WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST All fights reserved WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST A COLLECTION OF TIMELY ARTICLES BY AN AMERICAN CITIZEN RESIDING IN CANADA BY BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD LONDON AND TORONTO J. M. DENT & SONS LTD. NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO. First issued in August 1915 PREFACE THE author of these articles is a United States citizen who has been resident for several years in Canada. He has had the advantages of being a graduate of Harvard College and the Harvard Law School, but has given up the practice of the law and devoted himself to commerce and manufacturing. Coming of old New England stock and revolu- tionary ancestry, the issues of this war have appealed to him as so vital that he has felt that he must speak. He gives this book out not because he thinks he can write, but because he knows that he cannot remain silent. The author makes no apologies for his views. He feels that, on the contrary, apologies are due from those who fail to entertain them. May 1915. 35993 CONTENTS PAGE UTOPIA IN AMERICA ..... i LOYALTY THE PRODUCT OF FREEDOM . . 9 A LETTER ....... 17 THE GERMAN-AMERICAN ..... 19 NATIONAL HONOUR ...... 27 AT THE END OF THE WAR 35 SOME CORRESPONDENCE ..... 47 WHAT THE WAR MEANS TO RUSSIA ... 57 THE BIG WORLD AND THE LITTLE NATIONS . 69 PEACE MUST MEAN PEACE .... 77 AMERICANS IN CANADA ..... 85 OPTIMISM ....... 93 THE FIRST Six MONTHS ..... 101 THE VOLUNTEER ARMIES . . . . . 115 ADDRESS 123 FRANCE . . . . . . . . 147 GERMANY UNCIVILISED ..... 153 PATRIOTISM . . . . . . .163 THE DECREASING VALUE OF NATIONHOOD . 173 AMERICAN AMMUNITION IN BRITISH TRENCHES . 187 THE SADNESS OF THE WORLD ... 191 THE WAY OUT . . . . .195 Vll WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST UTOPIA IN AMERICA THERE are in Canada hundreds of thousands of men who have come from the United States, a part of whom retain their United States citizen- ship, and a part of whom have been naturalised. Among all those people there is a practical unani- mity of opinion upon Canada's course in the war, but the greatest diversity upon the question of the duties of the United States. With one accord these people agree that this is Canada's war as much as Britain's; that, being a unit of the British Empire, Canada is attacked, and must do her part to the last man and the last dollar needed. Their sympathy with the cause of the Allies is unlimited. They feel that Germany and what she stands for must be over- thrown, and that after the war there will arise a condition of economic demand which will enable Canada to utilise her resources to her lasting profit. 2 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST But, in regard to the action or inaction of the United States, there is the widest difference of opinion. Many content themselves with a feel- ing of thankfulness that their native land is neutral and is not suffering from the war to the same extent as the countries which are actively fighting. It almost seems as if with them the " Safety First " propaganda had become an obsession. Patriotism with them is the support of their country in whatever stand she is taking, not an insistence that this stand must be right. They think it statesmanship to sidestep responsibility, to dodge the necessity of making a decision which must be fraught with the hugest consequences, to delay, to postpone, and if possible ultimately to evade the choice. Such a stand, however natural, is consistent only with a statecraft which neglects modern international duties. It is the viewpoint which one might expect from Venezuela or Ecuador. It is the denial of the White Man's Burden. It is the apotheosis of the individual, the subli- mation of the Little and the Small. It is an unacknowledged admission that immediate self- interest must be the governing factor, that to- day's profit and to-day's ease are all-important. It is an absolute denial of the soul of a nation. UTOPIA IN AMERICA 3 There is, however, in Canada, as elsewhere, a large and, I am proud to believe, a rapidly increasing number of Americans who hold very different views. To them the United States is not merely a locality, but an inspiration, an ideal, a history, and if need be a supreme duty. Their country is not a certain number of square miles of more or less fertile land, a certain number of cities and towns, a certain number of industries yielding annually a certain amount of profits. No, America is Bunker Hill and Valley Forge and the little Continental Congress at Phila- delphia; she is Gettysburg and Lookout Moun- tain and Sheridan's Ride; she is Washington and Lincoln and Clay and Daniel Webster; she is Longfellow and Bret Harte and Huckleberry Finn. We who feel thus yield to none in our love for our country, but we love her as a living, thinking, growing, eager, erring, inspiriting entity, not as mere latitude and longitude or a place in which to make money. The United States is the nearest thing to the Golden Rule that has yet happened in nations. We shouted " Cuba Libre," and we bled to prove our words. We believe that we should be willing to bleed to prove Belgium a nation, not a road. At this time and place it were futile to argue 4 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST about the rights and wrongs of this war. We know that however clouded by pettinesses here and obscured by selfishnesses there the origin of the war may have been, the struggle to-day is to decide whether democracy or feudalism shall prevail in the world. No amount of special pleading can blind us to this fundamental fact. And we Americans who feel as I do, knowing that our land has been dedicated to democracy and has until now been the foremost exponent of democracy in the world, believe that the United States of America ought to be taking a leading part in the defence of that democracy by and for which she lives. We, therefore, quarrel with President Wilson and his do-nothing policy. We think he has failed the people whom he has been chosen to lead. To him in large measure has the honour of our country been entrusted, but what account can he give of his stewardship ? Under our form of government no means is yet provided for obtaining at a crisis like this the judgment of the people, and of necessity on the administration rests the formulating of our national position. We hold that Mr. Wilson, to be true to our history, to our ideals, to the soul of our nation, must cease to preach an unprotesting neutrality which for us may become craven and sordid. UTOPIA IN AMERICA 5 We credit him with sincerity, but believe he has been victimised by phrases, and persuaded by blind and narrow counsellors. No price can be too high to pay for our national self-respect. No danger has for the United States of late years been so great as that in her material prosperity she should lose her idealism. No crisis so terrible as the present one has ever arisen. We who love our country for her great- hearted past wish now to see her true to all that is best and noblest in her history. We are entitled to look to our President to guide us along the paths which our position as one of the leaders of civilisation demands that we tread. Instead of this, he is quibbling like a corporation lawyer over niceties of construc- tion and interpretation. He does not see that words are of no consequence at all; that ideas are all-important. The United States is in a position to make rather than to interpret international law. She has it in her power to turn the clock of Time forward a century. Should she boldly promul- gate the doctrine that no nation can commit national barbarisms without incurring the active intervention of every self - respecting nation, these barbarisms would soon cease. There would be an end for all time to the 6 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST wholesale slaughter of civilians, such as took place at Dinant and Tamines; to the murder of women and children by the unannounced bombardment of unfortified places without military significance; to the organised and intended terrorism which seeks to make the lot of the conquered so horrible that no little nation will ever be willing to risk it. She can above all insist that the punctilious performance by every nation of its international obligations entered into by treaty concerns every member of the society of nations. The credit of the world depends upon the faith of the nations, and the safety of the world demands that each nation maintain its faith unblemished. Some say that these views are Utopian. I answer that my country always has been Utopian, and given a fair chance always will be Utopian. We were Utopian when we struggled for our liberties and erected our nation in the image of Freedom; we were Utopian when we decreed that the union of our States was indissoluble and must harbour no slavery within its limits; we were Utopian when we freed Cuba from the tyranny of an unregenerated Spain. Our people still are Utopian, and need but a super-Utopian to lead them to heights of Uto- pianