucial moment of human history. For God's sake, men, Americans, rise up to the height of loyalty to America now ! Do I need to say that America expects, yes, demands this of you? She does. You are her sons by birth or adoption, and she demands of you, as she has a God's right to do, the service and sacrifice of sons. America is even now ris- ing up to her full splendid height and speaking her Almighty Must. Let us hear and heed her voice. If we refuse to do so, I care not under what pretext, we shall seal our own doom, and the doom of every cause to which we give our al- legiance. We shall, like the Loyalists of Revolu- tionary, and the Copperheads of Civil War days, but court and win dishonor, or worse. America is speaking to us, my fellowcitizens, and speaking insistently. America, now rising into heroic mood, — America now more than for years her Great Self, — is calling her sons to her side, and her voice is the voice of Democracy, is the voice of Humanity, is the voice of God. II WASHINGTON THE STATESMAN WASHINGTON THE STATESMAN Macaulay, in his essay on Mill on Government, speaks of " the petty craft so often mistaken for statesmanship by minds grown narrow in habits of intrigue, jobbing and official etiquette." Between the noble statesmanship of Washing- ton and this sort of ignoble statecraft there is a great intellectual and ethical gulf fixed. Those on the right side of this gulf are statesmen: po- litical co-workers with God. Those on the wrong side of this gulf are the creeping things on the body politic, known today as " politicians." This fixed gulf between " politics " and statesmanship is not altogether impassable, but it needs a mighty mental and moral miracle of the kind that seldom happens to get a politician across it onto the right side. Washington was born on the right side of this political gulf. There he grew up, increasing in favor with God and man and there he wrought his great and splendid work. Never once did he cross over the gulf to the other side. He died as he lived, a clean-handed, free-minded, clear-souled servant of " the benign Parent of the human race," of whom he was ever humbly conscious, and of the country he carried in his bosom like a nursing father and so ardently loved. 31 32 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM r A great statesman is a great political seer. And Washington was a great political seer. He had a great vision of the state. He was a states- man of " large discourse," as Shakespeare would say. He had the God-like capability of " look- ing before and after." His letters and his speeches leave no doubt of this. The " Farewell Address " is marked by the foresight and the insight of a great prophecy. He visualized, first, America, and then, American problems, afar off. He peered into the future and saw America when as yet America was not. And when America came to be, he knew both what was in her, and what was in store for her. But a great statesman is something more than a great political seer. He must be a great actor or doer, a great steerer or helmsman. He must go out into the uncharted sea of the future and bring the ship of state he sees in his vision safe into the port of the present where she can be seen and boarded by ordinary men. It is not enough for him to tell the story, or to paint the picture, of some imaginary ship of state. He must make the ship of his political fancy a solid political fact, an actual concrete thing in the world of politics — visible, tangible, workable. He must not be a mere talker, a word-mongerer, or statement-maker. He must be a doer, a builder, a state-maker. He must not only speak out, he must strike out, blow upon blow, to the end that the thing he visualizes may be actualized — to the WASHINGTON THE STATESMAN 33 end that his dream may be dramatized and staged. If I may venture to use the figure of a rope-walker for a moment, the real statesman is not one who merely balances himself on a political rope swung near the ground. He must dare to walk the rope, from end to end, and that too when stretched at a dangerous height. A real statesman must be a man of undaunted courage. He must get some- where with his ideals. He must go forth valiantly with them. He must do and dare for them at all hazards, he should not be a " man on horse-back " ; rather should his feet be planted squarely on the solid earth. But he should have a horse at hand and be ready and able to mount him when great occasion calls for irrevocable action. Now Washington was not only a great political seer. He was a great political actor, a great doer of political deeds, a great steerer or helmsman of the ship of state. He was an extraordinarily great and intrepid servant of an extraordinarily noble political ideal. He is what the English historian has so finely called him, " the noblest figure that ever stood in the forefront of a na- tion's life." Ill WASHINGTON, FIRST IN THE HEARTS OF HIS COUNTRYMEN An address delivered at the dedication of tablet in Trinity Church, Newark, by the Sons of the American Revolution. WASHINGTON, FIRST IN THE HEARTS OF HIS COUNTRYMEN Sons of the American Revolution: I bid you welcome in the name of Old Trinity. It is altogether well that you should come together in this consecrated place for the patriotic pur- pose for which you are assembled. The place is perfect. In a peculiar sense it bears the imprimatur of him who beyond all others was the incarnation of the Spirit of '76 — of him who was not only the brawn and the backbone, but the heart and brains and the good red blood of the American Revolution. He would be perfectly at home here. The purpose is a good purpose. Good for you, and good for those who come after you. And I thank you, both as a citizen of Newark and as rector of this church, for emphasizing, as you do by the fulfillment of your purpose, the his- toric interest of this old building which, like a precious heir-loom, adorns the throbbing bosom of this city as she slips off the short and simple dresses of townhood and steps upon the stage of civic womanhood and makes her challenging bow to the world. I count it a privilege to co-oper- 37 38 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM ate with you in the execution of your laudable purpose. " The place Where shining souls have passed imbibes a grace Beyond mere earth." So it was finely said by James Russell Lowell in the poem read at Cambridge under the Old Elm on the hundredth anniversary of Washington's taking command of the American Army. " Words pass as wind, but where great deeds were done A power abides transfused from sire to son: The boy feels deeper meanings thrill this ear, That tingling through his pulse life-long shall run, With sure impulsion to keep honor clear, When pointing down, his father whispers, ' Here, Here, where we stand, stood he, the purely great. Whose soul no siren passion could unsphere, Then nameless, now a power and mixed with fate." The imperishable tablet placed upon yonder tower is meant to tell Americans of today and tomorrow, especially the youth of our land, — and in so doing to preserve whatever of inspira- tion such knowledge may contain for the historic imagination, — that a " shining soul " whom we hold in high honor and, I trust, open wide our hearts to, once passed, foe beset, within stone's throw of this spot: and that, when he and the little band of men that went with him were the sole attentuated golden thread upon which all the WASHINGTON 39 world's hopes of liberal government then hung. The inscription on this bronze tablet begins with this quotation from the First Book of Samuel : " There went with him a band of men whose hearts God had touched." Let me tell you why I so greatly desired to have this quotation in the inscription. First, because while there are striking contrasts between Saul, the young giant of Benjamin, the leader referred to in this passage, and Washing- ton, the young giant of Virginia, the leader we have in mind. Saul was so unbalanced a soul that even his great genius could not save him. Wash- ington possessed the " genius of balance " in a pre- eminent degree — being perhaps the most " even- balanced soul," as the American poet thought, and therefore, as the English historian declared, " the noblest figure that ever stood in the forefront of a nation's life." But while there are striking contrasts between Saul and Washington, there is a striking similarity in the romantic circumstances that occasioned the Twelve Tribes of Israel to turn to Saul as a savior from the Philistines, and the romantic circumstances that occasioned the Thirteen American Colonies to turn to Washing- ton as a savior from the British Philistines headed by George Third. There is another and stronger reason why this quotation appeals to me as peculiarly appro- priate to be associated forever with the name of him who was once proclaimed in all sincerity as 40 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM " first in the hearts of his countrymen " as well as " first in war " and " first in peace." I regard it as one of my highest patriotic duties to do everything in my power to strengthen the hold of Washington upon the hearts of his countrj-men. And I have thought that this quo- tation, which appeals at once to the heart, would contribute to this end. It seems to me to bring out the fact that a heart, a heart touched by God, is essential to great leadership. For men of heart do not follow heartless men. Men whose hearts God has touched do not follow men whose hearts have not been touched by God. When Saul was called to the kingship we are told " God gave him another heart." God gave him a heart with His own hands big enough, and human enough, and brave enough, to serve the needs of a king. There- fore it was that " there went with him a band of men whose hearts God had touched." That this was so in a far greater degree in the case of Washington I believe with all my heart. There- fore my heart opens wide to receive him. And nobody ever did, or ever could, impose a marble- hearted man upon me — I care not how fair he be. The man who finds a welcome to my heart of hearts must be a man with a heart of flesh, a heart that beats in strong sympathy with every noble cause, a heart that sends good red blood without stint leaping up to bathe the righteous thoughts of the brain. That Washington was such a man I am as sure as were Henrv Lee and WASHINGTON 41 John Marshall who knew him well, and knew that he ought to be, and said that he was, " first in the hearts of his countrymen." Of Washington's greatness there is no question. His title to greatness is guaranteed by the whole world. Lowell calls him " the sole chief without a blot," and all nations, peoples and languages say, Amen. In the judgment of the world it is as silly to speak contemptuously of the greatness of the sun as it is to speak disparagingly of the greatness of Washington. But how is it with Washington's claim upon the aflFections of his countrymen.'' It is not, I some- times fear, for his sake and ours, as well as it should be. There are some of the children of light, if we Americans are children of light, who are less wise in this matter than the children of the world: For I am inclined to think that the world has not only guaranteed Washington's title to greatness but has also taken him much to its heart. I could wish that every American would wel- come Washington to his heart of hearts. I know that it is rather a badge of shame than a certificate of superiority not to do so. It is the most nat- ural thing in the world for a normal American who knows Washington to give him a high place in his heart. Nobody would expect an abnormal person — a person with ethical smart-jacks (and there are a good many such afflicted folk among us) — to love anything normal, and Washington 42 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM was in all respects a normal human being. But the failure of the normal American to give Wash- ington the high place in his affections that he richly deserves to hold is almost certain to be due to prejudice based upon ignorance — igno- rance of the flesh and blood man, who had bones in his hands, and brains in his head, and the red- dest of red blood in his heart and veins, who was at once a splendid lover and a splendid hater, who possessed great grit and gumption as well as great grace, and who was physically, mentally and sympathetically altogether the livest human being on this earth when God touched his heart, and girded him for his matchless service to Amer- ica and the world. " If he do but touch the hills they shall smoke," sang the Psalmist. What, then, if God touched the heart of a man? Let fiery Moses on Sinai as he trembles with indignation at the sight of the Golden Calf — let fiery Wasliington at Kip's Bay, at Trenton, at Princeton, at Monmouth, and in his trenchant letters to Congress, make answer! The marble shaft in Washington City tells only half the truth about him in whose honor it was erected. It speaks well for his lofty purity and his majestic bearing, but its cold white blocks tell nothing of the fierce fires that burned within the full-blooded Washington from the days of his youth Avhen he went forth into the wilderness re- joicing as a giant to run his course and to match his prowess against wild beast or savage to the WASHINGTON 43 day when with undimmed eye and natural force unabated God called him to his great reward. That hollow shaft would only be a fit symbol of Washington if it were converted into the chimney of a blast furnace and from time to time smoke- less flame were seen leaping from its summit. If Washington was cold, he was only cold as the snow-clad volcano is cold. It is written, " Our God is a consuming fire." The man whose heart God touches, as we have every reason to believe he touched the heart of Washington, is never an icicle. He may, if he be great enough, attain " the energetic passion of repose." He will certainly burn his smoke, if he be a man after God's heart. But within he will be a burning fiery furnace. Washington was splendidly human. Sometimes he was pathetically human. To know him well is to love him. Not to love him is to lose a rare patriotic opportunity. To love him is an honor to any heart and an inspiration. I thank God for the proud privilege of receiving this " shining soul,*' this " modest glory," this incomparable human-hearted gentleman, and soldier, and states- man, and patriot into my inmost heart as my own great dear countryman. IV PAXOMANIACS: OR PACIFISTS RUN MAD A series of articles published in the Baltimore Evening Sun, April-June, 1917. PAXOMANIACS: OR PACIFISTS RUN MAD I What is a Paxomaniac? There is no use in looking in the dictionary for the word. You will not find it. It is a brand new word — just brought to birth by Necessity, the mother of in- vention. But so is the word " pacifist " a new word ; so new that it appears neither in the New Standard Dictionary of 1913 nor the Century Dictionary of 1914. Presumably the word is a product of the belligerent (not to say contentious, contro- versial, enraged, exasperated, exasperating, fight- ing, furious, harsh, hateful, hostile, irritated, irri- tating, provoked, provoking, quarrelsome, stormy, tumultuous, turbulent, warlike) peace propaganda now being waged in England and the United States. It would not be fair to say the smell of powder started this propaganda, but that the fresh smell of it has greatly accelerated the speed of our peace-makers goes without saying. How- ever that may be, the word " pacifist " seems to have been coined — certainly it has been appro- priated — by the two-forty-on-the-shell-road (not to say typhoonish, tornadoish, whirlwindish) peace propagandist as a pleasing description of 47 48 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM himself as a super-apostle (I had almost said, a super-messiah) of peace in these rambunctious times. Ask a self-confessed, simon-pure " pacifist " to define this word, — which when you first look at it appears innocent enough, and such a word as might be fairly descriptive of your own attitude towards your fellowmen — and (presto! change!) he skins up a sort of greasy pole to a dizzy height, stands on the tip of it, improvises a halo about his head, spins around like a dancing dervish, stops suddenly, points a scornful finger at some such calm, tranquil, conciliatory, gentle, meek, mild, peaceable, neighborly gentleman as (say) William Howard Taft, and with a withering look upon his face, cries, " Do you see that bold, bad, brutal, blood-thirsty, militaristic monster? Thank God I am not what he is ! i am a pacifist!! My motto is : Peace at any price. My belief is that the use of force is absolutely diabolical; so abso- lutely diabolical that it is a waste of time to at- tempt to differentiate between the use of force by the Kaiser in the invasion of Belgium and the use of force by Jesus Christ in the cleansing of the Temple. I suspect, however, the scene in the Temple has been incorrectly reported by witnesses ■with mihtaristic preconceptions. Any way. Force is fiendish. Peace is the be-all, the do-all, the end-all of mankind. Peace is the one and only panacea." Here a look of alarm comes into his face. Like a flash of greased lightning he de- PAXOMANIACS 49 scends from his top-lofty perch, and darts off the instant he hits the common earth. " Whither so fast away, O passionate pilgrim of peace? " you cry. Back comes the answer like a ball tossed over the head : " I have a daughter at home for whose safety I fear in these times when so many lustful brutes are abroad ! " Or, perhaps, the answer is : " My night watchman is sick abed. I must myself keep watch over my wife and chil- dren, my cattle, chicks and chattels, tonight ! " If the answer had been a twelve-pound shot and had struck you in the solar plexus, it could hardly have knocked the wind more completely out of you. To say that you are dumbfounded is to put it mildly. You are flabbergasted in the last de- gree. When you come to your pacifist friend has disappeared. You stand gazing in the direction in which he went, and then, if you happen to know it, the story of the old country fellow who met a camel face to face for the first time at a circus comes into your mind, and you say, with a feeling of relief, " Gosh ! there ain't no sich ! " But you are wrong — just as wrong as old Reuben. There are people at largo in England and America who talk and behave just about as preposterously as the sweet gentleman who called forth your explosive remark. And those people call themselves " Pacifists." That's the word they have invented or appropriated by which to call themselves. But they really are Paxomaniacs. (The reader is referred to *' Through the Look- 50 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM ing-Glass and What Alice Found There "— espe- cially the chapters on Tweedledum and Tweedle- dee, in which the poem on The Walrus and the Carpenter appears, and the chapter called " It's My Own Invention," in which the story of the Red and White Knights is given — if he would under- stand the " pacifist " mind, or rather, let me say, if he would not be altogether obfuscated in his effort to understand it.) I am sure the word " paxomaniac " is a better word to describe the sort of person I have in mind than is the word " pacifist " ; and I cannot but feel that it is fairer to the English language and to the large number of normal-minded persons of pacific temperament who speak it to designate this sort of a person as a paxomaniac rather than as a pacifist. Every well-disposed person is, or cer- tainly humbly hopes to be, a pacifist ; — unless you give the word a strained, artificial, pathologi- cal meaning. To accuse all of the English-speak- ing race except the pitiful little flock of people who call themselves pacifists of being haters of or traitors to peace, is to write oneself down either as a fool or a fanatic of the most hopeless kind, and to slash to pieces with one's tongue both the Ninth Commandment and the Golden Rule. " The times have been," says Macbeth, " That, when the brains were out, the man would die." If these were such times as those, to think of making such an accusation would be positively suicidal. Now these vociferous peace-at-any-price people PAXOMANIACS 51 who call themselves pacifists arc not mere paci- fists. They are pacifists run mad. They are pac- ifists who have " gone juramentado " — as we used to say about the fanatical Moro in the Philippines who took an oath to die killing Christians — and are running amuck. They are peace blinded paci- fists. There is a saying among Mohammedans, " See Mecca and die," a variant of which is, " See Mecca and see no more." And it is said that certain devout Moslems literally obey these words by gazing at white-hot bricks after beholding the Prophet's tomb until their sight is destroyed, so that what they are pleased to call the " supreme vision " shall be their last earthly sight. These English and American pacifists who have peeped at Peace through a key-hole or rifle-barrel, or gazed at the big toe or the back of Peace, until they are peace-blinded — blind to everything else but Peace, and who have but a partial and dis- torted vision of Peace — are the spiritual kith and kin of these frenzied Moslem zealots. Psy- chologically, yes, and pathologically, they belong in the same category. Each is the victim of a re- ligious craze. The peace-at-any-price pacifist is peace-crazy. He is no longer a mere pacifist. He is a paxomaniac. Mentally, he is a martyr to Peace, somewhat though not on the same plane as the Irish woman who said she was a martyr to drink. PAXOMANIACS: OR PACIFISTS RUN MAD II Let us make it perfectly plain at the outset of this second article on " paxomaniacs " that I am not laboring under the delusion that all paci- fists are victims of the insidious mental and moral malady I venture to call paxomania. The paxomaniac, as I have said, is the pacifist run mad. He is the slavish purblind devotee of Pax, the mythical Roman goddess of peace, by whom he has been bewitched and unmanned, as the companions of Ulysses were bewitched and un- manned by the enchantress Circe. Of course the ultra-pacifist or paxomaniac will say that it is before the Prince of Peace, and not Pax, that he prostrates himself. For the present I postpone further comment upon this claim than to say it seems to me the devotion of the paxo- maniac is too lacking in masculinity and vera- ciousness to be inspired by, and too overloaded with femininity and freakishness to be very ac- ceptable to, the Prince of Peace. Such sentimental devotion might please a myth- ical, mystical goddess. A Real Man it could not please. The Prince of Peace might, out of pity, suffer 52 PAXOMANIACS 53 it. He could not possibly enjoy it. He never wasted his time pouring rosewater on toads. He called Herod a fox. I would not venture to say what he would have called BernstorfF; but I have a strong feeling the epithet would have satisfied the most ardent patriot. And I would wager my eternal soul upon it that he would not have sent a bouquet to Bernstorff or a message of good will through him to his bad willed brethren who at the moment were plowing the breast of Belgium and sucking her blood like a vampire. The Prince of Peace was not a paxomaniac — either a real one or an imitation one. The peace-at-any-price palaver would have stank in His nostrils. Before speaking further about paxomaniacs, let me say a few words about three other kinds of present day " pacifists " (by which I mean super- or ultra-pacifists), who have been helping to make the welkin ring with peace cries and yells and screams and shrieks. It will not be necessary to say anything at all in this connection about such reasonable and rep- utable advocates of righteous and disinterested peace as those who have figured in the meetings held at The Hague before the present war, or those who are identified with the movement for a World Court or with the League to Enforce Peace. The Emergency Peace Federation, with its disin- genuous demand for a " popular referendum vote," is altogether too hysterical, if not too hypocriti- cal, to be classed as reputable. It smells too 54 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM strongly of German cologne. It is too full of pro-Prussian peace piffle, which sticks in any hon- est throat even when spooned up and crammed down by " Mrs. J. Sergeant Cram, For the Com- mittee." And Amos Pinchot with his paste and pinch-beck peace propaganda is perfectly prepos- terous. Amy is a scream. First I shall speak of such " pacifists " as Henry Ford and Dr. Kirchway. And yet there are re- cent indications that both Henry and the Doctor have at least heard Wisdom crying on the sea or in the streets, and have come to repentance and a better mind. Since that frightfully patriotic offer of his to the President, from the standpoint of a paxomaniac Henry is a shameful outlaw seek- ing to imbrue his hands in the blood of holy Huns and to interfere sacrilegiously with their pious piratical plans. And since Dr. Kirchw^ay has fallen from grace in the eyes of those with whom he has been flocking and vociferating by saying " There is no question as to the duty of the Presi- dent to protect American rights on land and sea ... I believe in peace so long as we can have it with honor. When we can't, I want to fight " — the New York Times speaks of him as " a pacifist with lots of company," meaning us. But as it is still a question as to how soundly converted Henry and the Doctor are; and as their hearts are still fluttering at the thought of what might have been accomplished by their voy- age and vociferation if only this world had been PAXOMANIACS 66 populated with the sort of people that that sort of thing appeals to ; and as they are in some meas- ure responsible for the vagaries of their quondam shout-fellows ; and as they are representative of a class of people whose emotions sometimes run away with their common sense so fast and far that it is difficult for Wisdom to call them back, and yet who have that in them to which Wisdom could make an effective appeal once she was given a hearing — it seems to me fair that mention should be made of them. But of course they are not paxomaniacs. They were threatened with paxomania, at one time they seemed to have an alarming number of the germs of the disease in their brains, but they managed to thin them out sufficiently before they were completely victimized. They escaped by the skin of their teeth. The fact that they escaped (let it be said in passing) keeps alive in one's heart the hope for one's friends who are in the incipient, or even secondary, stages of the malign malady. Secondly, I must mention the " pacifist " whose devotion to peace-at-any-price is the outgrowth of his social or economic, theories, rather than of his religious convictions. He is probably a So- cialist, and apt to be affiliated with the Socialist Party. He is pumped full of such historic slush as that all wars are of capitalistic origin and are waged at the cost of the working-class for the benefit of the capitalist class. Sometimes he is so far gone that he speaks of the flag of his coun- 56 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM try as the capitalist's flag, for which he has little or no respect. He resolves, partly for his own sake, partly for the sake of the working-class, not to assist in any way in fighting the battles of capitalism. While his resolution is not without a touch of humaneness, especially towards those of his own class, the dominating motive back of it is one of policy. " Pacifism is the best policy for the proletariat " is the one big thought in his mind. Cut out war and the proletariat will win out in its fight with the master-class, he thinks. I do not call this social or economic pacifist a paxomaniac, as he is in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred ready enough to fight — if he is allowed to stage the fight. Just as a matter of social policy, of social strategy, he coolly decides to re- sist as far as possible the pressure brought to bear upon him to make him fight for the powers that be. Their fight, he thinks, is not, cannot be, his fight. " Let them fight their fight, and I'll fight mine." Of course he might take this same view about paying taxes, with no worse show of reason ; or, for the matter of that, the view of the philosophical anarchist, and ask, with a shrug of the shoulders, Why a State at all? It is hardly necessary for me to add that though I call myself a Socialist I take precious little stock in this ignorant and ignoble phase of Socialism. To call the man a fool or a knave who claims the privileges of American citizenship, and yet foams out his shame by talking of higher loyalty to some PAXOMANIACS 67 other flag than the Stars and Stripes, seems to me to be giving him more honor than is his due. Whatever attitude the State might take toward such tainted citizenship in peace times, in war times, the State would be justified in requiring its citizens without exception to make choice be- tween the Stars and Stripes and the bars and stripes. And yet, and yet, this perverted loyalty on the part of some of our unprivileged fellow-citizens is the rotten-ripe fruit of the rank undergrowth that springs from the seed of anti-social selfishness sown and nurtured by some of those who are fond of thinking of themselves as our " best citizens," and who are our privileged fellow-citizens. For these to rail at those is for the pot to call the kettle black. There would be less flouting of the flag if there were less looting " within the law " under the flag. But I am very far from trying to justify those who flout the flag. Un-Americanism, anti-pa- triotism, sedition, are not an essential feature of pure Socialism. They are a cutaneous affection of uncleansed Socialism. They are no more an essential part of the fraternal economic program that off'ers itself to the world for the betterment of the whole human brotherhood under the name of Socialism than scrofula is an essential part of the human skin. Thirdly, let me make mention of the pro-German and anti-British hypocrite who not long ago vainly 58 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM tried to hide his hateful hypocrisy behind the word "neutral" (which he did so much to dis- credit) and who is now vainly trying to hide it behind the word "pacifist" (which he has done even more to discredit). "For ways that are dark and tricks that are vain " the Heathen Chinee is not in it with this professional advocate of private treachery and public pusillanimity. The shame of it is their name is " Legion." There are many who believe you only have to scratch a " pacifist " to find a pro-Prussian or a Sinn Feiner. That is perhaps putting it too strongly, but there is truth enough in it to bring the whole " pacifist " propaganda under the grav- est suspicion. It is not unfair to say that the American " pacifist " is at this moment the paid or unpaid, the acknowledged or unacknowledged, servant of the will of Prussianism in America. He is the pliant tool of Prussian chicanery and treachery. Consciously or unconsciously he sings and dances and cavorts to Prussian tunes, to the Kaiser's delight. So true is this, that for the time being the very name of peace sounds un- pleasant to patriotic American ears, and one is tempted to paraphrase INIadame Roland's pas- sionate outcry and sa}", "0 Peace! Peace! how many crimes are committed in thy name ! " Such shameful usage has Peace suffered of late at the hands of her false friends, so has her visage been marred and her garments besmirched, that I some- times wonder whether she will ever shine forth PAXOMANIACS 69 again in the heart of humanity in the beauty of her holiness until she has been baptized afresh in blood or purified by fire. Certain it is that her true lovers must save her, at whatever cost, from her false friends. These false friends of peace I do not call paxomaniacs, however much like paxo- maniacs they may look and act. They can make no claim to forgiveness on the ground of not knowing what they do. It is not to the Phipps Psychiatric Clinic that they should be sent if war comes and they persist in their activities. The problem they present is rather a penological than a pathological one. Lest misunderstanding arises from the omission let me say that my regard for loyal Americans of German descent is as great as my regard for any of my fellow-citizens. Among these there are those I love and wholly trust. Coming back now to the paxomaniac (w^hose case I have especially in mind in these articles) I want to speak to the diflferentiating claim he makes for himself and his fellows of being " pro- truth, pro-humanity, and pro-Christian." But I must leave this for my next article. PAXOMANIACS : OR PACIFISTS RUN MAD III In considering the extraordinary claims of the paxomaniac to a higher than ordinary morality, humanity and Christianity, the obliquity of the super-pacifist approaches Egyptian darkness. In this darkness he stands and prays thus with him- self : " God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are ! " A. M. Simons, a Socialist, recently emerged from the twilight, if not the midnight of pacifism, having in mind this pharisaical phase of this mental and moral malady, does not hesi- tate to call the ultra-pacifist a snob. Such an opinion, coming from such a source, is worth attending to ; and if a snob be defined as one who pretends to a superiority he does not possess, and who speaks to his betters as if they were his in- feriors because they refuse to enter into his fool's paradise, it is an opinion shared by about 90 per cent, of the hundred million people who call them- selves Americans. It is the opinion of all those for whom President Wilson spoke in his message to Congress on April 2. It is the opinion of all Americans, except those aliened-souled residents of the United States for whom La Follette spoke on April 4, that Senator from Wisconsin with the PAXOMANIACS 61 bee of Berlin in his brain, that Vallandigham up to date, whose " honor rooted in dishonor stood " and whose " faith unfaitliful kept him falsely true." If there are other exceptions the burden of proof is upon them at such a time as this to show it. In The Ex^ning Sun of February 19 there ap- peared an unsigned article entitled " A Pacifist's Statement of the Pacifist Position." The article, I have good reason to believe, was written by one of the leading " pacifists " of this community and one who may be regarded as a fair spokesman for the " pacifists " generally. In the course of this article the author makes this differentiating claim in behalf of the " pacifists " : " I shall only answer for myself and all with whom I am associated in the effort to present and to strengthen the cause of peace, that we are not pro-German, but pro-truth, pro-humanity and pro-Christian in intent, notice and effort." Let me now speak to this extraordinary claim of a higher than ordinary morality, humanity and Christianity. Space forbids saying anything further about the relation of " pacifism " and " pro-Germanism " than this : That they are under existing circum- stances of very necessity closely related — pos- sibly as closely as the Siamese twins, but cousins German at the remotest. The hope of Hohenzol- lernism in America is " pacifism." It is a con- temptible hope, but it is the only hope. However 62 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM immaculate the " pacifist " may believe himself to be (whether or not he has lied to himself), "in intent, motive and effort," in effect he is pro- German. If he is a pacifist run mad, he is as serviceable a tool of Prussianism as if his mind bore the imprint " Made in Germany." It is in vain for him to answer the charge of pro-German- ism with a " I know not what thou sayest," for the very breath with which he speaks, nine times out of ten or oftener, is tainted with the ethical rottenness that has all but destroyed the soul of Germany. However regrettable this may be from the standpoint of one who proposes to save the foe-beset world by an endless chain of sopho- moric declamation, it is an incontrovertible fact. The truth of this is so palpable it would seem as if a wayfaring man, though a William Jennings Bryan, or even an Amos Pinchot or a David Starr Jordan, could not fail to see it. And the " paci- fist " who is not ready to be reckoned with the transgressors (whether the " Loyalists " of Revo- lutionary days or the " Copperheads " of the Civil War) would do well to take to heart the famous saying of Bishop Butler: " Things are what they are, and the conse- quences of them will be, so why do we wish to deceive ourselves." But let us pass on. Is a more than ordinary regard for truth, for veracity, one of the noteworthy characteristics of the ultra- pacifist or paxomaniac.'' That the very reverse is true is my deliberate PAXOMANIACS 68 judgment, formed after hearing and reading wholesome quantities of the best the propaganda has to say for itself, much of it from the lips and pens of those toward whom I had the friendliest disposition. And this judgment is sustained by the overwhelming weight of public opinion. It is well-nigh universal. The strongest impression made upon me by the oral arguments and the advertisements of the ultra-pacifists is that of un- soundness, of unveraciousness. I would hesitate to call the typical ultra-pacifist or paxomaniac a liar (unless he intimated that opposition to his propaganda was based upon financial considera- tions), but that he is "mighty careless with the truth " I am absolutely convinced. He plays all manner of tricks with history. Facts he ignores, creates, or dresses up as suits his immediate needs. The way in which he falls for what Tommy Atkins calls an " Hun-truth " if it seems to promise even a moment's aid, and the way in which he falls in behind an}' old Pied Piper of Hamlin who plays a peace tune, is oftentimes positively pathetic. The Pantheon of Pacifists, with its busts of Bryan and BernstorfF, La Follette and " Gum-Shoe Bill," Bertrand Russell and David Starr Jordan and Amos Pinchot with an armful of paste and pinch- beck peace creations, is a Chamber of Horrors to one who has not been stricken Avith this peace-at- any-price mania. So far as veracity is concerned, the atmosphere of ultra-pacifism is suifocating to the man of aver- 64 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM age intellectual honesty, who faces facts fear- lessly, thinks straight, follows his thought directly to its goal and shapes his conduct accordingly. To turn from an essay of Matthew Arnold to a piece of ultra-pacifist literature is to pass from a reasonable into a topsy turvy world. Every page one turns one expects to see Tweedledum and Tweedledec, and to hear the former say : " I know what you're thinking about ; but it isn't so, nohow," and the latter continue : " Contrariwise, if it was so, it might be ; and if it were so, it would be, but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic." The truth is safe in the hands of no man who is short on humor. And that is just where al- most if not all ultra-pacifists break down. I have tried some of them on Bairnsfather's cartoons and seen a distressed look come into their faces and heard them say : " I see nothing amusing about that. War is too serious a matter to be joked about." After the above criticism of the " pro-truth " claim of the ultra-pacifists, perhaps I ought to justify myself by citations. It is not easy to do that satisfactorily in an article of this length. First, then. Here is a half-page advertisement before me, in which the Duke of Wellington, Vis- count James Bryce, Stonewall Jackson, Richard Harding Davis and Napoleon Bonaparte are quoted as though they would be glad to be num- bered among the " pacifists " in glory if they only PAXOMANIACS 66 had the chance. Perhaps this is too absurd to be called dishonest, but it makes the truth feel un- comfortable all the same. I don't mean to say the men did not use the words attributed to them. But no person of intelligence could for a moment suppose they meant them to mean what your radi- cal pacifist tries to make them mean. This sort of " carelessness with the truth " is a common failing among the advocates of peace-at-any- price. Secondly. After a meeting at the Central Young Men's Christian Association in Philadel- phia, at which an address was delivered on " Chris- tianity, Not Non-Resistance," when the hall had been emptied of all save " half a dozen men and Miss Margaret Cope Aubrey of the Woman's Peace League," a telegram was framed and sent to Washington announcing to President Wilson that " the meeting without dissent " urged peace. Sec- retary Eaton of the Young Men's Christian Asso- ciation, with whom I happened to dine next day, was indignant over the matter, and as soon as he learned of it sent a telegram to Washington dis- claiming responsibility for the telegram both on the part of the association and the meeting at which the address was delivered. This is the second instance of a petty trick of this kind that has come under my immediate notice. In the other case it was discovered before the telegram was actually sent and blocked. Thirdly. Two of the great " classics " of 66 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM ultra-pacifism are " New Wars for Old," by John Hayncs Holmes, and " Why Men Fight," by Ber- trand Russell. For John Haynes Holmes, Avhen not functioning as a paxomaniac, I have a high regard, but this specious, spidery, saccharine plea of his for pusillanimity bedizened with the paint and powder of radical pacifism, makes absolutely no appeal to me. It nauseates me, I put the book down with a sigh, murmuring, " Ichabod ! Ichabod ! " and praying that the eclipse will not be too prolonged. Listen to this: "To such persons (radical pacifists), a nation appeals simply and solely as an idea or group of ideas." " Germany (is) ... an idea of culture," " And just here in this spiritual idea of nationality do we find the su- preme, the unanswerable vindication of the men who would save America at this time from mili- tarism." " If you look upon America as a great ideal of the spirit, independent of territory and population and wealth, then all such things as armies and navies become matters of supreme in- difference. For the spirit is impregnable to all the attacks that the hand of man can bring against it." " What if Germany came here to- day as she came to Belgium yesterday ! " "A free people would still be free, even though in chains." And so on, ad nauseam. It is enough to raise the price of bi-carbonate of soda ! As to Bertrand Russell, while he occasionally lapses into sense, he can generally be depended PAXOMANIACS 67 upon in his plea for cowardice to be not only intellectually but morally unsound, not to say putrid. It has been some days since I read his book and I still smell it. He queries whether national independence is worth the price paid for it. Then, without a smile, he gets off this : " I cannot doubt that, before the war, a hegemony of this kind (over the whole world!) would have abundantly satisfied the Germans." Here is a choice specimen : " What is desirable in a Legis- lature is, not that it should decide by its personal sense of right, but that it should decide in a way which is felt to make an appeal to force unneces- sary." Next. Is a more than ordinary regard for humanity one of the noteworthy characteristics of the ultra-pacifist or paxomaniac.'' I confess that in view of the dumbness of the vociferous advocates of peace-at-any-price when confronted with the invasion, occupation, robbery and rape of Belgium, with the Armenian mas- sacres, with the sinking of the Lusitania, with the deportation of Belgian civilians, and such prus- sianlike barbarities, and their eager readiness to try to make out a case for Germany, it seems to me the very question is an insult to ordinary hu- manity. Whatever the paxomaniac may stand for in theory, I could not for a moment admit that he stands for a nobler kind of humanity in fact. Quite the contrary. Were his claim well-founded I should be in utter despair of humanity. It 68 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM would convince me that humanity was rotten to the core. When men stand by while some Tarquin rapes a woman like Lucretia, or some Kaiser rapes a nation like Belgium, and oppose nothing, or nothing but sentimentality, between the woman or the nation and her foul fate, and after the black deed is done, regard the woman or the nation with a feeling of coldness or irritation, and apologize for the villain, and try to tri}) up those who go to the rescue of the victim, the abomination of desolation will be standing Avhere it ought not on this earth, and the damnation of mankind will no longer slumber, nor ought it. I have listened to more than enough of the fine talk of the ultra- pacifist. I have taken absolutely no stock in such cheap, shoddy, nasty stuff. It is distinctly dis- creditable to the human heart. Moral insanity is the only possible excuse for it. The paxomaniac glories in what normal people call shame. At least that is the way he talks. INIaybe his bark is worse than his bite. PAXOMANIACS: OR PACIFISTS RUN MAD IV Is a more than ordinary regard for the prin- ciples of Christianity one of the noteworthy char- acteristics of the ultra-pacifist or paxomaniac? In answering the second question the answer to this one was substantially given. But several other things ought to be said. And first a word or two about Moses, througli whom came the commandment " Thou shalt do no murder." It seems that this commandment, more than any other moral precept, except one, is re- sponsible for the morbid hysteria of the ultra- pacifist on the subject of war. He has worked himself into a state of mind in which he thinks that public killing is just as wicked as private killing, and that the cause for the killing has absolutely nothing to do with the case? We should remind ourselves that Moses was under no such delusion. He not only approved of the killing of men in what he regarded as a necessary war, and showed it by ordering his people to fight, and by taking those to task who attempted to dodge their share of the fighting, but he provided for capital pun- ishment in his criminal code. A word or two about the prophecy of Isaiah 70 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM to the effect that nations " shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks ; nation shall not lift up sword against na- tion, neither shall they learn war any more." This prophecy, which appears both in Isaiah and Micah, plays a prominent part in all peace propa- ganda. It is a noble prophecy, and worthy of all honor. But it is not entirely honest to quote it without giving its context, which goes to show that the prophecy, in the case of both prophets, was a kind of Utopian dream. In both instances the prophecy is preceded by the words, " It shall come to pass in the last days." On the other hand, the prophet Joel, addressing the world im- mediately about him, cries : " Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near ; let them come up : Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears ; let the weak sa}^ I am strong." But the paxomaniac has an easy answer to any suggestion drawn from the Old Testament that tends to discredit his views. He ruthlessly sub- marines it. With a superior smile, he sends the book which was the university of Jesus to the bottom, much like the Kaiser sent the Lusitania. He takes no stock, he tells you, in any part of the Bible except the New Testament. Let us see, then, what kind of stock he takes in the New Testament. There are two texts in which he rings the changes. One, " Resist not evil," taken from the Sermon on the Mount (as reported PAXOMANIACS 71 by Matthew; Luke reports it otherwise). The other, " They that take the sword shall perish with the sword," taken from the scene in the gar- den (as reported by Matthew; John reports it otherwise and certainly more truly). On these two sayings attributed to Jesus the paxomaniac hangs his doctrine of absolute nonrcsistance. For him these two sayings (especially the former) are the be-all and the end-all of the matter. Nothing else matters, or matters much. The sum and the substance of Christianity is this : The use of physical force is the unpardonable sin. Nothing achieved by the use of the least degree of physical force can possibly be acceptable to God. The Venus de Milo is his ideal of justice. The burden of Jesus was far less to persuade men to be some- thing or do something than to convince them that it would be better not to try to be anything or do anything than to try to be it or do it by the aid of force. So he thinks. If one ventures to remind the paxomaniac of such sayings of Jesus as " I came not to send peace, but a sword," and " He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one," and " If My kingdom were of this world, then would My servants fight," he says he interprets these in a figurative sense. It is useless to remind him that he has just been insisting upon interpreting his favorite passages with terrible literalness. He merely says, " That is different." If one ventures to suggest that the Sermon on 72 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM the Mount was rather a prospectus of an ethical code of action to become fully operative only when the kingdom for which it was intended be- came somewhat of a reality (there are the plainest indications in the sermon itself that portions of it belong in the category of the idealistic prophecies of Isaiah and Micah) ; and that Jesus did not Himself in His everyday life live up to the require- ments of the sermon when strictly and narrowly interpreted, as witnessed by His use of physical force in the cleansing of the Temple and by His not turning the other cheek when He was smitten at the trial ; not to mention His admiration of the Roman centurion and the fact that He allowed at least two of His disciples to carry swords, and the personal invective He made use of upon occasions — if one does this, the paxomaniac makes one of two answers, each perfectly satisfactory to him- self. First, " You are evidently a militarist, and we can never agree about such matters." Sec- ond, " Jesus gained nothing by the use of physical force in the Temple. His conduct upon that oc- casion is an embarrassment to the cause of paci- fism. He should never have used that ' scourge of small cords ' or overturned the tables of the money-changers." I have had both these answers made to me. The state of the paxomaniac who makes the second is, of course, worse than that of the one who makes the first. He is not satisfied to be " as " his Lord ; he must be " above " Him. In personal conduct he proposes to out-messiah the PAXOMANIACS 73 Messiah. He is a paxomaniac indeed. In the holy cause of peace-at-any-price he accepts " Gum-Shoe Bill " and his confederates, but he has misgivings even about the Hero of the New Testa- ment. And here we have the reductio ad ahsur- dum of this decadent cult. If one were to ask the paxomaniac what he makes of St. James' " Resist the devil and he will flee from you " ; or such a passage as this from the Revelation of St. John the Divine, " In right- eousness he doth judge and make war"; — he would probably tell you that he not only took no stock in the Old Testament, but not much stock in the New Testament outside of the Gospels ; and if he was thoroughly honest (at least this is so in the more extreme cases) he would tell you he took precious little stock in the Gospels except so far as they lent themselves to his propaganda. Let me bring these articles to a close with a quotation from Ferdinand Brunetiere, editor of the Revue des deaux Mondes, generally regarded as one of the finest living intellects. " Pacifism is essentially and fundamentally a coward's creed. Cowardice is based on the pro- found conviction that death is the greatest of evils because life is the greatest of goods. But for the honor of humanity it must be said that neither sen- timent is (generally believed to be) true. No, indeed ; life is not the greatest of goods, for it is the fundamental principle of morality that many things ought to be preferred to life; and death is 74 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM by no means the greatest of evils, since our true manhood is undoubtedly to be measured by the height to which we rise above the fear of it." There you have it. Pacifism, especially that aggravated form of it I call paxomania, is a cow- ard's creed. I do not say that everyone victim- ized by it is a coward. But that does not alter the fact that the creed is essentially and funda- mentally cowardly. And because it is such, it is neither true, nor human, nor Christian. It is a far cr}' from this creed to the " Fear not them that kill the body " of Jesus, that Great Gentleman Unafraid, whose working maxim was, " Whoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it, and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it ! " V FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF NIETZSCHE FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF NIETZSCHE I On August 25th, 1900, about noon, in the villa of " Silberblick," overlooking Weimar, the Holy City of Literary Germany, an extraordinary lu- natic died. For the last twelve years of his life this lunatic was absolutely dependent upon two women. Had the Mona Lisa been painted after this man's death by one familiar with his low views of women and his immense debt to them, we would know how to account for the subtile smile on her face. One of these two women was his mother. A dis- ciple of this man calls her a " true mater dolo- rosa." She died at Easter, 1897. The other was his sister. The last word he uttered, and she thinks he uttered it joyfully, was her name, " Eliz- abeth ! " His death was expected about noon of the day before he actually died. His sister speaks of this in her biography of him. " A frightful thunderstorm was raging at the time," she writes, " and it seemed as if this mighty spirit were to depart from the world amidst thunder and light- ning." An ardent disciple, referring to this pas- sage, says, " One involuntarily thinks of Napoleon when his attendants at St. Helena told him they had seen a comet flashing across the sky. ' You 77 78 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM have seen a comet? Then I am going to die. A comet appeared just before Julius Cfesar died.' And his death did take place not long aftenvards." This sister was evidently greatly impressed by the passing of her brother. She writes : " Again he opened those wonderful eyes of his. He moved uneasily, opened his mouth, and shut it again, as if he had something to say and hesitated to say it. And it seemed to those who stood around that his face slightly reddened thereat. Then a light shudder ; a deep breath — and softly, silently, with one final majestic look, he closed his eyes forever. ' Thus it happened, that Zarathustra departed.' " " From far and near came the mourning friends and disciples," writes Dr. Mugge in his " Life and Work " of this man, to which I am much indebted for these Impressions. " The young Horneffer, later on editor in the Nietzsche-Archiv, came from Gottingen, and over the coffin in the house of mourning he delivered a worthy funeral oration. ' To all futurity his life has become a school of independence. We do not wait over this coffin. The man who lies here is not dead. It is not the night of death which has come here — it is the dawn of a new day. I seem to see the dead man raise himself; he stands erect, and a world throws itself at his feet ! ' " At the grave of this extraordinary lunatic in his native village of Rocken, Peter Gast, his life- long friend and disciple, delivered the following IMPRESSIONS OF NIETZSCHE 79 address. Dr. Mugge ventures to call it " rather flamboyant," and J. M. Kennedy, author of " The Quintessence of Nietzsche," goes so far as to say, " At the first reading it may seem too stately and ceremonious " ; but both felt that it deserved to be quoted, the former in part, the latter in full, and preserved for posterity. " And now that thy body, after the majestic Odyssey of thy mind, has returned to its mother earth, I, as thy disciple, and in the name of all thy friends, deliver unto thee our heartfelt Thanks in memory of thy great past. "How could we be thy friends.'' Only because thou didst value us too highly ! " What thou wast as a world-moving spirit is plain for all eyes to see; and what thy heart was is shown in the trend of thy thoughts. For the stamp of great- ness lies over all thou hast thought — and all great thoughts come, as Vauvenargues says, from the heart. " We, however, who had the good fortune to be near thee in daily life: we know only too well that the charm of thy person can never be adequately con- ceived from the thoughts in thy books. This has now left us forever. " What was said by the glance of thine eye, or by that remarkable mouth, was full of beauty and good- ness; it was a concealment of thy majesty: thou wouldst fain (to use one of thy own most tender phrases) thou wouldst fain spare us from shame. For who can show us another example of the wealth of thy spirit and the impulse of thy heart to do good unto others? 80 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM " Thou wast one of the noblest and purest men that ever trod this earth. " And although this is known to both friend and foe, I do not deem it superfluous to utter this testi- mony aloud at thy tomb. For we know the world ; we know the fate of Spinoza ! Around Nietzsche's mem- ory, too, posterity may east shadows ! And there- fore I close with the words : Peace to thy ashes ! Holy be thy name to all coming generations ! " Once, in antebellum days, a Frenchman was dining with my grandfather at his country-seat in Mississippi. An old negro servant was waiting on the table. But he became so interested and amazed at the language of the French guest that he had to be reminded of his duties several times. Finally the strange phenomenon so completely overmastered him that he entirely forgot himself, and going up to my grandfather, and leaning over him as he sat at the head of the table, he said in a stage whisper and with a look of profound pity on his black face, " Marster, was he born so.'' " What shall we say of the extraordinary lunatic over whose remains Peter Gast pronounced his " rather flamboyant " address in the summer of 1900.? In January, 1889, his ingrowing egotism had carried him up to the top of an exceeding high mountain in the interior parts of the human mind and, after he had fallen down and worshipped himself, had left him there under the mighty con- viction that he was a god. Which god he was, he was not quite sure. To IMPRESSIONS OF NIETZSCHE 81 Frau Wagner, " the woman from whom Nietzsche's soul never freed itself," Dr. Mugge thinks, he wrote: "Ariadne, I love you! — Dionysos." To Georg Brandes, the Danish critic, he wrote a letter " in very large handwriting on a sheet of ruled paper, signed Der Gekreuzigtc, The Cruci- fied One." Of this letter the ardent English dis- ciple referred to above says : " So far as it is worth while deciphering its incoherence, we are led to suppose from it that Nietzsche identifies him- self with Jesus Christ, of whom he imagines him- self to be the successor and the ' best enemy.' " It was an exaggerated case of " Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," for with Nietzsche the better man (if I may be pardoned for the moment for thinking of Jesus Christ as better than Bacchus !) was at en- mity with himself. What shall we say of this extraordinary luna- tic.'' Was he born so.'' Certainly not! The very idea is absurd! Not only was Nietzsche not born insane, or even with the least tendency to- wards insanity, but he was up to the very end of the 3^ear 1888 absolutely sane and healthy-minded. Nobody but a full-fledged fool or a Christian, which is a distinction without a difference, could or would think otherwise. At least, this is the answer that the ardent disciples of Nietzsche would make to the above question. The sin against the Holy Ghost, if your disciple of Nietzsche believed either in sin or the Holy Ghost, would be to entertain the shadow of a doubt that 82 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM this " erect " man, at whose feet the world is sup- posed to throw itself, was, up to the end of the year 1888, and especially the years 1881 up to 1888, during which time liis purely philosophical works were written, was not absolutely sane, did not enjoy the most perfect mental health. Unless you can accept this dictum, you have no chance whatever of being received in the inner circles of the simon-pure disciples of Nietzsche. The Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ, even among the straitest sect of Christian theologians, is hardly to be compared with the necessity of the belief in the Normal Action, the Perfect Process, of Nietzsche's mind from not later than 1881 up to at least 1887, if not up to the time of the acknowledged mental breakdown. " It must be clearly pointed out that this stroke of insanity came ver}' suddenly'," writes the ardent disciple who furnishes us Avith the " Quintessence " of Nietzsche. And lest we fail to swallow this barbed hook that he throws to us, baited with nothing better than warm assertion, he throws the hungry hook to us again in the same paragraph. He tells us that from the " year 1882 Nietzsche's health had been steadily improving," and that " he was, generally speaking, in a happy frame of mind and a sound state of body." He tells us that " in 1888 he produced a large amount of work, in no part of which can any traces of mad- ness be found by even the most sceptical inquirer." " His breakdown, then," he reiterates almost test- IMPRESSIONS OF NIETZSCHE 83 ily, *' took place with appalling suddenness be- tween January 1st and 4th, 1889." Even Dr. Mugge, who is a much more candid biographer than Mr. Kennedy, whose candor must indeed be adjudged by some of his fellow-disciples to go the full length of rashness if not of treach- ery, says: "After 1881 — and this is very im- portant to remember, for his purely philosophical works were written after that date ! — Nietzsche was comparatively well, and ' never had more than fourteen days of ill-health annually, up to 1887.' " One simply must swallow this hot dictum, and the moment it begins to burn commence to curse and to swear at the Truth " as it is in Jesus," and to continue to curse and to swear until one is blind and deaf and morally insane, if one is to have any real satisfaction and abiding peace in believing in Nietzsche. Otherwise, the temptation to believe, wath G. M. Gould, that " it is certain that the so- called sudden stroke of 1888 was only the more apparent effect of thirty years of over-use and disease of the brain," and, with Chamberlain, that " the first signs of the fearful malady appeared as early as 1878, ' scattering the splendid intel- lect,' " will be, as we shall ourselves see before long, altogether too great to be successfully re- sisted. As early as 1878 we find Nietzsche writing: " As long as I was a real scholar, so long was I healthy ; but then there came music, which shat- tered my nerves, and the metaphysical philosophy. 84 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM and the care of a thousand things which ought not to have troubled me." Carlotta, his landlady in Genoa where he spent a part of 1880, relates that whenever reference was made in Nietzsche's hearing to one of her sons who died in an asylum, he used to whisper " Anch' io." He himself wrote to GersdorfF : " My father died at the age of 36 of inflamma- tion of the brain ; it is possible that it may take me off still earlier." Dr. Mugge tells us that in 1882 Nietzsche be- gan to take hydrate of chloral, and that " he admits that this always caused him to see men and things in a false light the next morning — show- ing, as in De Quincey's case, that the drug had * palsying effects on the intellectual faculties.' " " For this reason he again and again struggled to give up the use of that drug," says Dr. Mugge. That struggle was in vai^. The ''Will to Power " failed to work for " Zarathustra " in the case of the drug-habit as dismally as Christian Science failed to work for " Mother Eddy " when she had to struggle with a good old-fashioned tooth-tache. We find Nietzsche writing to his brother-in-law, Dr. Foerster : " I take narcotic after narcotic, in order to alleviate my sorrow, and yet I cannot sleep. To-day I shall take so much that I shall lose my senses." Besides chloral. Dr. INIugge tells us that Nietzsche also used " an uncommon narcotic, IMPRESSIONS OF NIETZSCHE 85 which an old Dutchman had brought from Java." And this candid Doctor of Philosophy gives his readers the benefit of the opinion of Dr. Ilee, a physician, of his former friend Nietzsche. In 1897 he wrote to a friend that " Nietzsche was a madman, a man craving for fame at any price, a poor, sick, and perhaps lunatic poet," whom he could never read, and whom to read at all was only possible in extracts. Nevertheless Dr. Mugge does not desert his hero. After he has shown him to us, as hopelessly punctured (so many will think), as St. Sebastian, according to European painters, the doughty Doctor martials his italics and marches them right across the middle of the page to the rescue of his master whom he calls " poet-philosopher, a lover of mankind, a prophet of a ' Christ that is to be,' " and whom he looks to to rescue humanity, or a saving remnant of it, from the abyss of Chris- tianity. " We are, however, bound to uphold our conviction that Nietzsche was never mad before the December of 1888, and we must call in ques- tion ' the existence of a thirty years ' mental disease of which the stroke of apoplexy was only the visible effect. We must utterly denounce such a book as that of Svhacht, in which Nietzsche is described as already mad in 1886, and as a wicked scoundrel and boaster." I believe that every fair-minded man will with- out hesitation agree with the Doctor that he is 86 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM absolutely bound, and not only bound, but mor- tised and glued, and not only bound and mortised and glued, but nailed and screwed, to the dictum he sets down in italics — if he means to be a Nietzscheanite. Just here I am reminded of the story of the bull-dog that stirred up a hive of bees, and then beat a hasty retreat to a barrel nearby, the far end of which was open, the head in the near end being intact but with a bung-hole in it. The plan of the bull-dog was to enter the barrel through the open end away from the bees, and then, safely ensconced in this block -house, to snap the bees up one by one as they came through the bung-hole. The plan left nothing to be desired from the point of view of the bull-dog — except the adherence to it on the part of the bees. The be-barreled bull-dog looked defiance through the bung-hole at the impassioned bees. On they came, humming their chant of hate, heedless, it seemed, of their hidden foe. Now he could almost see the whites of their eyes. He opened his mouth, involun- tarily closing his eyes as he did so. He snapped his lantern jaws. But he evidently mis-snapped, for there was no mangled bee between his teeth. He opened his eyes. No bees were in sight. Ah, thought he, the cowards espied me and have fled, the wish being father to thought. His logical mind had hit upon a half truth. They had es- pied him, but, dog-gone-it, they had not fled. IMPRESSIONS OF NIETZSCHE 87 The next instant he heard the chant of hate be- hind him. Before he could reverse for the rear- attack the full force of the stinging blow of out- raged bee-dom had been delivered. They had " passed-up " the bung-hole in favor of the open end of the barrel ! The moral of which is tliat the bung-hole logic of this befuddled bull-dog left something to be de- sired ! And if it is not too unkind to say so, the pathetic effort of Dr. Mugge to barricade his con- viction that " Nietzsche was never mad before 1888 " behind a couple of lines of italics has some- how reminded me of this bit of bung-hole logic. The doctor's position is as vulnerable as that of the bull-dog. And in this the disciple is like his master. The strength of Nietzscheism is dependent upon its success in inducing the human mind to pass over its preposterous pons asinorum, or through the fang-guarded bung-hole through which it squints at human life. I have so much affection and esteem for dogs that I am somewhat ashamed of the base uses to which this dog has been put, and while I am only partl}^ responsible for the indignity, I feel that I ought to apologize to my canine friends. I do so, making my kow-tao, and if that is not sufficient I will add a bow-wow to my bow. The first complete and authorized English translation of the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, 88 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM published by the Macmillan Company, and edited by Dr. Oscar Levy, a passionate disciple, com- prises eighteen volumes, including an Index, but not including some eighteen volumes of posthu- mous publications printed by the Nietzsche Ar- chives, of Weimar, under the direction of Nietz- sche's sister, Frau Foerster-Nietzsche. Nat- urally, the length of this paper forbids us to do more than take a cursory glance at the contents of these books. Indeed we may not be able to do so much as peep into all of them. So far as we are able to look into them, however, we shall look through the eyes of Nietzsche's disciple Dr. Mugge. But before we take a look into these books at all, let us acquaint ourselves somewhat further with the life of the author. Nietzsche was bom October 15, 1844, twelve years after Goethe's death, and thirty-one years after Wagner's birth. His father, through the grace of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, was at the time pastor of the village of Rocken, in Saxony. Nietzsche was christened " Friedrich Wilhelm " as a memento of his father's royal bene- factor. The family evidently had an eye to princes. Nietzsche was pleased to think, Avhether on adequate ground is questioned by Dr. Mugge, that he was of noble Polish descent, and he loved to be addressed and spoken of by the populace as " il Polacco." He was the eldest of three chil- dren. His little brother Joseph died soon after his birth. We know that Elizabeth survived him. IMPRESSIONS OF NIETZSCHE 89 His father died when Nietzsche was not quite five. The event made a deep impression upon the boy. " A vision of liis father often appeared in his nightly dreams." Soon after the death of her husband, Nietzsche's mother, Franziska Oehler, then twenty-four, moved to the nearby town of Naumburg to live with her mother-in-law, Frau Dr. Nietzsche, and two sisters of her late husband. " Here, surrounded by feminine influence and guided by women's hands, Nietzsche spent his early childhood." " He became somewhat feminine in his habits," says Dr. Mugge, whom I am follow- ing closely, sometimes with, and sometimes with- out quotation marks. After scarcely a year at the Elementary School at Naumburg, where he w^as not popular with his rough school-fellows, who teased him, and dubbed him the " little parson," he entered a private Preparatory School. Here he remained three years, doing good work, especially in religious sub- jects, and making some intimate friends. In 1854< he entered the Grammar School of Naumburg. The Doctor assures us that his hero " was the perfection of a well-mannered boy, and never did anything naughty." He early developed a taste for military games, the drama, and music. From his grandmother he heard reminiscences of Na- poleon, for whom, despite the hardships she suf- fered because of him, she preserved a great affec- tion. He took a deep interest in the Crimean War, repeating many of the movements of the 90 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM armies with his leaden soldiers. Nietzsche gave a good account of himself in the Gymnasium or Grammar School, winning the praises of the In- spector. He was given a six-year scholarship in the famous Landes-Schule, Pforta, called by Mr. Kennedy the " German Eton." He was one of two hundred boys. The masters are said to have been able and kind. Much attention is said to have been paid to the character of the boys. Ath- letics had no part in the life of the school. To an English or American boy it would have looked like a case of all work and no play, with an ex- asperating amount of " verboten " and goose- stepping before and after the work. It was while at Pforta that the music of Richard Wagner came into Nietzsche's life for the first time, and completely captivated him. At one time he seriously thought of becoming a musician. While at Pforta one of his pastimes was to accom- pany on the piano the recital of the poems of Schiller by his most intimate friend Deussen, after- wards professor at Kief. Nietzsche himself com- posed many pieces, one at the age of fourteen, — some of them said to be charming, but of no last- ing merit. He founded a literary club in a ro- mantic manner at a romantic spot overlooking the beautiful valley of the Saale. His favorite authors at this time were Plato, .Eschylus and the German lyric poet Holderlin, but he read with interest Tacitus, the Edda, the Niebelunger, IMPRESSIONS OF NIETZSCHE 91 Shakespeare and Emerson. He was poor in both Mathematics and Natural Science, attained no skill in Gynmastics, was little better in Swim- ming, but was strong and brilliant in German and Latin. He received his first conmiunion in 1861, and Deussen speaks of a feeling of rapture which all of them experienced at the time. His class reports speak of him as being excellent in Re- ligion. From Pforta Nietzsche went to the University of Bonn. Here he won the friendship of Ritschl (whom he followed to the University of Leipsic), who is said to have been a great factor in his intellectual life, and through whose strong influ- ence he was appointed Professor of Classical Phil- ology in the University of Bale at the youthful age of twenty-five. While at Bonn " the quiet student tried to transform himself into a beer- di'inking, duel-fighting youth." Dr. Mugge would have us believe that these strange student carouses " have a healthy and elevating influence on the youth of Germany " ; that they " give their mem- bers a powerful education of a manly and national character " ; and he calls those who think differ- ently " calumniating philistines and pedants." He tells us that Nietzsche was of his opinion, and that for a time he attended the almost weekly ca- rouse. " But his interest in these social gather- ings slackened," the Doctor admits, " and shortly after leaving Bonn he lost all touch with his 9a PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM ' Burschenschaft ' . . . a daring step," This gives us an interesting pec]) into Dr. Mugge's mind. It was while a university student that Nietzsche wrote to his sister saying, " What we desire i.s truth, Truth only, even if it be something most frightful and most ugly." Later in life he quoted with approval Stendhal's dictum. " In order to be a good philosopher, it is necessary to be dry, clear without illusion." Possessing these quali- ties while yet a student (as he thought), he scru- tinized the faith of his childhood, detached its foibles and discarded it, still adhering, however, to Christian Ethics. About 1865 he fell completely under the spell of Schopenhauer, and sucked the black teats of Pessimism like an enfant terrible. Before going to Bale, having failed to get exemp- tion on account of near-sightedness, he fulfilled the obligation of one year's military service. He is said to have gotten on very well. We are told that he did not " cut a sorry figure " on a horse ; but while mounting his horse, a few months after he began his term of service, two pectoral muscles were torn, inflammation of the entire muscular and ligamental system of the upper part of the body set in, and his hfe was seriously endangered. Though incapacitated, he had to remain in Naumburg to the end of his year's service, when he left with a lieutenant's commission in the Landwelir. Nietzsche was at Bale for ten years. He made IMPRESSIONS OF NIETZSCHE 93 a great impression by his youthful brilliance and by his ability to breathe the breath of life into the subject matter of his lectures. His resignation was based on ill health, but was undoubtedly due in part to the fact that his love for philosophy swallowed up his love for philology and to his growing impatience over the thought that as a })rofessor at Bflle he was a thoroughbred harnessed to a plow. Apart from his writings the more interesting occurrences connected with this period of his life are his service in the Franco-Prussian War, and his association with the Wagners. Nietzsche wished to defend the honor of Germany, but as he had become a Swiss citizen in order to accept his professorship, he could only go to the war as a hospital steward. This he did, but was soon stricken down with dysentery, which sent him first to the hospital, and then back to the university, and is supposed by some to have undermined his health permanently. Before this, however, Nietzsche had been re- ceived into the bosom of the Wagner family. Wagner's country house, known as Triebschen, was at the foot of Mt. Pilatus. His wife, Cosima, was the daughter of Liszt. Wagner called her the " unique one." Despite the disparity in their ages, Nietzsche and Wagner became devoted friends, and formed a mutual admiration society, into which Cosima was admitted, and from which 94 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM Wagner's children seem not to have been excluded. Nietzsche spent the Christmas of 1869 and also of the following year at Tricbschen. " These days were the great noontides of the friendship between Wagner and Nietzche," says Dr. Mugge. One is tempted to think that they were the late afternoontides, so quickly were they followed by a terrible twilight, if not a veritable Walpurgis' Night, brought on by Nietzsche. In 187-i Nietzsche avoided all visits to Wagner. Tlie breach widens rapidly. In 1878 Nietzsche sends Wagner a copy of his " Human, All Too Human," in which he recants his expressed adora- tion of Wagner, whom he had called Jupiter, and Wagner sends him a copy of " Parsifal." The books cross in the mails. Neither acknowledges receipt of the other's gift. From this time on Nietzsche attacks his old friend, mercilessly annoy- ing him like a jackal, digging up the bones of their intimate friendship and gnawing them like a hy- ena, pecking at his eyes and pulling at his vitals like a vulture. He follows up " Human, All Too Human " by " The Case of Wagner," and this b}' " Nietzsche contra Wagner." He compares Wagner's orchestration to the Sirocco. He writes to Spitteler: " It is quite natural that I connect my * conversion ' with Carmen. You will not doubt it a minute — simply one more malignity of mine. I know that the success of Carmen excited Wagner's wrath and envy." He calls Wagner a " shrewd rattlesnake," the " artist of decadence," an IMPRESSIONS OF NIETZSCHE 95 " old thief,'" an " old magician," " this Cagli- ostro of modernity ! " He parodies and pokes ma- licious fun at his operas. He writes : " We now laugh at his appropriation of old legends and songs." He sputters : " I despise every one who does not regard Parsifal as an outrage on mor- als." Can lago compete with it? Can Caliban beat it? The disciple Mugge tries to explain it on the ground of " the peculiar prevalence of instinct and sentiment in his friendships." The disciple Kennedy is betrayed into suggesting that the ex- planation of this " immoderate hatred," this "reckless hatred," (as Dr. Mugge is forced to call it), is to be found in this case, as in the case of Schopenhauer, in Nietzsche's " sexual feelings," which, he tells us, " were by no means normal." But can any explanation at all satisfactory to a balanced and unbiased mind be found except the explanation that the Nietzscheanites are forced to give for the silly note addressed by Nietzsche to the widow of the man he hounded to death, and over whose grave he frothed and snarled and yelped, his eyes in fiendish frenzy rolling — the note reading " Ariadne, I love you ! Dionysos," to-wit, that these were the acts of a madman? I do not know how this may strike a would-be philos- opher in a barrel squinting fiercely at human life through a fang-guarded bung-hole. But there cannot be the least doubt how it will strike any person to whom has been given that spirit " of 96 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM power, and of love, and of a sound mind " of which Paul wrote to Timothy and of which a man like Dr. Arnold of Rugby was one of many fine ex- emplifications. Ten years elapsed between the time Nietzsche resigned his professorship in Bale and the " ter- rible moment " in January, 1889, when Overbeck found him in Turin " crouching in a corner of a sofa, reading what proved to be the last correc- tion of ' Nietzsche contra Wagner.' " Overbeck received several letters from Nietzsche that con- vinced him that his friend had entirely lost his identity. " He was not only a king, but the father of other kings," Overbeck went to the rescue. Describing his meeting with Nietzsche he writes : " He saw me, and recognizing who I was, rushed to me and embraced me passionately ; then, bursting into a flood of tears, he sank back upon the sofa in convulsions. I was also, through strong emotion, hardly able to stand upright. Did the abyss upon which he stood, or rather into which he had already fallen, disclose itself to him at that moment? At any rate, nothing of this sort was repeated." Further on in the letter from which I am quoting Overbeck says : " It appeared that, working himself up at the piano in loud songs and frenzies, he brought out fragments from the world of thought in which he last lived; at the same time short sentences uttered with an indescribably muffled tone, he babbled of sublime, wonderfully transcendental, and unspeakably hor- IMPRESSIONS OF NIETZSCHE 97 rible things, regarding himself as the successor of the dead god, interspersing the whole with interludes on the piano. Thereupon followed once more convulsions and outbreaks of unutterable suf- fering." Recovering somewhat, he would speak often of himself as " the buffoon of the new eter- nities," and attempt to give expression to his rap- tures of delight " by means of fantastic dancing and leaping." To control him, says Overbeck, was a matter of child's play " as soon as one entered into his ideas of royal receptions and en- tries, festival music, and so on." That is, all one had to do to be completely en rapport with this ex- traordinary lunatic whom Dr. Mugge calls " the reformer of the world " was to get down and crawl into the barrel with the brilliant buffoon and squint at human life through a bung-hole ! Nietzsche wrote after leaving Bale, " What re- mains to me of life shall be spent in giving com- plete expression to that for which I still endure life." And what are regarded by his disciples as his most important contributions to philosophy were written during this last decade of his life in which he was suffered to go at large. He wan- dered about from place to place, utterly restless in body as in mind. Cain was hardly more of a vagabond when he went out from the presence of the Lord. At first he went to Naumburg to live with his mother. But she annoyed him, Dr. Mugge thinks, so he went from place to place. We hear of him at Venice, at Marienbad, back in 98 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM Naumburg, at Lake Maggiore, in Genoa, in Nice, in Mentone, but most frequently at Sils-Maria in the Engadine, where he began to write his great- est work, " Thus Spake Zarathustra," and which place, we are told, is now the Mecca of Nietz- scheanites. A description of Nietzsche during the earlier part of this period by a friendly critic, Frau von Bartels, is of interest. " Every day," she re- lates, " as we sat in the dining-room of the ' Os- teria ' (which was merely a little bit of roofed-in courtyard with a fan-light), a gentleman came to our table, who greeted us, and ordered his dinner in the Venetian dialect, but then sat mute. We took him for an Italian ; and we laughed at the oddit}^ of his being at our table, seeking us out and yet never talking to us, and because he pre- sented such a singular appearance, with short, white linen trousers, black coat, extremely thick mustache, and sad brown eyes behind thick pol- ished glasses. But we did not laugh unkindly, for we liked him, and missed him whenever he was late. We laughed most of all at his hair. He wore it in a thick natural curl which formed a little acute angle on his forehead, and by a singular caprice he had cut off the extreme point of it. But next day it appeared to be growing again ; on the day after, however, it would be cut off once more. We were so childish that even this made us laugh ; and one day he also laughed with us, and IMPRESSIONS OF NIETZSCHE 99 talked to us in our own language, and that was the beginning of our friendship." Nietzsche's income at this time was about four thousand francs a year, three thousand of which came as a pension from the University of Bale, and the balance from property. But he lived most abstemiously, oftentimes spending not ex- ceeding seventy-five francs per month. Some- times, however, when his mother sent him some- thing he liked, he would eat till he was sick. He was especially fond of honey in the comb, and would manage to eat up a large comb in three days. At times he would lie out on a solitary rock by the sea in the sun all day. Again he would climb to some high point overlooking one of the Swiss lakes and sing his own songs so loudly that people down on the lake could hear him. During this decade Nietzsche quarrelled with his sister who did more than any one else, perhaps, to cheer him up and encourage him. He objected to the man she proposed to marry and did marry, because he thought the man did not like him. He quarrelled with his publishers, and brought suit against them. He quarrelled with Miss Salome, who came to him as a devotee of his philosophy, the thing he was longing for. He quarrelled with his friends Ree and Rohde, and others. He quarrelled his friends away to such an ex- tent that when he had the fourth part of " Zara- thustra " printed he could only dispose of seven 100 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM of the forty copies he had struck off. He quar- relled with just about everybody he came in real contact with who was not fool enough, or good natured enough, to get down and crawl into the barrel with him. Rohde accounted for his aliena- tion from Nietzsche on the ground of "manifold misunderstandings and the inability to follow Nietzsche's last evolutions." No doubt this was the case with many others. It is pathetic to hear him cry, " O Solitude, thou art my home ! " But it would be unfair to Solitude to give all of one's sympathy to Nietzsche. To " deblatterate " (the word is Stevenson's) about Nietzsche's love of mankind to one who knows anything of Nietzsche's life and writings is the quintessence of nonsense — at least to the world outside the Nietzschean barrel. And yet this is just exactly what your Nietz- scheanite does — foolishly', frantically, frothingly, everlastingly. GufF is their god, and Nietzsche is his fanatical, fin de siede prophet. " O Guff, give us guff, that we may become creators of guff, and give guff to mankind world without end." So might a true Nietzscheanite sincerely pray. A true Christian, I take, is one who accepts Jesus Christ's estimate of Himself, and takes His teachings seriously. By a true Nietzscheanite I mean one who accepts Nietzsche's estimate of him- self, and takes his teachings seriously. It is per- haps only fair to Dr. Mugge to say that he often takes his Nietzsche cum grano sal, and then some. IMPRESSIONS OF NlETZSGilE lOl II It is time for us to take a glance at the literary outpourings of Nietzsche. The limits of this paper forbid that we do more ; and it may not be amiss to say to the faint-hearted that it has limits — possibly far withdrawn, but still reachable by one who uses the faith and the food of an Elijah — it has limits, for I am not speaking in Congress on the abortive Ship Bill. Dr. Mugge, to whom we shall be mainly indebted for our glimpses into the works of Nietzsche, di- vides them into three distinct periods and a transi- tion period. Perhaps we cannot do better than follow him through the Nietzschean labyrinth. We may be quite certain that in doing so we will be in the hands of a friend — a friend of Nietz- sche; and that is the sort of guide we want. At the same time Dr. Mugge is not one of Nietzsche's totally purblind adorers. No doubt he places him upon a very high pedestal, if not the very highest upon which one born of woman ever stood. We have heard him speaking of his hero as " the reformer of the world." He certainly looks to Nietzsche to save the world from the " refining and yet deteriorating culture " of Socrates and Jesus Christ. " And now Nietzsche has come," he cries, ec- statically, with uplifted hands and expectant eyes, 102 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM like some Haggai or Malachi or Zephaniah, at the end of his frank and interesting if somewhat too pretentious book on the Life and Work of Nietz- sche. He tells us that " Nietzsche will be, if only for a time, and for the few, i/i^ philosopher of the future." Woden says : " In these Valkyries' valiant virtue, viewed I a vent from impending doom." That the gospel of Nietzsche is this vent. Dr. Mugge seems to be quite convinced. And yet, in his Introduction, he says, " No doubt Nietzsche's works are full of faults and phantoms. No doubt, as far as method goes, he was not at all a philosopher. No one denies Nietz- sche the philologist's scholarly attainments and abilities ; but as a philosopher he had not the same respect for stern science, and he became a philo- sophical Herostratus. Perhaps, even, Nietzsche did not say anything that has not been said before. Most probably only a small portion of what Nietzsche has said will be of lasting value. His limitations, contradictions, and follies, his ab- solute lack of sound sociological ideas, of common sense, and last, but not least, of — humour, make many of his books wearisome." It is true that Dr. Mugge does not always please all of the Nietzscheanites. The ardent au- thor of " The Quintessence of Nietzsche," for in- stance, waxes righteously indignant when the Doctor says that Nietzsche's brain resembled a " prolate cycloid " ; and he spatters ink at him from the seat of the scornful, perhaps not with- IMPRESSIONS OF NIETZSCHE 103 out some justification, when the Doctor indulges in the following " ultra-learned expressions " in describing Nietzsche's position in the realm of Metaphysics: "An optimistic Voluntarist, with a mystical Dionysean formula of stoical-teleologi- cal origin, — sometimes termed a Neo-Heracli- tean." Nevertheless I am persuaded that in Dr. Mugge we shall have as good a guide through the Nietz- schean labyrinth as it is possible for us to pro- cure. In the First (or Dionysean) Period, when Nietzsche was under the influence of Schopenhauer and Wagner, and was, according to Dr. Mugge, a pessimistic idealist, are placed " The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music," and the four volumes of " Unseasonable Contemplations." Tlie first of the " Contemplations " is a trenchant criti- cism of David Strauss, in which he is spoken of as an " upstart Philistine " w^ho " waddles like a hippopotamus along the universal highway of the Future," and is then called " a poor inconsequent coward " because he lacked the courage to dis- card Christian Ethics, along with Christian The- ology, which the logic he made use of seemed to Nietzsche to require. The second of these " Con- templations " is an interesting essay on " The Utility and Harmfulness of History," which lays down the dictum, " Before all things a man ought to learn to live," reminding one of Emerson's essay on " Self Reliance." The third is on 104 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM " Schopenhauer as Educator." In it we are told that " from his childhood every one should con- sider himself as the servant of this great idea, of this last aim of Nature, the production of the Man of Schopenhauer." Schopenhauer's hour for damnation had not yet come, but it came. No- body's damnation slumbered long before the judg- ment seat of Nietzsche. The volume is sugges- tive of Carlyle's " Heroes and Hero-Worship," especially when one comes across a sentence like this : " We must fight against everything which stands in the way of the creation of great men." Here we have an adumbration of Nietzsche's " Superman." The sub-title of the fourth " Com- templation " is " Richard Wagner in Bayreuth." It is the crescendo of Nietzsche's hymn of praise of the great composer begun in " The Birth of Tragedy." And this hymn of praise was sung, 6e it remembered, although Nietzsche perceived that Love was the motive of all Wagner's works — this hymn of praise which was to be succeeded by chant after chant of hate, and last of all by that chant over which the crazed Nietzsche was gloating when Overbeck discovered him huddled in the corner of the sofa in Turin. In the Second Period Dr. Mugge places three books that were the first fruits of Nietzsche's emancipation from Schopenhauer and Wagner and his early Idealism. His style becomes aphoris- tic. These books are " Human, All-Too-Human," " Miscellaneous Opinions and Apothegms," and IMPRESSIONS OF NIETZSCHE 105 " The Wanderer and his Shadow." The last two may be considered sequels of the first. The pre- vailing problem in Nietzsche's mind is the origin of morals. " We need a chemistry of all moral, religious, and esthetical conceptions and percep- tions," he tells us, " that we may discover their origin and constituents." " There are no eternal facts, no absolute truths." " All our valuations are precipitate." Apart from theology and its contentions, it is obvious that the world is neither " good " nor " bad." " The beast in us wishes to be deceived. Morality is a white lie, which saves us from being torn by that beast." " He is called ' good ' who easily and willingly obeys the moral conventions, to whose true character he is quite in- different." " Pleasure is essentially neither good nor evil, and for the same reason wickedness is quite harmless. It is only consideration of the consequences — either from his neighbor, the State, or God — that induces man to abstain from evil." " Moral mankind will one day be replaced by a wise mankind." " One would soil one's in- tellectual conscience if one tried to approach Christianity in any shape. No rehgion has ever contained a truth. And between religion and science there is neither kinship, friendship, nor even enmity; they occupy different planes." " Christianity is now an empty husk without right to existence. It is recklessly immoderate, Asiatic, petty, and barbarous." " The most serious par- ody I ever heard was, ' In the beginning was non- 106 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM sense, and the nonsense was with God, and the nonsense was God.' " " The prick of conscience is as foolish as the bite of a dog on a stone. Conscience is not the voice of God, but of other men in the heart of man." " Success sanctifies the motive." " Only he who has brains ought to possess property." " Socialism is not a problem of right but of power." " The future ideal mar- riage in which the wife will be the companion and friend in the highest sense, will probably necessitate the simultaneous institution of concubinage." *' ' And forgive us our virtues ' : thus we ought to pray to our fellow-men." You may not like these apothegms. Here is a prophecy, buried in the midst of all this, that may be more to your liking: "In Europe, at least, the barriers between different nations will disap- pear more and more, and a new tj'pe of man will arise — the European." I could quote more ac- ceptable aphorisms than some of the above, for Nietzsche has already begun to give himself the lie, but those quoted represent the main current of his thoughts. Here is one, in parting, with a glimmer of humor in it, whether conscious or un- conscious : " Before marriage tliis question should be put: 'Will you continue to be satis- fied with this woman's conversation until old age.'' ' Everything else in marriage is transitory." Two books are placed in the Period of Transi- tion, "The Dawn of Day" and "The Gay Science." The Superman begins to loom up more IMPRESSIONS OF NIETZSCHE 107 conspicuously above the horizon. " When our power becomes utterly shattered our rights cease ; and similarly, when our power becomes largely in- creased, the hitherto acknowledged rights of others cease for us." It is from Nietzsche, remind yourself just here, not the German Press of 1914-15, that I am quot- ing. " If, as one definition puts it, only those actions are moral which have been done solely for the sake of others — there are no moral actions ! If only those actions are moral — as another definition de- clares — which are done spontaneously, then again there are no moral actions ! What then are the actions that we call by this name.? They are the results of intellectual blunders !" There is a passage in this book in which ex- pression " the sweet malice of silence " occurs that brings to my mind the pathetic picture Overbeck gives us of Nietzsche at the piano in Turin. It is followed by a fine passage like this : " The man with a nobly-framed intellect, who is at the same time endowed with the character, inclina- tions, and even experience, consonant with it, is a very rare but delightful being." Quick upon its heels comes a passage like this : " The submis- sions to morals may be either slavish, vain, self- interested, resigned, gloomily fantastic, thought- less, or despairing; but in itself it is not moral." Then we are told that " Neither necessity nor de- sire, but the love of power is the demon of man- 108 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM kind ! " He returns to the assault upon Chris- tianit}', describing its death-bed. He speaks of " divine cannibalism." He advises us to close our ears to the miseries of others. And then comes this Emersonian twang of the harp of life to which many an experience will vibrate : " We should do away with beggars, for we are sorry both when we do, and when we do not relieve them." You recall Emerson's " dirty dollar." " The Gay Science " begins with this declara- tion of independence of Schopenhauer : " No ! Life has not disappointed me ! On the contrary every year, from the day on which the great eman- cipation came to me, I find it richer, more de- sirable, more enigmatical — the thought that to the enlightened man life can be an experiment, and not a duty, not a destiny, not a deceit!" This is followed by a statement that, were it true, would almost justify Nietzsche's career. " Up to the present time the greatest part of the advance- ment and progress of humanity has been effected by the strongest and most wicked minds. They arouse society when it becomes slack; they force men to fight for their opinions." That there is an element of truth in this, I will not deny. I see in Nietzsche a brain-spat- tered, blood-stained announcement, stuffed under our noses at the beginning of the twentieth century, that the Devil is not dead. Nietzsche is almost as stimulating, almost as arousing, as the Devil! Or rather his books are, for IMPRESSIONS OF NIETZSCHE 109 the man Nietzsche was a poor chloral-cursed weakling, a pitiful slave everywhere outside his kingdom of Solitude. I would give the Devil his dues. I confess a debt to Nietzsche — for salu- tary ethical reactions. But let me by further quotations increase your debt to him. He tells us that " Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual." " To regard our European ethical system from a distance, to com- pare it with other systems past or future, a posi- tion outside ethics is necessary, a position beyond Good and Evil — at any rate, beyond our Good and Evil. We must try to get such a point of view. ... It is necessary to examine for once the inherent Value of ethics. The first step towards this is to call in question whether they have any inherent Value at all." Almost instantly Nietz- sche decides that our ethics have no value at all, and speaks scornfully of " the finery of moral mummery." Then, sputtering up through the hole whence flows the superfluity of Nietzschean naughtiness, comes this : " Corruption is only an abusive term for the autumn of a people. What does Life mean.'' It means the constant remov- ing from us of something that will die — it means that we should be cruel and inexorable towards all that grows feeble and old both in ourselves and in others ; it, therefore, means also, that we should be without reverence towards those who are dying, wretched or old ! Always to be mur- derers.'' Yet the ancient Moses has said : 'Thou 110 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM shalt not kill ' ! " " To me the Magnanimous One . . . appears as a man with the most powerful de- sire for reveng-e." He tells us (without quoting authority) that " God is dead." He follows this up with the assertion that " the astral arrange- ment in which we live is an exception," again with- out quoting authority. He tells us that " Sin is a Jewish invention " ; that " A Jesus Christ was only possible in a Jew- ish landscape." Then we are solemnly told that " To laugh means to be malicious." He asks : " What in the end are all men's truths .'* " and quickly an- swers, " They are men's irrefutable errors." He would have us believe, on the strength of his " The mouth of Nietzsche hath spoken it," that crime never existed ; — which sounds like an unsought endorsement of " Mother Eddy." Then he sings the song, the chloral-choral, that is even now echoing in German universities and palaces, the mad song that grows ever louder, and for which Germany, betrayed by her captivated leaders, has sold her Christian birth-right : " I greet all the signs announcing that a more virile and more war-like era is beginning, which will again hold bravery in the highest honor ! . . . For believe me, the secret for gathering the fer- tilest harvest and the greatest enjoyment from ex- istence, is — to live dangerously! ^ . . . We cliil- 1 Italics mine. I thank Nietzsche for this phrase. IMPRESSIONS OF NIETZSCHE 111 dren of the future, how could we be at home in the present? We are antagonistic to all ideals which could make us feel at home in this frail, broken- down, transition period; and as regards the ' realities ' thereof, we do not believe in their dura- tion. The ice which still bears has become very thin ; the warm wind is blowing ; we ourselves, we homeless ones, are helping to break the ice. We preserve nothing, nor would we go back to any past age ; we are not at all ' liberal,' we do not labor for ' progress,' we do not need first of all to close our ears to the market-place sirens of the future — their songs : ' equal rights,' ' free so- ciety,' ' no longer either lords or slaves,' do not allure us ! We do not by any means think it de- sirable that the kingdom of righteousness and peace should be established on earth (because un- der any circumstances it would be the kingdom of the profoundest mediocrity and Chinaism) ; we rejoice in everything which, like ourselves, loves danger, war, and adventure, which does not make compromises, not let itself be captured, conciliated, or defaced; we count ourselves among the con- querors ; we ponder over the need of a new order of things, even of a new slavery ; for the strength- ening and elevation of the type ' man ' always in- volves a new form of slavery . . . Weakness makes people gentle, ah, so gentle, so just, so inoffen- sive, so ' humane ' ! The ' religion of sympathy ' to which people would like to persuade us — yes, we know the hysterical mannikins and girls sufB- 112 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM ciently well who need precisely this religion at present for a cloak and an adornment. We are no humanitarians ; we should not dare to speak of our ' love to mankind ' ; for that a person of our stamp is not enough of a stage-player. No, we do not love mankind." This, this is the " insane root " on which the Fausts of Germany fed before they sold their souls to the Devil. This is the food, mutatis mu- tandis, with which the poor Gretchens of Germany were stuffed before they laid their honor in the dust at the feet of the Krupp-crazed Kaiser Faust and his frenzied fellows and rose up in the sight of an astounded world, with their filthiness still disgustingly fresh in their skirts, to glory in their shame ! You may remember that Dr. Mugge proclaimed Nietzsche as " a lover of mankind." Well, there is nothing in heaven above, the earth beneath, or the dark places under the earth, that is not claimed for this extraordinary lunatic by one or the other of his deluded disciples. One had as well argue with the whole population of Bedlam as with these gentlemen. The best thing to do is to bring them to book. Demand that Nietzsche be placed in the witness-box to exhibit and speak for him- self; and once you have him there, force him to take off the " mask " that he is not ashamed to confess that he wears when he comes forth from his dark Solitude into the light of common day ; if he hesitates, give him the tip that you know IMPRESSIONS OF NIETZSCHE 113 he is Dionysos or some other divinity, and lead him by a string of nonsense to the piano. You will not be disappointed in your witness. He will foam out his own shame furiously. A sufficient answer unto Nietzscheanism is the real Nietzsche thereof. But candor compels me to testify that from time to time gusts of truth come through the Nietzsche bung-hole. We come now to the last period of Nietzsche's literary career ; what Dr. Mugge calls " the pe- riod of Nietzsche's own peculiar philosophy." Says the Doctor: "He gives up the idea of a rationalistic asceticism and begins to consider In- stinct as the motive power of development. This Instinct he first calls ' the Bent to Power ' and later ' the Will to Power.' Not only does he in- vestigate the origin of morals in general, but he tests also existing morals, and especially Christian morals, with regard to their effect on this instinct and on life. He tries to replace the present sys- tem of morals, as being contrary to all instinct, by a new and better system." The Doctor, who was residing in England when he wrote his book, and who was haunted by a shadow of English Commonsense that sometimes troubled the pool in which he saw with loving eyes the face of his master reflected, ends up his intro- ductory note to this period with this confession: " In the end he tends towards the overestimation of the facts of the case and the qualities of the instincts, and finally drifts into an ethical Nihil- 114 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM ism." This is perhaps as near as one could expect a Nietzscheanite to come to placing the skull and cross bones on any Nietzschcan concoction brewed before the dispatch of the notes to Cosinia Wagner and Georg Brandes. One could hardly expect a Nietzscheanite, no matter how little above normal his temperfature might be, to cry, " There is death in the pot ! " For the love of Mike, let's be rea- sonable ! I say, for the love of Mike, because Mike and Nietzsche are about the only two left in the universe at this stage of the Nietzschean War against the World. God is dead. And Socrates and Plato and Jesus Christ and Richard Wagner and the rest have been tarred and feathered and drummed out of camp. Only Mike and Nietzsche are left. And Mike is left only because Nietz- sche has not seen him. IMike, being clothed with Humor, is invisible to Nietzsche. I say, For the love of Mike, let's be reasonable. Besides, we have no time to ask for further concessions from the disciples of " the reformer of the world." Let me bring this essay to a close with the briefest sort of a glimpse at Nietzsche's master- piece, " Thus Spake Zarathustra," with its sub- title, " A Book for All and None," and a mention, at least, of the suggestive names of the other books that belong to this so-called greatest period of Nietzsche's life. In the light of what has gone before we can see the light, by which I mean the darkness, for the light that is in it is darkness, without sitting up all night to watch the eclipse. IMPRESSIONS OF NIETZSCHE 115 In this painful period there is little if anything brought out that is really new, even from the Nietz- schean viewpoint, unless it be the bubbling up through the sulphurous mud of this peripatetic poet-philosopher's volcanic mind of the oriental doctrine of eternal recurrence about which he dogmatizes with the same assurance, and with the same absence of authority, as he did about the death of God and the behavior of the remoter stellar systems. In this period it is true, in the main, that what humanity is furnished with is only more of the darkness of which samples have al- ready been given. The extraordinary lunatic only leaps and dances more frantically, only raves more brilliantly, more egotistically, more pantheistic- ally (in the Pan-German sense of the propagator being the whole thing), more impishly if not more diabolically. Despite his devil's-itch, Nietzsche never scratches himself deep enough to become a serious rival of Milton's Satan. At best he is a bookish devil. His bark is worse than his bite. Put him to the test, and he draws in his horns, puts his tail between his legs, and sneaks off to his lair in the Solitude. Nothing is more pathetic than the futile at- tempt of the Nietzscheanites to palm off Professor Nietzsche, their diseased and bunged-up idol, on the world as a stalwart physical giant who re- joiced to run his course. The wretched sham would be detected in Texas in five minutes, and 116 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM ought not to deceive for long any man anywhere who knows aught of the glory of the human body. Nietzsche sometimes babbled about his career as a soldier. I wonder that he had the nerve to do this, even in the solitude of Germany. Had he done so anywhere in Texas, the Lone Star State would have shaken itself with laughter into a con- stellation of states when the word got about. Besides " Thus Spake Zarathustra," the books that belong to this last period before Nietzsche's total mental eclipse are the following: "Beyond Good and Evil," with its subtitle of " Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future " ; " The Genealogy of Morals " ; " The Case of Wagner " ; " Nietzsche contra Wagner " ; " The Twilight of the Idols " ; " The Antichrist " — an attempt at a criticism of Christianity, which was to be part one of a massive work to be called " The Will to Power." An au- tobiography entitled " Ecce Homo " was published after his death. It would be interesting, did time permit, to quote from these books, as I have done from the others. They are extremely quotable. But to do this would only be to pile Pelion on Ossa, and this is not a fair thing to do when Ossa rests on an empty stomach, and when a score of men, as full of matter as Job's friends, are waiting their turn to speak. If one began to quote from these books, one would find it hard not to quote at great length. And, as I have intimated, it is not really necessary to do this. We have already had a fair IMPRESSIONS OF NIETZSCHE 117 glimpse at the remarkable contents of Nietzsche's mind. But I must quote the concluding paragraph of Mrs. Elizabeth Forstcr-Nietzsche's Introduction to " Tims Spake Zarathustra," for it is illuminat- ing. We shall see that the " Thus Spake Zara- thustra " of Nietzsche is the " Thus Spake the Lord " of the Bible. Nietzsche first antagonizes and routs all other teachers and prophets and Christs and Gods, and then takes the throne and reigns. " Already at the beginning of this history," says Mrs. Forster, " I hinted at the reasons whicli led m}^ brother to select a Persian as the incarna- tion of his ideal of the majestic philosopher. His reasons, however, for choosing Zarathustra of all others to be his mouthpiece, he gives us in the following words : ' People have never asked me, as they should have done, what the name Zara- thustra precisely means in my mouth, in the mouth of the first Immoralist ; for what distinguishes that philosopher from all others in the past is the very fact that he was exactly the reverse of an im- moralist. Zarathustra was the first to see in the struggle between good and evil the essential wheel in the working of things. The translations of morality into the metaphysical, as force, cause, end in itself, was his work. But the very question suggests its own answer. Zarathustra created the most portentous error, morality, consequently he should also be the first to perceive that error, 118 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM not only because he has had only and greater ex- perience of the subject than any other thinker — all history is the experimental refutation of the theory of the so-called moral order of things: — the more important point is that Zarathustra was more truthful than any other thinker. In his teaching alone do we meet with truthfulness up- held as the highest virtue — i.e., the reverse of the cowardice of the ' idealist ' who flees from reality. Zarathustra had more courage in his body than any other thinker before or after him. To tell the truth and to aim straight: that is the first Persian virtue. Am I understood? . . . The overcoming of morality through itself — through truthfulness, the overcoming of the mor- alist through his opposite — through me — that is what the name Zarathustra means in my mouth." You shall have several quotations from " Thus Spake Zarathustra " to end with : " And verily, ye good and just! In you there is much to be laughed at, and especially your fear of what hath hitherto been called ' the devil ' ! " So alien are ye in your souls to what is great, that to you the Superman would be frightful in his goodness ! " And ye wise and knowing ones, ye would flee from the solar-glow of the wisdom in which the Superman joyfully batheth his nakedness! " Ye highest men who have come within my ken ! this is my doubt of you, and my secret laughter: IMPRESSIONS OF NIETZSCHE 119 I suspect ye would call my Superman — a devil ! " When we realize that the overflowing German scourge of 1914 is the result, in no small measure, of the devotees of Nietzsche to carry out in actual practice Nietzschean doctrine as they understood it, perhaps this suspicion of " Zarathustra " is well-founded. " Yea ! I am Zarathustra, the godless ! . . . Thus spake Zarathustra." Who doubts it? Not Belgium ! Not France ! " Thus demandeth my great love to the remotest ones: be not considerate of thy neighbor! " " Sui'pass thyself even in thy neighbor : and a right which thou canst seize upon, shalt thou not allow to be given thee ! " " For I love blood." VI THE UNIVERSITY AND THE UNIVERSE An address delivered at St. Mary's Hall, Bur- lington, N. J., June 1st, 1915. THE UNIVERSITY AND THE UNIVERSE Your Rector is a lover of Poetry. I know it, because some twenty years or more ago, — a little before tlie time when your angels in heaven were whispering together and wondering how it was going to feel to be born and to live down in this world, — I sat at the feet of your Rector on a Tennessee Mountain — I had almost said the Mount of Transfiguration — to study Greek. I am afraid I did not learn much Greek. Rut you do not need to be told that was not your Rector's fault. Perhaps I am immune. When I was in the Philippine Islands, where they raise the most mag- nificent continuous crops of mosquitoes in the world, not even excepting New Jersey, I knew an Army Chaplain who was immune to mosquitoes. They never bit him. They never sent their bills into him — even on the first of the month. He hardly recognized their existence. I have a theory that I am linguistically immune; and this theory is very little if at all shaken by the fact that I have in my possession certain certificates that used to enable me to say to troublesome questioners, " Don't ask me ; I have passed that." Charles 123 124 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM Lamb once said that he was sympathetically dis- posed to harmony, but organically incapable of a tune. I am like that about music, and I am al- most like that about languages. So it was not your Rector's fault that I did not learn much Greek. But I learned something from him that I prize more than the knowledge of Greek. I learned to love Poetry. I wonder if he remembers how he broke me in on " Lycidas," urging me to read it again and again, and good-naturedly refusing to take my opinion of the elegy until I had read it through five times, and how delighted he was when at last I showed signs that I was beginning to feel the surge of Milton's " Sounding Seas " and " whelming tide." I wonder if he remembers how he used to read and explain Browning to me in the little house just a stone's throw from Miss Sarah Barnwell Elliott's cottage,'' Anyway, I know your Rector loves Poetry. Now I wonder if you use Ward's English Poets .'' We did at Sewanee, the University that crowns that glorified Mountain to which I referred a mo- ment ago. I hope you do. If you do, in the four- starred volume, in the brief biographical note un- der the name of Sydney Dobell, the name of Alex- ander Smith is mentioned. It is the only mention of him, I regret to say, in this excellent collection of English Poetry. " Poet he was not in the larger sense," perhaps, if we may apply his own words to himself. And yet he has said some things THE UNIVERSITY AND UNIVERSE 125 that were well worth saying in language beautiful enough to be welcomed as a permanent fixture in the memory. For instance, he wrote : Books were his chiefest friends. In them he read Of those great spirits who went down like suns, And left upon the mountain-tops of Death A light that made them lovely. He also wrote the following lines, which furnish me with a reason, and almost the only reason I have for accepting the kind invitation to make this address : The saddest thing that can befall a soul Is when it loses faith in God and woman; Lost I those gems — Though the world's throne stood empty in my path I would go wandering back into my childhood, Searching for them with tears. I have ventured to come and speak to you to- day, not because I am fitted by my training to do so, but simply because of my abounding faith, my old-time boyish faith, my ever budding and bloom- ing and sweet-smelling faith, in God and woman. I pinned my faith to them in the beginning. To- day it would be impossible to count the number of pins by which my full-grown, untom faith is pinned to them. I say this, although I hear the clamor. As of a new-world Babel, woman-built. And worse-confounded; 126 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM although I see the inscription written over the gate of her " University " by command of the " Princess " : Let no man enter in on pain of death; and the ominous epitaph: Here lies a brother by a sister slain, All for the common good of womankind. My faith in woman, and in the God whose exquisite handiwork and hand-maiden she is, is too profound an experience to be shaken by the window-smash- ing, picture-slashing, teeth-gnashing furor of Feminism, I know. The woman's cause is man's : they rise or sink Together, dwarf 'd or godlike, bond or free ; and I know that the cause of both is the cause of Him who made them " like in difference." And no devil's advocate will ever persuade me to be- lieve that any other mood of the " Princess " than her final mood is her normal mood. I am going to speak to you about the univer- sity AND THE UNIVERSE. Some six years ago, on my way back to Amer- ica from the Philippines, I visited England. One of the most delightful features of the visit which teemed with interest was an evening spent with Sir Oliver Lodge in his home, " Mariemont," Edg- baston, a suburb of Birmingham. He was then. THE UNIVERSITY AND UNIVERSE 127 as he still is, Principal of the University of Bir- mingham. He was, of course, the Well-Known, and I the Unknown, but he welcomed me with the comradery, with the fine spirit of good fellowship, between professor and student, that was one of the charming characteristics of my own Univer- sity, and ought to be of all universities. You know what a great name in the world of scholar- ship Sir Oliver Lodge's is, especially in the so- called scientific world. His capacious mind seems to be intelligently interested in every thing that is of human interest. He has written a book on " Modern Views of Electricity," another on " Elec- trons," another on "Life and Matter," another on " Signalling Without Wires," various books on Mathematics and Mechanics, a book on " School Teaching and School Reform," that every teacher ought to read, another on " The Substance of Faith Allied with Science," which he calls " A Catechism for Parents and Teachers," many ar- ticles on Psychic Research, and finally and of most interest to me, for I must not attempt to mention all of the contributions of his many-man- sioned Christ-illuminated mind to human enlight- enment, a book that appeared the winter I was in England published under the title of " Man and the Universe." It was the reading of this book, the sub-title of which is, " A Study of the Influ- ence of the Advance in Scientific Knowledge upon our Understanding of Christianity," that in- creased my desire to meet Sir Oliver to the " break- 1S8 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM ing in " point. And it is the title and to some extent the contents of this remarkable book that suggested the subject of this address. By the Universe Sir Oliver Lodge means " the Maker of Heaven and Earth and of all things visible and invisible." In " The Higher Pan- theism " Tennyson, who thought in the light of the best science of his day, puts this question.'' The sun^ the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and the plains — Are not these, O Soul, the Vision of Him who reigns ? Is not the Vision He.^ This question Sir Oliver answers with a strong affirmative. The Vision is He. The Universe is God. The Universe is not dead. The Universe is a living and breathing, a thinking and a feeling Universe. His book might well be called " Man and his Relation to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," So when I speak of the University and the Uni- verse I mean the University and God, the Uni- versity and its Relation to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. I use the word University in the widest possible sense, including in it for the purposes of this ad- dress all institutions of learning whether of pri- mary or secondary rank. St. Mary's Hall, which has the first place in our thoughts and hearts to-day, is of course to be included. Indeed, it is to be double-starred in our consciousness. THE UNIVERSITY AND UNIVERSE 129 What then is the relation of the University to the Universe? Before answering this question, let me suggest to you another way in which we may think of the Universe. But I must not make this suggestion until I have asked you not to let the intimation of the poet or the affirmation of the scientist slip from your mind. Lay hold on it! Fix it in your memory! There is a great and true sense in which the Vision of the Uni- verse is God. Do let this thought vitalize and in- tellectualize and characterize and familiarize your Vision of the Universe. For the purposes of this address, however, it will be more edifying for us to think of the Vision of the Universe as, not ex- actly God Himself save in the sense in which the clothes are the man — but, the engodded garment of God. Not just the garment, mark you, but the garment in which God is now garbed, the gar- ment within which God actually is, and in which we can see Him move. Now we are ready for the answer to the ques- tion. What is the relation of the University to the Universe.'' The University is or ought to be to the Universe as the saline drop of ocean Avater is to the ocean. If the Universe is engodded, in- spirited, so ought the University to be. I put and answer a conundrum. When is a University not a University? When it is misrepresentative or unrepresentative of the engodded Universe. When it is Godless. WTien its God is an absentee God. When in response to the forlorn cry on the campus. 130 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM "Alma Mater, Where is now thy God?" Echo answers, " Where? " and no other answer comes. We speak of a theist, meaning one who believes in God. We speak of an atheist, meaning one who does not believe in God. We speak of a Uni- versity, meaning an institution where the high- est truth concerning the Universe may be learned. Perhaps we shall one day come to speak of an ouniversity, meaning thereby a pseudo-institution of learning where the real truth concerning the Universe maj^ not be learned ; or, possibly, if the coinage of such a curious word be unwarranted, we may come to speak of such a baleful institution as a perversity, or even an adversity. For in- stance, instead of speaking of Girard College or University, we would speak of Girard's Perversity, or the Adversity of Gerard. A University not permeated and saturated with God, and illuminated and dominated by the pres- ence of God, is a human perversion of a divine institution. As the visible Universe without the Spirit of the Universe is not the real Universe but a mere shroud thrown over the remains of that which was once informed with life and in- telligence, so the University without so much of the Spirit of the Universe as naturally belongs to that portion of the Universe which a true Uni- versity is, is what Thomas Carl3'le would call with fine contempt a Simulacrum, a Sham, — " with about the same relation to the eternal verities that an embroidered pillow-sham has to a real pillow. THE UNIVERSITY AND UNIVERSE 131 As the drop of water is to the ocean from whence it came so sliould the University be to the Uni- A^erse — an infinitesimal but vital and faithfully representative part. There should be a " going " in the tops of the trees of a real University like that heard by David in the mulberry trees that would speak of the pres- ence of God. The very bushes on the campus of a real University ought to be able to speak as plainly of God as did the burning bush that Moses beheld on the remote mountain side. The flowers that grow in the soil of a real University ought to witness for God as did the flower of whose opening Linnaeus wrote, " I saw God in His glory passing by and bowed my head in worship." The stones should cry out of the walls of a real University, and the timber beams should answer them, in an- tiphonal testimony of the Spirit of Truth without whose presence no University can perform the true function of a real University. The lives of the members of the faculty of a real University ought to be epistles Avritten with the finger of God, and so plainly written that even a freshman could read them. One ought to be able to say to each and every one of them, " We know that thou art a teacher come from God," and that the truth that thou teachest is not partial but universal truth," otherwise, your University campus is little better than a Valley of Dry Bones, and its buildings but whited sepulchres with the smell of death about them. 132 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM If one were to ask, How much of God shall we have in our Universities, and how shall we have so much of Him as we ought to have? I would answer, first, That of course no University could contain Him all in all. Solomon knew that his Temple could not, and we know that not all the institutions of learning in the world, nor yet the world itself, could contain Him all in all. That, nothing less than the Universe could do. But I answer, secondly. That the great and gracious Spirit of the Universe has so expressed Himself that He can be apprehended by human thought and gotten into human institutions, — somewhat after the same manner — shall I say.'' — in which the mighty ocean expresses itself in the drop of ocean water. Now, apart from Poetry I do not believe we ever shall understand just what it was God did in that great act we call the Incarnation, so let me turn to Tennyson one of the teachers at whose feet I delight to sit, and seldom sit in vain, for an ex- pression concerning that act : Tho' truths in manhood darkly join, Deep-seated in our mystic frame. We yield all blessing to the name Of Him that made them current coin; For Wisdom dealt with mortal powers, Where truth in closest words shall fail, When truth embodied in a tale Shall enter in at lowly doors. THE UNIVERSITY AND UNIVERSE 133 And so the Word had breath, and wrought With human hands the creed of creeds In loveliness of perfect deeds, More strong than all poetic thought; Which he may read that binds the sheaf, Or builds the house, or digs the grave. And those wild eyes that watch the wave In roarings round the coral reef. Beyond all teachers who ever taught, Jesus Christ is the Teacher come from God. He is the Word of God. Beyond all teachings His teach- ings are marked by the element of universality. They have the imprimation of the Universe upon them. The Truth as it is in Jesus is the Truth for the University because it is the Truth of the real Universe. He is, for the purposes of this world, the perfect Symbol of the Universe. To know Him is to love Him, and to know and love Him is a liberal education along universal lines. Mary, the sister of Martha, received a liberal edu- cation. It is written of her that she sat at Jesus' feet and heard His word. That was the first Christian College for Women. There was no bet- ter college in the world in her day, nor is there in our day, than the feet of Jesus Christ ; and His " Well done " is the most honorable degree ever conferred upon man or woman. One of the great merits of that College is its simplicity. There is but one course — but one thing is needful. If you 134 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM choose that, and stick to it, you graduate with honor. In the main entrance to the great Johns Hop- kins Hospital in Baltimore there is an heroic figure of the Christ that beautifully dominates the hallway in which it stands. In Trinity Church, Boston, there is a wonderful statue of Philhps Brooks done by St. Gaudens. The fig- ure of the great preacher in the act of preaching is itself striking, but a wealth of significance is added to this figure by that of the Christ which looms large just behind him and overshadows him. In every true University the Spirit of the Uni- verse as He has expressed Himself in Jesus Christ should be as visible to the eyes of the mind as the figure of the Christ in Johns Hopkins Hospital and that in Trinity Church are to the eyes of the body. He should overshadow and dominate every seat of learning with his charming grace, his all- embracing sympathy, his sweet reasonableness, his intellectual hospitality, his passion for social jus- tice and his unbounded and valiant love of the eternal universal Truth. How is this to come to pass? Just here let me put in another good word for Poetry. The function of Poetry in human life is immense. With Matthew Arnold I believe in- tensely that " The strongest part of our religion to-day is its unconscious poetry." Apart from Poetry, — by which I mean not merely the ex- pression but equally the feeling of the mystical or THE UNIVERSITY AND UNIVERSE 135 romantic element in the life of the human spirit that spends a few brief years of its eternal life in these earthly bodies of ours, — I do not believe it is possible to understand Jesus Christ in His relation to the Universe. There is a sense which I am well-nigh hopeless of the salvation of prosy people. Christianity is not mere addition or sub- traction or multiplication or division. Christian- ity is a glorious Gift to the Human Imagination. The Birth and Life and Death and Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus Christ is a Divine Romance which only the mind of God could conceive or the hand of God write. I do not make little of the historical element of Christianity, but I would make much of the poetical or romantic element, because without this latter element Christianity will never do much more than help hobbled human- ity craAvl along painfully toward the City of God. But under the spell of the poetry, the romance, the thrilling spiritual adventure, of the religion of Jesus, humanity will sometimes run, and some- times fly on eagles' wings, whither Christ has gone before. So I stand here to plead for the poetic, the ro- mantic, yes, let me say it, the child-like, element in human life as a thing that is absolutley indis- pensable for the right and joyful living of an aspiring and ascending human life, and therefore to the atmosphere of a real University. When the Master said, " Except ye become as little chil- dren ye shall in no case enter the kingdom of 136 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM heaven," He spoke the wisdom of the ages in the terms of poetry. We almost never get anywhere worth being except as we are led on by the child in the heart of some man or woman, some boy or girl. There is a " little one " within the human heart that it is well-nigh unpardonable to offend. The injunction, " Do not sin against the child," applies not only to the child in the cradle or the child in the street but equally to the child in the heart. There is a bit of good philosophy in Bar- rie's " Peter Pan." It is possible to kill the fairies by disbelief, and there are fairies of the human mind that it is almost murder to kill or know- ingly to let die. We ought at all costs to keep alive the child-like in ourselves. Genius has been well described as the capacity for carrying the feelings of childhood up into the powers of man- hood. We sin against ourselves and society and God when we sin against the child-like in ourselves and others. You cannot keep Jesus Christ in a childless heart, or a childless University, or a child- less world, even if you succeed in getting Him in. He came forth from the presence of God where He ever beheld the faces of little children. Where the faces of little children are never seen He will not long abide. The other day a woman asked me what I thought became of all the interesting boys : there were so few interesting men, she said sadly. I will tell you what I think becomes of them. They nearly all die. They are nearly all murdered. THE UNIVERSITY AND UNIVERSE 137 " Pity 'tis 'tis true." V^hat I mean is that the poetic, the romantic, the idealistic, the heroic ele- ment that was characteristic of the boy, and ought to have been carried up from boyhood into man- hood, is despised or feared by the average stupid man, and is murdered by liim as the young princes were murdered in the Tower. And ever after the man lives a life not much above the level for human interest of a lay figure in the show-window of a clothing-store or a wooden Indian before a to- bacco shop. The Youth, who daily farther from the east Must travel, still is Nature's Priest, And by the vision splendid Is on his way attended; At length the Man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day. The boy knows instinctively that " Power " dwells not in the light alone, especially light of common day but sometimes in " the darkness and the cloud." But this knowledge is oftentimes too high for the man. The boy knows that if he would hitch his chariot to a star he must not go to bed with the chickens, but must stay up after sundown and venture out into the dark, and toil upward in the night. But full grown, stuffed to stupidity with worldly affairs men often fail to attain or retain this knowledge. I suppose we shall never want to return to the days of the " dim religious light." W^e shall cer- tainly never want to return to the Dark Ages. 138 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM But there is such a thing as having too much of even such a good thing as light. Every mother knows this. Every lover know this. Every artist knows this. Every student who burns the mid- night Mazda or Welsbach knows this. Every woman who puts on an evening gown knows this. If anybody has doubts on the subject the doubts can be instantly removed by entering a gallery where photographs are taken by glaring tubes of electric light and observing the hideous, ghastly look on the face of the person who sits for the picture. Excessive light is an angel or agent of darkness and ugliness and error. There has been just a little too much talk for the past generation or so about seeing facts in a " dry light," and we have played the patient fool too often and sat still and allowed ourselves to be stuffed to suffocation with such half-baked mental food. We are beginning to realize that there are facts of the first importance that will not reveal their secrets in a " dry light." We are beginning to understand that there is an appropriate light for every fact, whether the fact be a scientific fact like color, or a romantic fact like love, or a uni- versal Fact like Christ, and that the eternal sig- nificance of no fact can be seen save in the light ordained by God as the appropriate light for that fact. We have always known that we had to re- spect the fancy of a woman. Eve taught Adam that, in a jifFy, and the lesson has never been for- gotten. We are beginning to understand that THE UNIVERSITY AND UNIVERSE 139 we must respect the fancy of a fact ; and that one fact may fancy a " dry light," and another fact may fancy a " wet light," a light saturated with tears, and another a " dark room " ; and that nothing is more unscientific or foolish than to attempt to dragoon all facts into a " dry light " and to force them to unbosom themselves without regard to their fancy. We are beginning to un- derstand that there are facts divinely beautiful and eternally true that can never be rightly seen or understood in any other than a " heavenly light " — the light that was never seen on land or sea or elsewhere but in the human soul. Imagine the brutal folly of dragging a woman into the " dry light " of a laboratory and trying to force her eyes to send out their love light to be observed by some pseudo-scientist who could " peep and botan- ize on his mother's grave " ! Imagine the brutal folly of dragging the Christ into the " dry light " of a laboratory and trying to analyze the light of the knowledge of the glory of God that suffuses His face ! The outraged human spirit is beginning to be bold enough to say to all comers that that which robs Earth of Romance, and scoffs at loyalty to Ideals, and kills Beauty, and knows not God, is not, cannot be, the Truth; cannot be what men call Science, if Science indeed means the knowl- edge of the revealed or discovered Truth of the Universe. Now I have a deep feeling that Poetry, in the 140 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM sense in which I am using the word, is coming to its own again ; that a new Golden Age of Poetry is ahead of us. And I am profoundly persuaded that as we enter into this glorious age Jesus Christ will more and more enter into all our insti- tutions of learning, and manifest in them His Di- vine Wisdom and Power in a new and splendid way, re-establishing the right relation between the University and the Universe, making the Univer- sity a vital and eloquent witness to the whole truth of the whole Universe, and sending forth from the Universities into the World disciples aglow with His Universal ideals, equipped in heart and body and mind and soul to give adequate ex- pression to these ideals, and ready to perish if need be in the godlike task of levelling the high places of wrong-doing and entrenched privilege, of exalting and enlightening the low, dark places where for too long the unprivileged have been forced to exist, and of blazing a trail, and clearing a way, and building a highway, to the end that the kingdoms of this world may become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. Behold, upon the mountain tops in yonder blushing East the beautiful feet of Him through whom this blessed consummation is to be brought to pass! Behold, in St. Mary's Hall, hallowed anew every year with a hundred high and holy hopes of human girlhood, an alabaster box of precious ointment, full to the brim, and ready for the anointing of those beautiful and blessed feet ! VII LETTERS TO RADICALS To the Editor To Mr. Samuel Gompers To Mr. Charles Edward Russell To Mr. J. G. Phelps Stokes To Mr. John Spargo LETTERS TO RADICALS To the Editor: Permit me to record tlirough the columns of your paper my profound personal protest against the harsh and hurried sentence of Patrick Quinlan to serve a term of two to seven years in the State penitentiary for his part in the Silk Workers' Strike. To hustle a man of the character of Patrick Quinlan off to prison, manacled to a burglar, to cause his hair to be clipped, and his finger prints to be taken, and his body to be clothed in the garb of a felon, is a piece of absolute injustice that rankles in my soul like a poisoned arrow, and of which I should think every enlightened citizen of New Jersey, even those resident in places where there has been a partial eclipse of justice, would be thoroughly ashamed. I do not say, I am not in a position to say, that Patrick Quinlan has been illegally degraded and stripped of his human rights. Of making many laws there is no end, and many of our laws are wonderfully and fearfully made by our hasty- pudding legislatures, and wonderfully and fear- fully and inequitably executed by our courts, which are nothing if not technical. Judging from 143 144 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM recent happenings in Paterson, he must be indeed a cautious critic of his times who does not in some nice point offend some statutory " Thou shalt not." It may be, and probably is true, that Patrick Quinlan has so offended — that his legal technique is at fault — and that therefore his sentence to prison is not wanting in legality, and looks good to narrow judicial eyes, however far it may fall short of political wisdom and ordinary humanity. But though Patrick Quinlan may have so acted as to bring himself within the outreaching clutches of uns^'mpathetic hands clothed with a little brief authority, I am strongly of the opinion that he is not the kind of man whose proper place in a civilized, not to sa}^ a Christian, community is the prison. I am strongly of the opinion that the presence of Patrick Quinlan in Trenton Prison is far more discreditable to all those who had a hand or voice in sending him there, and to all citizens of New Jersey who approve of the harsh sentence that keeps him there, than it is to Quin- lan himself. I am strongly of the opinion that the court that condemned Patrick Quinlan to serve a two years' sentence did an exceedingly bad day's work for the damaged reputation of our American judiciary. I am strongly of the opinion that if Patrick Quinlan, now dubbed Convict No. 2660, is forgotten, or his imprisonment regarded as a good riddance of one who " stirreth up the peo- ple," and he is left to serve out his term, to eat LETTERS TO RADICx\LS 145 out his heart, caged behind iron bars, not only Paterson but the people of the whole State will have a severe penalty of an ethical if not a ma- terial character to pay ! Such unbrothcrly, not to say inhuman, behavior would court a double penalty, and win it, perhaps, when the under dog of today has his day. I have watched the progress of the Silk Work- ers' Strike in Paterson with keen eyes from its inception. I have read the daily reports of it in the Newark Nezvs and the New York Times, the one with a human, the other with a capitalistic bias. I have read every thing about the strike I have been able to lay my hands on. I have been in Paterson twice since the beginning of the strike, and have talked with responsible citizens whose ac- tive sympathy was withheld from the strikers on account of the leadership of the strike (who as- sured me that the sympathy of the best people of Paterson would have been strongly with the strik- ers if they had had wiser leaders ) ; and I have also talked with those whose sympathy with the strik- ers knew no bounds. But I have neither seen nor read nor heard anything that would lead me to believe that Patrick Quinlan is a bad man or a dangerous man. The Rev. Percy S. Grant, Rec- tor of the Church of the Ascension, New York City, one of the best known and most highly respected clergymen of the Episcopal Church, came to Paterson during Quinlan's trial and tes- tified that he had known him for a number of 146 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM years and believed him to be a good man and by no means an undesirable citizen. Whether it is possible by petty or gross persecution and con- tinued unfairness or injustice to make a bad and dangerous man out of Patrick Quinlan I do not know. I trust that it is not. At all events, I am confident that the attempt, conscious or uninten- tional has not as yet succeeded. That Patrick Quinlan is a man of hot blood, as Patrick Henry before him was, goes without saying. His veins are full of good red Irish blood. Such a man feels strongly and speaks strongly, in season and out of season. At the sight of unfairness and injustice his heart beats wildly, and sends the blood leaping and boiling to his brain. It is not only unreasonable, it is ab- surd, to expect such a man to choose and weigh his words when he stands on his feet, trembling with emotion, facing a great multitude of his fel- lows, whose wrongs have been wrought into the very fibres of his being. Such a man cannot but often speak unadvisedly with his lips. As the quality of his mercy to those he knows and loves is not strained, neither is the quality of his indict- ment of those through whose lack of mercy, as he sees it, his friends suffer. But there is no class of men to whom the world owes more. The saints themselves were neither clams nor cucumbers. Their hearts often grew hot within them and blazed forth in searing words. " God smite thee, thou whited wall," cried Paul in open court to his LETTERS TO RADICALS 147 biased judges. Stephen denounced his judges to their very teeth as traitors and murderers. John and James would have called down fire from heaven to consume the Samaritan village that refused to receive their Master. One cannot but wonder what their fate would have been had it been in Pat- erson and not in this less panicky Samaritan village that their threatening speech was made. I confess that I wish Quinlan were a wiser man. I have small sympathy with the impossible eco- nomic vagaries of the movement with which for the time being he is identified. I trust that he will come to repentance and a better mind so far as his social program is concerned. He reminds me just a little of the big-hearted blind Irishman who, mis- taking the odor of a dead horse that was being hauled past his house for that of one of his un- fortunate fellow-beings, dropped in behind the wagon and followed it — to the boneyard ! But Quinlan belongs to the class of those who love the under dogs of our present unsatisfactory indus- trial system " not wisely but too well." I honor him for his warm and courageous heart. I wish he could be at the same time not less loving or less daring but more temperate. But intemperate as he may have been at indescribably trying mo- ments during this strike, I am strongly of the opinion that his temperateness, everything con- sidered, compares favorably with that of the serv- ants of the law in Paterson. The strike of which he has been one of the leaders, has been marked 148 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM b}' moderation, not by excesses. As I look back upon it, the self-control of the strikers, under great provocation, seems marvellous and admir- able. This is certainly true so far as actions go, and actions speak louder than words to those fit to govern in a land where freedom of speech is cherished. " Saying it ain't doing it," said Tom Sawyer, and there is a world of wisdom in the say- ing that the Paterson authorities ought to take to heart. The greatest excess committed during the strike is the harsh sentence meted out to Patrick Quinlan. An English court, for an offense no less grave, sentenced John Burns to only six weeks' imprison- ment. On Bloody Sunday, November 13, 1887, during a period of frequent riots in England, a great meeting of the unemployed was held in Tra- falgar Square, although the holding of the meet- ing had been expressly prohibited. All London was alarmed. Both infantry and cavalry were called out to assist the police. Burns, the lead- ing spirit in the demonstration, defied the police and even broke through their lines. Of course he was arrested, but his punishment was not two years, but six weeks' imprisonment. The judge before whom he was brought had common sense enough to know that the fact that John Bums had taken a leading part in a hot-blooded pro- test against the conditions from which his fellows were suffering was no indication that he was a man of criminal instincts or tendencies and a menace LETTERS TO RADICALS 149 to society. Since this incident John Burns has served many years with distinction on the London County Council, and now holds a responsible posi- tion under the British Government. It is a shameful sort of justice that has sent Patrick Quinlan to prison for a term of two to seven years. It seems all the more shameful when I recall that seven murderers walked out of Tren- ton Prison the day after Quinlan entered it, one cold-blooded murderer to return to the very county from which Quinlan was sent up. I am sure such things ought not to be. I am sure that Patrick Quinlan is not deserving of such unfair treatment. Do we not owe it to our- selves as well as to him to undo so far as possible the injustice of which he is the bound victim .'^ I cannot believe that either Paterson or New Jersey means to rest in injustice. Mercer Green Johnstox. July 25, 1913. University of the South, Sewanee, Tenn. 615 Park Avenue, Baltimore, Md., March 8th, 1917. My dear Mr. Gompers: — By way of introduction, I venture to enclose a copy of some Resolutions presented to me on the eve of my departure from Newark by the Essex Trades Council, the engrossed copy of which, greatl}' prized, hangs in my study. I had hoped to meet you when you were in Baltimore during the A. F. of L. convention, and made several unsuccessful efforts to do so. I had the honor of sitting at table with your wife at the luncheon given by the Women's Trade Unionist League, at M'hich I was one of the speakers. I am counting upon meeting you some day before long and talking over some of the matters of great import for the future of Labor, the Church, and the Nation. I am writing now to say how deeply interested I am in the Conference of the spokesmen of organ- izer Labor you have called for INIarch 12th. I am glad you have called such a conference, and I like the tone of your Call as published in the papers. The activities of our friend Carl Beck, of the so-called Labor Forum of New York, more es- pecially in connection with the " Proclamation of 150 LETTERS TO RADICALS 151 Working People " he has recently sent out broad- cast, have been a cause of some distress to me. It is my belief, — based partly upon the action of the Railway Men, saying they would do nothing to embarrass the Government at a critical time, and the spirit of your Call, — that this Proclamation does not fairh' represent the mind of Organized Labor in America. Indeed, I think it grossly mis- represents the real spirit of the American Federa- tion of Labor, both in its attitude towards its own mission, and in its attitude towards the American Government. That document is tainted with Pac- ifism, and, I suspect, with Pro-Germanism, its twin brother at this moment of history. Now, as I understand it, the working philoso- phy of the American Federation of Labor is by no means pacifist. The Pacifist pules and whines, " Resist not evil." Organized Labor shouts in stentorian tones, " Resist the devil and he will flee from you." In my judgment the philosophy of the Pacifist will asphyxiate the Labor Movement if it is accepted. It will do worse. It will take the " guts " out of it. It will kill it dead. Then again, as I understand it, the American Federation of Labor is genuinely American. There is a serious question in the minds of some of us who call ourselves Socialists whether the Socialist Party is genuinely American. If it is not, so much the worse for the Socialist Party. It has sealed its doom here in America. I am myself strongly sympathetic towards sane Inter- 152 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM nationalism. And when I use the word " interna- tionalism " I know what I am talking about. I have seen men of almost every nation face to face, and I have seen them, to a very large degree, on their own dung-hills. I look forward to, and pray and work for, the Brotherhood of Man, or, if our Socialist comrades prefer the name, the Commonwealth International. But I am per- fectly certain that bad Americanism is not and never will become good Internationalism. Men who are false to the Red, White and Blue, can never be trusted to be true to the Red. They will be then, as they are now, " fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils." They will constitute a sort of " yellow peril " under any flag, under any conceivable form of government. The honorable course, and the course which in the long run will win, is to entertain a high ideal for our Country ; to believe that our flag is the symbol of every hon- orable aspiration whether of Unionism or Social- ism — of real Justice, of real Liberty, of real Fraternity, of real Equality of Opportunity ; — and then to strive with might and main, with clean hands and hearts and undaunted spirit, out in the open in broad daylight, with faces unashamed, to make this high ideal an actuality. If we do this we will advance the cause of the Brotherhood of Man by making America fit to play an honorable part in the Family of Nations, the Commonwealth International. Why should not America march into the Commonwealth International under her LETTERS TO RADICALS 153 own chosen Stars and Stripes, as a self-respecting and world-respected Nation? Unless this Com- monwealth International is composed of such na- tions, the day of its arrival will not be a Day of God ; it will be a Walpurgis Night. I trust that you and your associates who have at hand the great and worthy interests repre- sented by the American Federation of Labor will not budge an inch towards any action that at this critical moment in the life of our Nation would give just cause for suspicion as to whether the American Federation of Labor is genuinely Amer- ican at heart. To do so would be the fatalest kind of a blunder. It would set back your great cause a generation or longer. I know no such thought is in your mind; but I write thus earnestly because I know that the Devil, disguised as an angel of light and leading, is busy putting poison in the pot in which the pot- tage of wholesome democracy is being brewed — the kind of democracy that will stand the wear and tear of the ages. If at any time you think I can be of service to you and your cause, please call upon me. I shall be glad to do what I can. Yours fraternally, Mercer G. Johnston. Mr. Samuel Gompers, President American Federation of Labor, Washington, D. C. (Copy of Resolutions) essex trades council of newark, n. j., affiliated with a. f. of l. Whereas, the Reverend Mercer Green Johnston has repeatedly shown his interest in and friendship for those who labor and are heavy laden ; and Whereas, His activities in behalf of the op- pressed, pursued in an unselfish disregard of his own personal interests, have greatly aided in light- ening the burdens of the underpaid and over- worked. Now therefore be it Resolved, That the Essex Trades Council, on behalf of itself and of its affiliated organizations, do now, on the eve of Mr. Johnston's departure from our city, express to him our sincere appre- ciation of his friendship and wish him Godspeed in his new field of labor ; and be it further Resolved, That these resolutions be spread upon the minutes of the Essex Trades Council, and that a suitably engrossed copy of them signed by the President and Secretary and sealed with the seal of the Council be presented to Mr. Johnston as a token of the esteem and honor in which we hold him. William J. Brennan, President. (seal) Henry F. Hilfers, Secretary. 154 March 15th, 1917. Mr. Charles Edward Russell, 1025 Fifteenth Street, N. W., Washington, D. C. My dear Mr. Russell: — I want to thank you for your two letters of February 7th and 13th published in the New York Times. I took much comfort from them. I am one of those Ameri- cans who have gradually come to the conviction that our present social system is working too much injustice to be endured much longer, and must therefore be radically altered. After a study of the question for upwards of twenty years, I came to the conclusion that the economic program of Socialism contained more of promise for a fair future for our Country in its length and breadth, and from the bottom to the top of our population, than any other before the world. At the close of a somewhat dramatic rectorship of Trinity Church, Newark, — the leading Episco- pal Church of the Diocese of Newark, officered by representatives of vested interests trebly en- trenched, — I announced myself, for the first time, as a Socialist. Before, I had spoken of myself as one with strong socialistic convictions, or as 155 156 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM one who believed profoundly in the social implica- tions and application of the Gospel. But I am an American. I am a root and branch American. I love the Flag of our Country passionately. To me it is a holy symbol. I never have tolerated, I never could bring myself to tolerate, wilful disrespect towards it. In the Philippines and here at home I have done every- thing in my power to inculcate love and respect for the Flag. I hate the cheap talk about the Flag being the mere symbol of the selfish interests of a certain class of our fellow-citizens. It is not the symbol of the Liquor interests because it floats above some saloon ; and it is not the symbol of Capitalistic interests because it floats in Wall Street. Thank God it does float in Wall Street, for I know that if Wall Street catches the vision, the clear full vision, of the Democratic Ideal of which the Stars and Stripes is the symbol, the wall of partition between the proverbial Wall Street man and the Just Man of Habakkuk who stands for brotherly justice for all men from the very top to the very bottom of society will be broken down. I could not for a moment admit that our Flag has been stolen and appropriated by any class of our citizens. To do so would be to bring the charge of treason home to my own door. For I would have been a common traitor to have stood by, and kept my head on my shoul- ders and my skin intact, w^hile such hateful rob- bery was taking place. LETTERS TO RADICALS 157 Now, the question is, what are we Americans who are convinced that there is great good in the economic program of Socialism for this whole land (for the rich as well as for the poor, for I know by the confessions of his own mouth that the rich man needs to be saved from the insidious in- roads of excessive wealth upon human character as much as the poor man needs to be saved from the brutal effects of dire poverty), going to do in the face of the un-American (not to say anti- American) drift of Socialism in America? I take it for granted you read the article by A. M. Simons in the New Republic of December 2, 1916, reviewing the last campaign, called " The Future of the Socialist Party." If you have not read it, you ought to do so. You probably know Mr. Simons personally. I do not. He speaks of him- self as having been identified with the Socialist Movement for twenty years, and as having pinned his hope to it. He says that the Socialist candi- dates were largely men who " were hopelessly out of touch with all things American " ; that they were " utterly ignorant of the American mind," etc., etc. If there is substantial ground for the view set forth in this article — and I had already begun to fear the gathering of such clouds as he speaks of — it seems to me the future of Socialism in America is certain to be " bound in shallows and in miseries " ; as indeed it will richly deserve to be, so far as it is a party movement. We have just had a little out-cropping of the 158 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM latent un-Americanism in the Socialist Movement here in Baltimore, followed by a rather vicious expose by The Evenmg Sun of the " dangerous teachings " of some of the local Socialist Clubs. My friend Miss Elisabeth Gilman has, I think written to you about the matter, enclosing a copy of the paper. We have been wondering whether anything could be done to save our comrades from the fate towards which some of them seem to be rushing; or, which is of even more importance, to save the essential ideals of Socialism from being dragged into a dark alley and clothed in a cos- tume and taught to speak a language that every decent American will loathe (as he ought to) and resolve to eradicate from American soil. Perhaps I ought to say I am not a party Socialist. I had about made up my mind to be- come one, when I was halted by Simons' article. That, taken in connection with my own recent observation brought me to the decision that I would postpone affiliating myself with the party movement until the dominant forces in the party were less irrational and more American. I have no fault to find with the international hopes and aspirations of Socialists. As a Chris- tian who takes the Founder of Christianity and His teachings about the Kingdom of God on Earth quite seriousl}'^, I have for a long time breathed freely in the atmosphere of internation- alism or universal brotherhood. But, for the love of Mike if not of America, I say, let's be reason- LETTERS TO RADICALS 159 able. Bad Americanism cannot be or ever be- come good internationalism. Treason to the Stars and Stripes is not the sort of training to fit a man for loyalty to the Red Flag of world- wide brotherhood. The man who is careless of personal or national honor now is not the sort of man who will inspire trust in honorable men in any future state of society. This is a long letter from a stranger; but my heart is full to overflowing, and your letters in the Times have made me feel that we are not alto- gether strangers. I know how busy you must be, but if you can find time to send me any word, I shall appreciate it very much. That speech of Debs' in New York the other day has left me with a sickish feeling. Yours fraternally, Mercee G. Johnston. IMr. Charles Edward Russell, Washington, D. C. April 17th, 1917. My dear Mr. Stokes: — The Protest published in the New York Call of March 24th, 1917, about expresses my mind on the subject of the proper attitude of a SociaHst toward the War, and you may use my name in connection with the circulation of the Protest if 3'ou so desire. I am sending a copy of the Protest to the Living Church, asking them to publish it in whole or in part. With kind regards, I am, Yours faithfully, Mercee G. Johnston. Mr. J. G. Phelps Stokes, 88 Grove Street, New York City. 16U Baltimore, Md., March 15th, 1917. My dear Mr. Spargo: — I suppose you read the article by A. M. Simons on " The Future of the Socialist Party " in The New Republic for December 2, 1916, in which he makes the charge that Socialism in America — at any rate. Party Socialism — has fallen into the hands of men " hopelessly out of touch with all things American " and " utterly ignorant of the American mind." The article made a strong impression upon me: so strong that it decided me not to become a party socialist, although I had recently said in a public speech that I thought socialists ought to unite with the party and that it was my intention to do so. In this article Simons " harped my fear aright," and this time the fear got the attention for which it has been clamoring. The fear is an old fear, based upon many observations : but as a result of hearing you at Sher^vood Forest and of reading several of your books, I was beginning to feel that it was an unworthy fear. And now the last state of this socialist is almost worse than the first! at least so far as party socialism is con- cerned. 161 162 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM I am, as I always have been, an intense sort of an American. I still believe, as I have always be- lieved, that it is altogether possible to achieve the highest well-being of the people of this country under the Stars and Stripes and even under our present Constitution slightly amended. I see no antagonism between good Americanism and good Socialism. America is not committed to any special brand of economics. She would be just as much herself with the economics of Socialism as she would with those of Capitalism. I am pleased to think she would be more herself. At no time when I have thought of calling my- self a Socialist has it occurred to me that there would be any slightest conflict between m}' duty as a thoroughly loyal and patriotic American and my duty as a good Socialist. Although I have been thinking more or less socialistically for the past tw^enty years, I never called myself a plain Socialist until the latter part of the past year. When I decided to do so, if I had suspected that I could be justly accused of paring down my loy- alty to my country, right then and there I would have parted company with Socialism. I am not forgetful of the International phase of Socialism. I not only have no objection to that, so far as it is rational and sound-hearted, it strongly appeals to me as a Christian who takes Jesus Christ's idea of a Kingdom of God on earth quite seriously. But my brains and my heart tell me that the Kingdom of God on earth, or the In- LETTERS TO RADICALS 163 ternational Commonwealth, will be built, not by men who are unappreciative of the best to be found in the national commonwealths that now are, and who, because of that failure, are ready to betray them, but by men who loyally do their best to exalt truth and justice and fraternity and liberty and private and public honor in the States of which they are actually citizens, and to which they are under obligations only less great than the obli- gations they will be under to the International Commonwealth after it becomes a reality. Unless the International Commonwealth is built by men of real honor, and upheld by such, the rottenness of the State of Denmark in the days of Hamlet will be a sweet-smelling savour compared with the rottenness of this world state. The man who does not know how to be loyal to the flag of the state of which he is now a citizen, will never be loyal to the flag of any far-off dream state save in his dreams. My international hope, as an American and a Socialist, is to see America enter the Federation of the World, the International Commonwealth, call it what you will, as a self-respecting and world-respected nation, this respect based upon the fact that she really loves her neighbors as herself, which she will do if we develop a standard American whose private and public and interna- tional life is dominated by the Golden Rule. I judge from the protest you sent to the Emer- gency Committee of the Socialist Party (I saw so 164 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM much of it as was published in the New York Times), against so much of its proposed procla- mation as favored an embargo on food and war munitions that you have yourself been troubled by some of the doings of some of the influential party Socialists. In this case, it was not so much a question of its lack of Americanism as its excess of pro-Germanism. And yet, as matters have turned out, there is little or no difference between pro-Germanism and anti-Americanism. If mat- ters go a little farther in the direction in which they are now going, there will be little or no differ- ence between Pacifism and anti-Americanism. At this moment, when all that can be said in the name of religion and socialism has been said. Pacifism and pro-Germanism are Siamese Twins. I understand that ^'our protest was successful. I am glad it was. But the fact the committee tried to put a thing like that over at this time goes far to justif}' the charge made by Simons in his article. You may have heard of the little flare-up of un- Americanism we have had here in Baltimore, the responsibility of which has been laid at the door of Socialism. In case 3'ou have not, I am en- closing a clipping from The Evening Sun of last Saturday containing an account, in rather vicious tone, of the result of a visit to some of the Social- ist Clubs and meetings. There has been more or less about the matter in the papers almost every day for the past week. Cochran published a let- LETTERS TO RADICALS 165 ter — a " foolish letter " the editor called it — in which he came to the defence of the clubs with heat and heart but with scant wisdom. There is little room to doubt that we have here in Balti- more a certain amount of a brand of Socialism that is simply rotten, rotten with un-Americanism or pro-Germanism. And it is perfectly idle to try to ignore this. If Socialism is to succeed in the long run here in America, this rotten stuff has got to be cut out. It will not be tolerated. It ought not to be tolerated. It looks to me as if there were more asininity in American Socialism at this moment than in the Socialism of any other country. American So- cialism is up in the air. Sometimes it looks as if it were up in the air in a Zeppelin, bound for Berlin. If this war was to be stopped by Socialism, the time and place to stop it was 1914 in Germany. I do not blame the German Socialists for not stop- ping it. I do not believe they had the power to stop it. But since they did not stop it, but in- stead became part and parcel of the army that marched out of Germany to conquer the world, and to kill all who opposed them. Socialists just as much as anybody else, it is sheer stupidity for Socialists in lands threatened by this army to waste Avind talking about the duty of a socialist not to go to war. As a matter of fact, the Ameri- can Socialists are doing most of the talking of this sort. One hears precious little of it from Belgian, 166 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM English, French, Canadian, Australian, Russian or Italian socialists ; and now the socialists of Spain are demanding that their country take ac- tion against Germany. It is safe to say that nine-tenths of the talk of this sort one hears here is rank hot air. Let the war be brought to our very doors, and let our American socialists realize that they would fare just exactly like every one else at the hands of the invaders, and this sort of superficial spieling would promptly cease. All sensible men understand that it is one thing to take honorable action of every conceivable kind to prevent war, but quite another thing to stop a war once it has begun. So far as my reading of history goes no war was ever stopped by hot air. I have written you a long letter; but I am greatly troubled over the present trend of Ameri- can Socialism. I believe there is in the move- ment that goes by the name of Socialism a great blessing for humanity, and for that part of hu- manity we call America. But I am beginning to wonder whether American Socialism will not have to have a new birth before it comes to its own here in our land. If the present organized effort to set up Socialism in America gets thoroughly stamped with anti-Americanism or even un-Amer- icanism, its damnation is assured, and its doom cannot be escaped. I should be very glad to hear from you if you can take time to write. I know how busy you LETTERS TO RADICALS 167 are, but I want to keep in touch with you. I rep- resent a body of thought in the country that you party Socialists must take note of if you ever expect to reach a worthy goal here in America. With cordial regards, I am. Yours fraternally, Mercer G. Johnston. Mr. John Spargo, Old Bennington, Vt. New York City, July 20, 1917. Mr. John Spargo, Old Bennington, Vt. My dear Spargo: — Your letter of May 31st, telling me of your severance from the Socialist party brought me just the news I wanted most to receive. I congratulate you with all my heart on the step you have taken and on the admirable state- ment of your reasons for taking this step. I have been trying to make time, in the midst of my preparations for a long absence in France, to write you fully about the matters of which you spoke in your letter and in the " proposals for a new party of progress," which came sometime later, but I find myself forced to do no more than send you this short letter, on the eve of my de- parture. However I want you to know of my deep interest in the step you have taken and in the proposals you make. Circumstances will make it impossible for me to join actively with you in this movement, so far as the immediate future is concerned. But as soon as I get back from France — supposing I do get back — I want to see you and confer with you with a view to throwing myself into this effort to present the great cause of Socialism to the American public LETTERS TO RADICALS 169 in a manner at once sanely American and Interna- tional. With cordial regards and with best wishes for you and your cause during my absence, I am Yours fraternally, Merceu G. Johnston. VIII THE AMERICAN SPIRIT An address delivered in Trinity Church, New- ark, October 18th, 1914, before the New Jersey Sons of the American Revolution. " Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair. The event is in the hand of God." — Washington. " Observe good faith and justice toward all na- tions; cultivate peace and harmony with all; religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it.'' It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the mag- nanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence." — Washington. " The foundations of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality. . . . The propitious smiles of heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which heaven itself has ordained." — Washington. " Overgrown military establishments . . . under any form of government are inauspicious to liberty." — Washington. 172 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT Shakespeare puts these fine words in the mouth of one of his characters in " Coriolanus " : I do love My country's good with a respect more tender. More holy and profound, than mine own life. I would not speak boastfully, especially in times like these when patriotism is being tried in the fire on so many bloody battlefields, but if I know the spirit within me that often makes my heart beat so wildly and sends the tears to my eyes when I be- hold with my mind's eye, and muse upon, my Country, I could make those words my very own without confusion of face or fear of it. Doubt- less there is a difference between religion and patriotism, but in my own case it would be difficult for me to define it. Oftentimes it would be im- possible for me to say whether the emotion that surges in my heart and sways me is religious or patriotic. Probably the correct analysis of such an emotion would show it to be the product of religion saturated with patriotism, or vice versa. It is a never-ending source of comfort to me to know that the " Strong Son of God " wept over Jerusalem. He is dearer to me by reason of those 173 174 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM tears and the heartbreaking words that followed them. No true patriot should miss the joy of knowing the Man Christ Jesus, who knew so well what was in a patriot's heart. Holding such sentiments, you gentlemen of the New Jersey Society of the Sons of the American Revolution will accept my words at their face value when I tell you that I am altogether glad to have your patriotic organization again within this building, whose walls once echoed to the drums and fifes of a band of men, our honored sires, whose hearts God touched, and into whose breasts He breathed the breath that gave this Nation a living soul. You are welcome here to-day, and you need have no fears of wearing your welcome out. When one crosses the threshold of a Span- iard one hears the hospitable greeting, " Esta es su casa, Senor — This is your house. Sir." As rector of this church I say, " This is your house, gentlemen." It certainly is, for it is your Heav- enly Father's house, and we have good authority for believing that in so far as we are His what is His is ours. He is ever ready to divide with us His living. Indeed, all that He has is ours. You have asked me to speak to you again. I thank you for the opportunity, for my heart is surcharged with thoughts that deeply concern the " general welfare " of tliis Nation ; this Nation " conceived in liberty " ; this Nation brought to the birth by the blood of the brains and broken bodies of those whose dear memories you seek to keep THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 175 green ; this Nation established to " secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our poster- ity," and " dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." The beloved Dr. Arnold of Rugby, than whom the past century hardly produced a nobler ex- ample of a Christian and patriot, used to say to those who bade him hold his peace when at the sight of some wrong-doing the " fire burned " and his heart was hot within him, " I must speak or I will burst." I trust that I am not wanting in a " decent respect " for the opinions of my fellow- countrymen who by virtue of their offices, whether in State or Church, are charged with special re- sponsibility in times like these. I do not lightly set aside their expressed wishes. I have read and re-read the Thirty-ninth Psalm, beginning, " I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue : I will keep my mouth with a bridle while the wicked is before me." But over and over again I find myself in the perilous condition of Dr. Arnold: I must speak or I will burst. So far as what I have said, or shall say, concerning the things that are in the saddle and in the air and in the minds and hearts of men everywhere, needs apology, that confession must serve as such. If more need be said let it be this: That to me it seems as little praiseworthy for an American, who is the real thing, to be a " dumb dog " in 1914 as it was to be a " dumb dog " in 1775 or 1861, let the consequences be what they may. It is alto- 176 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM gether un-American to be afraid to speak aloud convictions upon which one, after deep dehbera- tion, is ready to act irrevocably. It would be damnable treason to the highest hopes of America if the expectation of favors to come were in any degree responsible for this dumbness. We are met here to-day to remind ourselves that this is the one hundred and thirty-third anni- versary of the surrender at Yorktown of Lord Cornwallis, an Englishman, to General Washing- ton, an Englishman re-born an American six years before this event, and to think such thoughts as are suitable to such an occasion at such a time as this. Let me speak to you of the American Spirit. Whence came this Spirit? Who helped to bring it into being? Who were its enemies and who were its friends in the beginning? Just what is the significance of this Spirit? Who are its enemies and who are its friends now? What is the future of this Spirit? What is the duty of its friends and lovers to-day? This Nation, said Abraham Lincoln, was " con- ceived in liberty." If it was, and a large part of mankind believes that it was, the American Spirit came forth from God. It was written by James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, that " Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights." Surely if this Nation was conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 177 men are created equal, and exists to the end that " government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth," this Nation is a good gift to all mankind, and comes well within the meaning of St. James. It is not recorded that at the birth of the Amer- ican Spirit angels sang, " Peace on earth, good will to men " ; but it is a fact that at its concep- tion a great bell, on which was inscribed " Pro- claim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof," was heard to ring, and that its joyful sound has been repeated not only throughout all this land but throughout all lands, and that the music of these bells brings to the minds of those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death the song that the angels sang when the Prince of Peace was born. Out of whose loins came this American Spirit.? This is an American Question that every genuine American ought to be able to answer, and about which there should be no dissimulation. What answer shall we make.'' Before setting down our answer, let me ask a few other questions that have a bearing upon this answer. In what man, far and away more than any other, did the American Spirit incarnate itself in the beginning, and make itself manifest not only in the American Colonies but throughout the whole world? There is only one answer. But for George Washington there would have been no American Nation. Well, what think you of 178 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM Washington, whose son was he? Under what flag was he born? Under what flag did he live the first thirty-three years of his life? Under what flag did he serve gallantly prior to 1775? Surely no one would say that Washington w^as a son of France, or a son of Germany. Surely no one will deny that Washington was a son of England. In a very much more intimate sense than Paul was a Roman, Washington was an Englishman down to the day that the Declaration of Independence was signed, and he never ceased to be proud of the blood of his English ancestors that flowed in his veins. And this is a source of just pride, it may be said in passing, shared by every other American who has the right to it. It would seem that no man of intelligence could expect to win the head or the heart of America by " foaming out " songs of hate against England.^ Let me go further and ask : Whose sons were the signers of the Declaration of Independence without a single ex- ception? Undoubtedly they were the sons of England until the moment they put their hands to that paper if not until after the acknowledgment of the independence of the Colonies by England seven years later. Practically every drop of blood in their veins was English blood. Let me go on and ask, Whose sons were the signers of the Constitution of the United States? To this 1 See " A Chant of Hate Against England," by Ernst Lissauer, N. Y. Times, Oct. 15, 1914, republished from Jugend. THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 179 question the same answer must be given. The signers of the Constitution only ceased to be Eng- lishmen when they wrested from their short-sighted English brethren the right to order their own affairs. Returning to our question, Out of whose loins came the American Spirit? is there any other answer to make than this: That the American Spirit, which came forth from God, which was " conceived in liberty," came out of the loins of England, the Mother of the English-speaking race? The Declaration of Independence is just as much the work of the sons of England as is Magna Charta. The War of the Revolution was just as much a war between brethren as any of the civil wars in England, or our own Civil War; and so far as incivility is concerned, there is little or no choice between any of them, and if there is the odds are not in favor of our own Civil War. In making this honest confession, which it would be good for the soul of every American to make, no claim is made for the immaculateness of the nation out of whose loins the American Spirit came. I am laboring under no delusions as to the short- comings or the overreachings of England, any more than I am laboring under such delusions as to America. England's history written by her own historians is an open book, and therein her faults are fearlessly set down. But with all her faults, with all her backslidings from the better way, there is one thing that cannot be denied her 180 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM by those who are intelligent enough to read the English language, and honest enough to acknowl- edge what they find written in it, and that is that beyond all other nations, prior to the birth of this Nation, she was a well-spring of human liberty, and that it was through her that God gave birth to this Nation " conceived in liberty." If before that birth could take place it was necessary that a sword should pierce through her heart it was not the first time that the giving of a Divine gift to humanity was accompanied by such an expe- rience. In answering the question, Whence came the American Spirit .^^ answer has already been made in part to the question, Who helped to bring this Spirit into being.? But several things remain to be said. It is unquestionably true that the events which led up to the Revolution, and the Revolu- tion itself, which brought the American Spirit into being, were in the main what might be called family affairs of those who dwelt under the British flag and who spoke the English language. In the very document that declared America's independ- ence of England the expression " our British breth- ren " occurs, and no American who comprehends and cherishes the best American traditions and ideals is disturbed by the fraternal acknowledg- ment. Nevertheless the fact must not be lost sight of that Holland, France and Germany made minor contributions to the population of the British Colonies which afterwards became the Thirteen THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 181 American States, and that these elements, before they were entirely Anglicized, helped measurably to bring the American Spirit into being, and be- came a part of the real American people. But such help as they rendered was of a comparatively humble sort. Philip Schuyler, of Dutch descent, is the only man not of English descent ^ among the Colonists who took anything like an important part in the Revolution. Out of the very loins of England came the strong men who led in the re- sistance to the encroachment upon their rights as Englishmen that resulted in the birth of this Na- tion. The two leading Colonics in this bold busi- ness were Virginia and Massachusetts and a glance at the map will show what a firm hold on the hearts of the people of these Colonies England had. The names of the counties and rivers and older cities and towns are English to the last degree. York- town, on the York River, York County, Virginia, is a fair sample. Essex, Middlesex, Norfolk, Plymouth, Bristol, Worcester, Hampshire, Hamp- den and Berkshire — so run the names of the coun- ties of Massachusetts. 2 The first Americans were 1 The speaker is of Scotch-Irish descent. His paternal ancestor came to America from Scotland about 1727. It need hardly be said that the words England and English are not used in an exclusive sense, but include at least all of Great Britain. 2 In the list of the 100 largest American cities the only names that appear are English, Indian, French and Spanish. The only exceptions seem to be such names as Philadelphia, Memphis, Troy, etc., for which Americans of English de- scent are responsible, and Schenectady, named by Ameri- cans of Dutch descent. 182 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM all British b,v birth or by adoption. The Dutch, the French, the Germans in America were all Brit- ish, and contentedly so, before they were Ameri- cans. Who were the enemies, and who were the friends of the American Spirit in the beginning? The Declaration of Independence was leveled at the head of George III, of the House of Hanover, King of Great Britain and Ireland, and rightly so. " A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free People." Thus ran the Declaration, and I would not alter a word of it. I am not in the least disposed to defend this thick- skulled King whose great-grandfather England had imported from Germany, nor those dull sub- jects of his who never could understand the view- point of their brethren over the sea. The Eng- land of George III thoroughly deserved what she got, and I 3'ield to no man in honoring the men who meted out the well-earned punishment to her. As a boy I reveled in the slaughter of Red Coats, and I have never repented of the " bluggy " joy. I am afraid that I was not as thankful as a Chris- tian should have been when I discovered a few days ago that only 156 Red Coats were killed and 326 wounded in the Battle of Yorktown! But it is only fair to say that compared with his contemporary Frederick the Great, of whom the Prussians are very proud, George III was an ex- ceedingly mild-flavored and domesticated sort of THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 183 a tyrant. Had the American Colonists, in an evil hour, appealed to Frederick for help, and had he responded to their appeal (for other than al- truistic motives), and then decided to stay and rule over them, as he certainly would have done, the Colonists would have pined for the good old days of King George as the Israelites pined for the flesh-pots of Egypt. If the world had been searched in the ^-ear 1776 for the ruler least in sym- pathy with the American Spirit it would have been difficult to find one who would have met the require- ments more perfectly than this Frederick of the House of Hohenzollcrn whose ministers were mere clerks to give effect to his absolute will, and whose political theories were all pinned together with swords and baj'onets. While the majority of insular Englishmen sup- ported King George in his overbearing attitude toward the Colonies, we must not forget that Lon- don never approved of it, that London plead for America, and that Chatham (called " that trumpet of sedition " by the King) and Fox and Burke and Pitt and Shelburne lifted up their voices in favor of the Colonies, and finally carried the British public with them; nor must we forget that it is recorded of Washington, in England's most popu- lar history, that " No nobler figure ever stood in the forefront of a nation's life," ^ and that alto- gether the most intelligent and most popular ap- preciation of our Country ever written is the late 1 Green's History of the English People Vol. IV, p. 254. 184 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM Ambassador Bryce's " American Commonwealth." And it is well to remind ourselves that the cause of Independence was not overwhelmingly popular even among the Colonists themselves. We used to be taught in school that the Spirit of '76 was so permeating and contagious that practically everybody in America caught it. We know now that many escaped it, and that the struggle for Independence was never supported by anything like all of the Colonists, and for a good part of the time was supported by perhaps a minority of them. The great friends of the American Spirit in early days were the French. But for France that Spirit would have been stamped out, and the cause of liberty in the world set back a hundred years. The debt that we Americans, and all true lovers of liberty, owe to France is incalculable. I know that mixed motives brought France to America's help, but in the person of LaFayette she rose to her highest and came to us in our dire distress, and dared to the uttermost in our behalf; and from the day of his coming to the end of the war America never looked to France in vain. The debt we owe France has never been paid. The passing of LaFayette and the rise of Napoleon is partly responsible for this. But now that France is again at Freedom's side, if in some hour of crushing disaster she turned her eyes towards us and said, " Help me, or I perish," and we turned a deaf ear to her — supposing her cause THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 185 to be just — I would be ashamed ever again to set foot on French soil. It is devil's doctrine, no matter what pretentious claims to culture its preachers may make, that salvation for a nation lies in taking all and giving nothing. That which is damnation for the individual can never be sal- vation for the State in a moral universe. But what, you may be thinking, of the German element in the War of Independence? Of course, in the main, it was very strongly against America. Hardly a word of sympathy, except from the great Kant, who " embraced the cause of the American colonists with all the energy of his vast intellect," came from Germany. Klopstock and Lessing said a few favorable things. And Steuben and De- Kalb, of honored memory, came to us, not because of any friendship on their part or the part of their countries for the cause of Independence, but through the persuasion of some of our good French friends. But they came, and did splendid service, and every true American honors their names. Steuben was at Yorktown with LaFayette and Washington, and happened to be in command when Cornwallis decided to surrender. DeKalb was killed at Camden, South Carolina, under the most heroic circumstances. No doubt some of the Ger- man colonists of Pennsylvania served in the rank and file of the Continental Army. So far as I know none distinguished themselves. John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg, Trappe, Pa., became a major-general by brevet. His father, Henry M., 186 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM was patriotic. The former raised the 8th Va. (German) regiment, of which he became Colonel, at Woodstock, Va. Greene, in " The German Ele- ment in the War of Independence," does not speak of them. This is the briglit side of the picture. The dark side is that first and last Germany fur- nished about thirty thousand mercenaries to en- able George III to crush the American Spirit. The large majority of these German mercenaries came from Hesse-Cassel and Hesse-Hanau, but Brunswick, Waldcck, Anspach and Anhalt-Zerbst also had a hand in this shameful business of fur- nishing hirelings to do battle against the Ameri- can Spirit. We come now to the consideration of the ques- tion, Just what is the significance of the American Spirit? Already this question has been partly an- swered. Indeed, it is quite impossible to speak of this Spirit without disclosing somewhat of its meaning. But something must be added to what has been said. In his book on " The Spirit of America," Dr. Henry Van Dyke, a real American of Dutch de- scent, now ambassador to Holland, says : " This republic continues to exist and develop along the normal lines of its own nature, because it is still animated and controlled by the same Spirit of America which brought it into being to embody the soul of the people." He then goes on to say : " I am quite sure that there are few, even among Americans, who appreciate the literal truth and THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 187 the full meaning of this last statement. It is com- mon to assume that the Spirit of 1776 is an affair of the past ; that the native American stock is swallowed up and lost in our mixed population ; and that the new United States, beginning, let us say, at the close of the Civil War, is now controlled and guided by forces which have come to it from without. This is not true even physically, much less is it true intellectually and morally. The blended strains of blood which made the American people in the beginning are still the dominant fac- tors in the American people of to-day. . . . The native stock has led and still leads America." ^ To substantiate this statement he calls attention to the fact that 86 per cent, of the 16,395 persons included in " Who's W^ho in America " are native Americans, and that of the men elected to the presidency of the United States there has been only one whose ancestors did not belong to Amer- ica before the Revolution — James Buchanan, a Scotch-Irishman, whose father came in 1783 — and all of the presidents except four trace their line back to Americans of the seventeenth century. It is noteworthy in this connection that all of our presidents except Van Buren and Roosevelt are of English descent, and the same would seem to hold to an equal degree in the case of our vice-presi- dents. What Dr. Van Dyke says is plainly true, and 1 Ten of twenty-seven presidents have come from Virginia and Massachusetts. 188 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM any newcomers who act upon a contrary theory are riding to an unhappy fall. If they are wise in their generation they will not attempt to remove the ancient landmarks of this Nation, or drag its anchors to other moorings, or choke the well- springs of American liberty, or obstruct the well- worn channels through which American feeling flows. That were to woo the whirlwind and to court the lightning. America is for Americans — real, unqualified Americans.^ The Americans who built this Nation upon ideals of their own choos- ing, and who from the beginning have rightly domi- nated it, and rightly dominate it now, have as little intention of allowing newcomers to substitute for the ancient American ideals new and strange ideals that have come newly up as they had of permitting the American Union to be rent in twain. This ought to be plain enough to any one w^ho knows even a little of the history of the English-speaking race to recall even a quondam Columbia professor, or a recently imported Harvard professor, or even a German professor at large, from the error of his way. Of course, this is not a pleasant fact to make mention of; but it is a fact, a flint-like fact, and it is foolish to blink it. " Lord Bacon 1 " Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common coimtry, that country has a right to concentrate your aflFections." — Wash- ington — Farewell Address. The Kaiser is reported to have said to a so-called " Ger- man-American " : "I know what a German is, and I know what an American is. I do not know what a German- American is." THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 189 has told me that a great question would not fail of being agitated at one time or another," de- clared Chatham. It is a vital American fact, and no amount of bombast, and no amount of bragga- docio, and no amount of bamboozling, and no amount of button-holing, or bartering, or bulldoz- ing, from either side of the Atlantic, from court or camp, from chamber or campus, can alter this un- compromising fact whose roots are buried deep in the brains and hearts of those who speak, because they love it and what it stands for best, the tongue of Wyclif and Knox and More, Shakespeare and Milton, Hampden and Eliot and Pym, Blackstone and Marshall, and Washington, Jefferson, Web- ster and Lincoln. I am sorry to have to say this. But the bla- tancy of those among us who bear the name of American without really believing in the vital thing for which the name stands, makes it impossible for me to be silent. Let those whom the cap fits put it on : I only refer to those of whom what I say is really true. For what, further, does the American Spirit stand.? What says the Declaration.? Among other things it speaks of " a decent respect to the opinions of mankind." It speaks of this Nation's right to a " separate and equal station " in the family of nations. It says nothing of this Na- tion's right to a " place in the sun " — or the lime- light. The American Spirit holds no commission from God to spread American Ideals in either hem- 190 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM isphere with the sword, and it would regard as an intolerable nuisance to be abated any nation that claimed such a commission to so spread its ideals or " culture." It speaks of national rectitude, and a people's sacred honor. The American Spirit wastes no affection on the ambitious Bona- parte, but it abhors the inexcusable treachery he experienced thrice at the hands of those who called themselves his allies and went forth to battle with him ; and it does not look unmoved upon the " deep damnation " of Belgium's " taking off." The Declaration speaks with indignation of those who attempt to render " the military independent of and superior to the Civil Power," and the Amer- ican Spirit recognizes, neither within its own bor- ders nor beyond them, the brutal doctrine that Might makes Right. ^ It dismisses forever from the seat of its affections kings and emperors and such. It puts no trust in princes — even those " O. K'd " by " exchange professors," and it is very suspicious of any man calling himself an American who does, especially if he has been feed- ing upon royal dainties. The American Constitu- tion begins, " We, the people," and there is not a more glorious phrase in the literature of politics. The American Spirit knows that it will be the be- ginning of the tragic end when those great words, bought at a great price, cease to mean the great thing they meant to the founders of this Nation. iThe "Macht Politik " of Treitschke, the Kaiser, the Crown Prince, Bernhardi et al. THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 191 I must now hasten to a close. Need I stop to answer the question, Who are the enemies, and who are the friends, of the American Spirit to-day? Those at home must answer for themselves. Some have already answered, and are under suspicion — suspicion, shall I say, of not having understood just what they were about when they took out their papers? Now is the time for them to con- sider. I trust that they may decide to become real Americans and remain. But if they find that they really prefer the government of an " irre- sponsible," irremovable autocrat to the govern- ment the American Spirit is endeavoring to work out, we shall not find fault with them, either if they fly to the succor of the would-be Caesar, or if they possess their souls in patience while among us and do not foolishly try to interfere with the full and free expression or working of the Amer- ican Spirit. If there are those among us who believe in the Kaiser and his " Welt Politik," let them say so. Let them disport themselves. Nobody objects to that. This is no Kaiser's Land.^ This is the 1 The moment the present war began 79 German Socialist papers were suppressed, and shortly afterwards the one remaining Socialist paper of consequence suffered the same fate. The Kaiser is reported to have said not long ago that the best course for Germans to pursue who did not approve of his way of doing things was to leave Germany. This would be in line with German policy in the past. A great many of the Germans who came to Texas, among other States, were political refugees. 192 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM People's Land. This is America. This is a free country, one of whose most valued assets is free- dom of speech ; and I go farther than most men I meet in Newark, or New York, or Paterson, or elsewhere, in my belief in that. But what mature Americans do object to is the everlasting and bad- tempered outcry by Americans in the making against the utterances by the American press and American writers and speakers of sentiments and convictions that it would be passing strange for an American of mature mind and sound heart not to hold. Let us take a hurried look abroad. Is Germany a real friend of the American Spirit to-day? If one could appeal from " Philip drunk to Philip sober," the question might be debatable. There was a Germany, not drunk with ambition or panic- stricken with fear, and not savage with hatred of those who can never be persuaded to hate, for which there was an increasing regard in America. But that Germany is now as though it were not. And that the dominating power in Gei*many that to-day holds the great body of the German people in the grasp of its mailed fist is not, and cannot be, the friend of the American Spirit, admits of no debate. These things are contrary the one to the other. The spirit of the German War Party, which now permeates and dominates the whole nation, is the very antithesis of the Amer- ican Spirit, both in its contemplated enslave- ment of the German people under the Hohen- THE AMERICAN SPIRIT 193 zollerns, and its contemplated enslavement of the world under the nation on whose neck the heel of the Hohenzollerns rests. The present dominating spirit in Germany is a " throw- back " in civilization of more than a hundred years. ^ Is England a real friend of the American Spirit? Now that she has learned the lesson she needed to be taught at the hands of her over-sea children, I believe with all my heart she is. We are about to celebrate a hundred years of peace between England and America. The progress in the cause of freedom made in England during these years has been immense. There is great reason to believe that freedom has as little to fear from England as from any nation. Indeed, the down- fall of England at this hour would be as great a loss as the cause of freedom could sustain. The integrity of England is essential to America. Were her integrity threatened, the tide of feeling among us would rise so high and run so swift and strong that the bark that bears our governmental neutrality would be swept out to sea and sunk and once again it would be found that blood is thicker than water. iSee "Germany and the Next War," by F. von Bern- hardi; also article on " Treitschke " in Encyclopedia Bri- tannica; also articles on Germany and the Kaiser in same; also "Germany and England," by J. O. Cramb; and "Pan- Germanism," by Roland G. Usher. See also files of N. Y. Times and Outlook, especially latter for Oct. 21, article " Germania, 1914." 194 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM What of the future of the American Spirit? I believe it is safe — but not so safe that those who love it, and would not willingly live in a world from which it was banished, can afford to go to sleep. Eternal vigilance is the price of the things for which that Spirit stands. Even at home, there are those who as yet know little of the value of these precious things. Abroad, many of our dear- est dreams and hopes for a great family of nations in which Mercy and Truth shall meet together, and Righteousness and Peace shall kiss each other, and of which the Prince of Peace shall not be ashamed, are made light of if not set at naught. What is our duty.? Circumstances must decide. If this war should go the way the overwhelming majority of Americans trust it will not go, all that the American Spirit holds dear would be threatened. The Prince of Peace said upon a memorable oc- casion : " My kingdom is not of this world : if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight." The Prince of Peace knows that the Republic of the American Spirit, out of which He has never been asked to depart, and in whose counsels His voice carries increasing weight, is of this world. Need I say more.? IX CRUaFIED BELGIUM An address delivered November 11th, 1915, be- fore the British and American Association, New- ark, New Jersey. IX CRUCIFIED BELGIUM "Omnium fortissimi sunt Belgae." — Julius C.^sar The distinctive history of France begins with Clovis, King of the Franks. An interesting story has come down to us from the fifth century con- nected with his name. The story takes on additional interest just at this time. For Clovis was associated with cer- tain places that have become familiar haunts of our minds during the past sixteen months. He was also connected with certain historic events that are at least suggestive of history now in the making. Before Clovis established himself in Paris his capital was Tournay, Belgium. Re- migius, Bishop of Rheims, sometimes called Saint Remi, was his friend and counselor. A notable act of wise friendship performed by the Bishop for the King was the choosing of the wife who so greatly influenced his life. It is said that in a battle fought against the Alemanni near Cologne in the effort to drive these Teutonic invaders back across the Rhine, Clovis and his Franks were so hard pressed by the enemy that he appealed to the God of his Christian 197 198 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM wife Clotilda, promising that if victory were granted to his army both himself and his soldiers would worship Clotilda's God. The Alemanni were routed. True to his word, Clovis and a large number of his Franks were baptized by the Bishop of Rheims on Christmas Day, 496. So much for the setting of the story. The story is that this stalwart warrior of the early days, who shook off the yoke of the degenerate Romans, and who put the Teutons back across the Rhine, where they belonged, and who later de- feated Alaric II and his Visigoths in the battle of Poitiers, — slaying Alaric, it is said, with his own hand, — upon hearing the account of the Cruci- fixion the first time, cried out with fierce indigna- tion : " Had I and my Franks been by, we would have avenged the wrong, I warrant ! " There is another stor^^ bearing a close resem- blance to this one, that has come down to us from the sixteenth century. It is linked with the name of the French soldier Crillon, styled by Henry IV " The Bravest of the Brave." He served at the siege of Calais in 1558 and in many other impor- tant battles. When Crillon first heard the story of the Crucifixion read at church he grew more and more excited as the reading proceeded. At last he burst out : " What were you about, Crillon, to permit such atrocity ? " The crime of crimes in the dark records of our race on this earth, the deed of perfect blackness that thrusts up this world high in horror and CRUCIFIED BELGIUM 199 makes it notorious in sin among God's other worlds, is the Crucifixion. It is not necessary for one to be a theologian, or even to be much interested in theology, to have a deep and abiding sense of the divine light that came into tliis world through the life of the Crucified One; or to appreciate the fact that the Cross is the instrument by which, and Calvary is the place where, our race made its most desperate and most diabolical effort to extinguish the light divine that shines in the human heart. Neither Clovis nor Crillon was a theologian, nor was either even much interested in theology. The feeling of abhorrence that sprang into their hearts when they heard the story of the Crucifixion was in no sense due to their ecclesiastical training. They had no ecclesiastical training. They were field-bred, not church-bred men. Their abhor- rence sprang from natural unspoiled human in- stincts. They knew instinctively, as the world knows, that those who were responsible for the hounding and the harrying, the insulting and the baiting, and the deliberately planned and executed murder under color of law, of Jesus Christ, were not the friends, but the enemies, of goodness both human and divine, and that their action was in- spired from below, not from above. They knew instinctively that those who put the Prophet of Nazareth out of the way preferred darkness to light, and did so because their deeds and their motives were evil. They knew instinctively that 200 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM it happened to Him according to the proverb: " He that is upright in the way is abomination to the wicked." And, indeed, that was the greatest offence of Jesus : That He stood upright in the way : That He stood right up to His full height right in the •way, right in the gap, through which Guilty De- sire meant at whatever cost to reach the throat of its victims as quickly as possible. That is to say, the Founder of Christianity was crucified in the first century for reasons that would be considered sufficient in some, perhaps many, parts of Christendom to justify His cru- cifixion in the twentieth century. Given the Uncompromising Christ — and there is no other genuine Christ — it would not be diffi- cult to stage the Crucifixion to-day. And it would not be necessary to go outside of Christendom, it would not be even necessary to go outside the Christian Church, for the living characters for the performance, with one or possibly two notable exceptions. Strong as this statement is, it is warranted by the history that has been made in the past six- teen months, and that is even now being made. Only yesterday a shameful chapter of cowardly brutality was added. The name of Edith Cavell appeared at the head of it. Then there is that almost unreadable chapter, that almost unbeliev- able chapter, the Lusitania chapter, in the horrible CRUCIFIED BELGIUM 201 light of which the Massacre of the Innocents sinks into insignificance. That chapter was not added yesterday ! I blush with unspeakable shame when I recall what ancient history this incident has be- come, for the record of it is written in American blood that an American president sold for a diplo- matic song and quickly forgot, and — oh the gnawing bitterness of it ! — succeeded in making most of his countr3^men forget. I said it would not be difficult to stage the Crucifixion to-day. My chief reason for saying so is that a crucifixion on a colossal scale, the crucifixion of a whole people, is taking place at this very moment. The instigator of this black crime calls himself a Christian, and professes loudly to go about his bad business under the full conviction that God is with him in all his ways. And gathered about this crucifier there is an imposing array of Christian ecclesiastics who delight to do him honor, and place a written sanc- tion upon all his doings. This crucifixion differs in some important respects from the Crucifixion, but is not unworthy to be compared with it. It is written that the Crucified One said to two of His disciples upon a certain occasion : " Ye shall indeed drink of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with." And we know that His baptism was a baptism of fire, and His cup a cup of blood. It is written that upon another occasion the 20£ PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM Crucified One said to His disciples : " If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." It is a part of the glorious record of our race that individual men and women, and sometimes large groups of men and women, have essayed to drink of that Cup, and to be baptized with that Baptism, and to take up the Cross. And we have become somewhat accustomed to this noble action on the part of individuals, and to a less degree, to such action on the part of groups of men and women. But the world is not accustomed to such heroic action on the part of a whole peo- ple. It has remained for the twentieth century to witness this unique and wondrous sight. Of making many books on the subject of the European War there is no end. Already the proverb is applicable that one can hardly see the tree for the leaves. But out of these many books I venture to speak of one that has peculiar claims to the attention of the world. The author of this book is Dr. Charles Sarolea, a distinguished Bel- gian scholar, for some years head of the depart- ment of Romance languages in Edinburgh Uni- versity and Belgian consul in Edinburgh, and more recently war correspondent of The London Daily Chronicle in Belgium. The spirit of this little book is wonderful. The spirit that inspired the author of this book and that breathes through its pages may without ex- CRUCIFIED BELGIUM 203 aggeration be likened to the spirit that inspired the evangelists. Indeed this book is a sort of evangel. It is a gospel — it brings good tidings to the human spirit. " How Belgium Saved Europe " is the name given to this noble little book. Nowhere in the volume does the author use the quotation, " He saved others ; himself he can not save," but no thoughtful person whose heart has not been hard- ened against Belgium by some such unholy hatred as the imps of Satan must have borne to the cher- ubim with flaming swords who were placed at the east of the garden of Eden to keep the way of the tree of life can read that beautiful, brave, and yet heart-breaking little book without having that quotation come into his mind and linger there. In the first chapter of this book, the caption of which is " The Moral Significance of the Bel- gian Campaign," the author says : " I must have made it abundantly plain that no mere motives of enlightened national interest or even of worldly honor could account for the desperate struggle which the Belgian people waged against Germany. In order to understand the dogged resistance of the Belgians, we must appeal to the deepest in- stincts of man, to the elemental impulses of lib- erty. And perhaps still more must we appeal to the higher motives of outraged justice, to the moral consciousness of right and wrong. Until we take in the fact that from the beginning the struggle was lifted to a higher plane, we shall 204< PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM fail to understand the true significance of the war. From the beginning the war was to the Bel- gian people much more than a national war; it became a Holy War. And the expression ' Holy ' War must be understood not as a merely literary phrase, but in its literal and exact definition. The Belgian War was a Crusade of Civilization against Barbarism, of eternal right against brute force." " So true is this," the author goes on, " that in order adequately and clearly to realize the Bel- gian attitude, we are compelled to illustrate our meaning by adducing one of the most mysterious conceptions of our Christian religion, the notion of vicarious suffering. In theological language Belgium suffered vicariously for the sake of Eu- rope. She bore the brunt of the struggle. She was left over to the tender mercies of the invaders. She allowed herself to become a battlefield in order that France might be -free from becoming a shambles. She had to have her beautiful capi- tal violated in order that the French capital might remain inviolate. She had to submit to vandalism in order that humanity elsewhere might be vindi- cated. She had to lose her soul " — no, not her sovl! her " life " the author should have said — " in order to save the soul of Europe." He continues : " The general spirit in which the war was waged, the almost mystical temper which inspired the Belgian people, was strikingly illus- trated at the crisis of Liege. Things were looking desperate. It was obvious that unless relief came CRUCIFIED BELGIUM 205 at once to the besieged, the fortresses could hold out no longer. On the other hand, it was equally obvious that if the relief did come Brussels would be saved from the indignity of German occupa- tion. But the French and British relief did not come. Yet the Belgians did not complain. They were not only disinterested, they were not only heroic, they were calmly resigned. They were in- deed martyrs in the Greek sense of the word. They were witnesses for the European cause." The whole of this passage that I have taken from Dr. Sarolea's book is apropos of my theme, but to me the most interesting part of the quotation is that in which he speaks of " Belgium suffering vicariously for the sake of Europe." The thought in the author's mind is, " She saved others ; her- self she can not save." He does not use the words, but he brings them forcibly into the sym- pathetic reader's mind. As one reads this Bel- gian's story of " How Belgium Saved Europe," one feels sure that he wrote with the vision of Crucified Belgium before his eyes, and that he was saying over and over again to himself in the depths of his heart, " They crucified her ! They cruci- fied her! " The statement in this book that Belgium suf- fered vicariously for the sake of Europe inter- ested me especially because / had often thought and spoken in public of Belgium as having been crucified by Germany upon the German Iron Cross for a reason strikingly like one of the great rea- 206 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM sons that brought the Perfect Victim to the Cross nineteen centuries ago, to-wit, that little Belgium, under a high sense of duty, stood right up to her full height right in the way, right in the gap, through which Germany, drumk with her guilty dreams of world-power, meant, at whatever cost, to reach the throat of the first of its European victims as quickly as possible. " He that is upright in the way is abomination to the wicked," says the proverb. It was so in the year 33 a. d., when the devil-inspired cry was raised in Jerusalem " Away with this Man ! Cru- cify Him, crucify Him ! " And it was so in the year 1914 a. d, when the devil-inspired cry was raised in Berlin, " Direkt nach Paris! " It may be of interest to note, in passing, that this same thought of the vicarious suffering of Belgium finds expression through the pen of the English writer Chesterton. In a recent article on " Lest We Forget Belgium," he says : " This people we have heard of daily have endured this unheard-of thing, and endured it for us ... In this respect Belgium stands alone . . . There has been self-sacrifice everywhere else ; but it was self- sacrifice of individuals, each for his own country ; the Servian dying for Servia, or the Italian for Italy. But the Belgian did not merely die for Belgium, Belgium died for Europe. Not only was the soldier sacrificed for the nation; the nation was sacrificed for mankind. It is a sacrifice which CRUCIFIED BELGIUM 207 is, I think, quite unique among Christians ; and quite inconceivable among pagans." Before I proceed, let me say that I fully under- stand just how unpleasant and unwelcome to a world that has been so busy building greater barns in which to bestow its goods, and which was laying the flattering unction to its soul that it was a pretty good sort of a world, and that it had many goods laid up for many years, and which is impatient to eat and to drink and to be merry and to wallow in the mire of filthy lucre, is this thought of the vicarious suff^ering of Bel- gium that calls up before the mind's eye the awful vision of a Crucified Nation. I can readily under- stand how this awful vision is almost as unwel- come to the world as was the ghost of the mur- dered Banquo to Macbeth when it entered the banquet hall, glided to his place, and shook its gory locks at the royal murderer. Nevertheless the thought that gives rise to this awful vision has been born to perish never. It will not down. It can not be downed. Already it haunts a hundred, a thousand, a hundred thou- sand human minds, with a moral insistence not to be denied. The clever eff^orts of those who hold the reins of government in this land and other lands, based upon mixed motives that seem good to their self-regarding minds, may succeed for a time in drawing a thick veil between this awful vision and the eyes of those who though 208 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM they may be duped by the devil when he disguises himself as an angel of light yet hate him with strong hatred once they see him face to face or recognize him in his works ; but this sorry sort of success will not last for long in a world in which, however often the powers of darkness may triumph in the skirmishes, the great battles that ultimately decide the contest are won for God and His Right- eousness. The mind may be diverted from this thought for a day, or a month, or a year, by this or that hush-up policy, this or that crab or crawfish or cuttlefish policy, this or that ostrich-like policy, this or that midnight-burial policy, this or that Pilate-like policy that foolishl}-^ looks to a little water to cleanse a conscience that has shirked a God-imposed responsibility, — by such miserable machinations the mind may be diverted, — but by a power beyond its control, or any man's control, the human mind will revert to the thought, and again and again, with ever increasing might, hu- mane hearts will be haunted by the awful vision of Crucified Belgium. Indeed, could the moral sense of the world be tolled into some cave and lulled to sleep and kept asleep as long as the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, when it awoke and left its cave it would come back to this awful vision with the dreadful feel- ing with which the debauchee with returning con- sciousness comes back to face the tragic facts that have not been changed otherwise than to become CRUCIFIED BELGIUM 209 more imperious by his slumberous drunkenness. Henceforth the world, unless it retrogrades morally — unless it slumps into a moral morass kept dank and fetid by vapors of hell — will find it as impossible to escape from the vision of Cru- cified Belgium as the Psalmist — who cried, " Whither shall I go from thy spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there " — found it impossible to escape from the presence of the Lord. When I first ventured to speak of the cruci- fixion of Belgium, I took care to say that this crucifixion of a whole people, though not unworthy to be compared with the Crucifixion, differed in some important respects from that Perfect Crime. That might well go without saying, and yet it seems best to say it, and to make it clear just what I have in mind. In the case of the Crucifixion the perfection of the crime rests in some large measure upon the fact that the Crucified One was a Perfect Victim. Quite apart from His claims to the highest possible relationship with God, it is the moral judgment of mankind that in the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ the powers of darkness laid violent hands upon and did to death a Perfect Victim. I do not myself think Jesus Christ was crucified because He was perfect. As I have said, I think He was crucified because He stood up to His full height in the way, in the gap, against the powers 210 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM of darkness and absolutely refused to budge an inch or a hair's breadth. It is my profound con- viction that He was put out of the way for the simple reason that He was in the way of the forces of iniquity. Jesus Christ was put out of the way because He stood four-square against the forces of iniquity — sixt}' seconds a minute, siity minutes an hour, twent^'-four hours a day, seven days a week, fifty- two weeks a year. Other reasons there may have been, but that was the predominating reason. The motives that moved men nineteen hundred years ago are, in the main, the motives that move men to-day. Now, in the case of the crucifixion of Belgium the victim is not a perfect victim. That ought to go without saying. No one would for a mo- ment think of making the claim of perfectness for a whole people — the Belgian or any other — that one is ready to make for the Crucified One. Cer- tainly Belgium makes no such claim for herself; and no Belgian thinks of making such a claim; nor does any friend of Belgium. That Belgium has sinned, as other nations have sinned, Belgium knows and, through the lips of some of her noblest sons, freely confesses. Cardinal Mercier has wit- nessed to the truth, not only about his people, but to his people. His tongue is a two-edged sword. Perhaps never did her sins stand out more clearly before her eyes, or the burden of them seem more intolerable than now. CRUCIFIED BELGIUM 211 But in that the Belgium people have sinned, and sinned grievously, they have not shown them- selves different or removed themselves far from other people. Rather have they thereby shown themselves like and drawn themselves near the other peoples of the earth. America can match sins with Belgium any day. There is no Belgian red that can not be matched with an American red. There is no Belgian black that can not be matched with an American black. And what is true of America is equally true of the other nations of Christendom. There are those who are tempted to judge na- tions solely by their lowest types and their lowest moods. But that will not do. So judged every nation would, when weighed in the balances, be found wanting and worthy of condign punish- ment. The highest types and the highest moods of a nation must also be taken into account and given very large consideration. If this is done in the case of Belgium — if due weight is given to the life of her heroic King and to the lives of those valiant men who have served under him, and to the Belgian mood of mind and heart these past sixteen gruelling months, more especially that of her great-hearted Cardinal — I know of no nation, my own or any other, that ranks higher to-day. Indeed, at this moment of history — smothered 212 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM by smooth words as has been the spirit that once made us great — America is not worthy to un- loose the latchet of Belgium's ragged, blood- soaked shoe ! But, let me say again, I have had no thought of even suggesting that in the case of the cruci- fixion of Belgium the powers of darkness found a perfect victim. So far as the fact of her cruci- fixion goes, given the heroic mood of mind and heart in which Germany found Belgium August a year ago when, flinging her own honor to the four winds, she demanded of her little neighbor that she make abject surrender of her birthright as a na- tion of honor — given this — Belgium's state of grace had nothing to do with the case. No degree of national perfection could have saved her from crucifixion. Was it not, indeed, just because Belgium met the dishonorable demand suddenly made upon her with a look that bore marked resemblance to the look that came into the eyes of Jesus when He set His face to go to Jerusalem that the furnace of affliction was heated for her seven times more than the god of War is wont to heat it? Perfection could only have heightened her glory upon the cross to which she was nailed by fiendish hands. Great as that glory is — and it is very, very great ; for much of her dross has been refined into pure gold in the fire of pain ; and much of her sin has been washed away in heroic blood ; — that CRUCIFIED BELGIUM 213 it might have been greater the greater souls in Belgium know full well. And in this heavy hour in which Belgium hangs upon the cross, their su- preme regret is, " It might have been ! " Time forbids the recital of the details of the insolent demand made by her big and brutal neigh- bor upon Belgium to get out of the way in which Almighty God had placed her for just such an hour as struck Sunday night, August 2nd, 1914; or the noble answer Belgium gave, first by word of mouth, and then by the blood of her sons poured out like water. But surely it is not necessary to narrate Bel- gium's history since that bloody Sunday night. The world knows it by heart. Americans of the better sort know it better far than the ignoble history made by their own country during this period of unprecedented presidential hysteria. And the world knows that no nation ever made so much noble history in so short a time as Bel- gium has done. The names of Liege, of Albert, of Mercier, are henceforth synonyms of unselfish heroism in the highest. The world knows the incalculable debt France owes, and Great Britain owes, to Belgium. And the better part of the world knows — in- deed all the world except that poor part of it that dwells in the thick darkness where might seems to make right, and where magnificence in sin seems to set the seal of approval upon sin — 214 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM knows that Belgium not only saved France, and saved Great Britain, but that Belgium saved Europe ! And if Belgium saved Europe, then Belgium saved America and the world ! Today, no doubt, the world sees this truth as it were in a glass darkly. But the day is not far distant when the world will know this truth as truth is known when it is seen face to face by gentlemen unafraid. Then the heart of the world will be pierced through and through as with a sword. And out of the heart of the world which will then know to the full its own bitterness as it realized the meaning of Belgium's self-sacrifice will come the agonizing cry, " She saved others ; herself she could not save ! " " Without their aid," wrote Sir Oliver Lodge in his tribute to the Belgians, " the face of Europe would have been changed past redemption, and the Earth might have been subject to a brutal and intolerable dominance." There is no room to doubt it. A Prussianized world would be a lost world. Prussian Kultur means Human Perdition. A Kaiserized world w^ould be an accursed world. A Hohenzollernized world would be a political hell on earth — save to those, perhaps, who are content " to fiddle and be slaves," as the German historian Gervinus said was the case with his people in their attitude towards their own rulers, and, I add, to the professional pacifist. In such CRUCIFIED BELGIUM 215 a world every true liberty-loving soul would pant even for Hell as the hart panteth for the water- brook. And the Devil, seeing the diabolical glory of his ancient throne grow dim, would abandon it in disgust to become a goose-stepping doorkeeper of hell-scuttling Potsdam. Yes, in a real sense, Belgium is the savior-nation of the modem world. Before closing, let me recall to your minds what it was Clovis and Crillon said when they first heard the story of the Crucifixion. " Had I and my Franks been by," cried Clovis, " we would have avenged the wrong, I warrant." And the French soldier, forgetting for the moment the gulf of time that lay between himself and the Crucifixion, cried out, " What were you about, Crillon, to permit such atrocity? " One sometimes wonders what he would have done had he been in Jerusalem the day — Der Tag — the powers of darkness did their desperate worst to make an end of the Uncompromising Christ. It would indeed be surpassingly interesting to know just where one would have stood that day. And it would also be of great interest to know what at- titude one's own nation, as represented by those who were in a position to speak and act for it, would have taken towards the crucifiers. Well, perhaps the events of the past sixteen months have done more to throw light upon that ethical question than all that has happened since the crowning shame of the human race was un- 216 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM covered to the view of God and His other worlds on the hill-top called Calvary. In our own time another crucifixion, on a colos- sal scale, the details of which are more horrible and more shameful to humanity than those that accompanied the Crucifixion of the Perfect Vic- tim, has taken place. The predominant reason for this twentieth century crucifixion is the same, mutatis mutandis, as the reason for the Crucifixion of the first century. The victim was in the way of the crucifiers. The victim, under an overwhelm- ing sense of duty to God and mankind, stood glo- riously in the gap against Guilty Desire. This twentieth century crucifixion did not take place in a corner. It took place before the amazed eyes of the whole dazed world. And what is more, it has been brought home to the doors of every nation in Christendom, in a manner more delicate than that adopted by the Levite whose concubine was violated and murdered in the days of the Judges of Israel, but in a manner not less difficult to ignore, and accompanied by a like in- vitation to " consider of it, take advice, and speak your minds." Throughout the world men and nations have considered this matter, this infamous matter, this crime, this bloody, brutal worse than barbaric crime, have taken advice, and have spoken their minds, either by word or deed. Most of us know where we stand. And we know where the nations of the earth stand, and how they stand. CRUCIFIED BELGIUM 217 To me — I speak it out of an aching heart that has beaten in utter loyalty for well-nigh half a century — it is a burning and humiliating and will be an everlasting shame, that, brought face to face with the moral crisis produced by this de- liberately planned national crucifixion, my Coun- try, in her official capacity, failed miserably to meet it. She became hysterical. She stammered and stuttered and talked foolishly, childishly, baby- ishly. The Spirit of America was stampeded. Whether or not America dared, America did not speak her mind ! Nor has she spoken it yet ! Privately — by night as it were — individual Americans have done some things that have been called generous by generous-minded souls across the Atlantic. And these private deeds have been a feeble expression of a sympathy with Belgium that a real American naturally feels deep down in his heart and finds it difficult to suppress. But I find it impossible to draw consolation, much less take pride, in these little deeds of personal kind- ness. Indeed, in the face of our awful national failure, our Great American Refusal, I am almost ashamed to speak of that which called for charity only and left courage out of account. One of Raemaekers' cartoons represents a sleek, pot-bellied man of the bourgeois type, well satisfied with himself, and therefore respectable, dressed in the height of fashion, cane in hand, his eyes directed upwards as if he were expecting bounties from heaven. Behind this person, who 218 PATRIOTISM AND RADICALISM is Mynheer Pieterse, is to be seen an Apache, hold- ing in his hand a knife that drips with blood — the blood of a woman lying murdered and denuded on the street. Under this bloody satire one may read the thoughts of Mynheer Pieterse, as inter- preted by the artist : " The fellow has only robbed and murdered his neighbor. Shall I call him a bandit.? No — I'll greet him politely. That's more neutral." " And when He was come near. He beheld the city, and wept over it, saying. If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes." UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY BERKELEY Return to desk from which borrowed. This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. -iAH So '94s 'B49 ■y-" REC'D MAY 20 ^^C'O Lb m5 •64.J2 REC'D LD HAR7 »65-4PM Ji;L12l983 SANTA BARBARA SNTERII5RARY LO>^ LD K£C.CiR.AliG24 JUN 7 21 LD 21-100m-9,'47(A5702sl6)476 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY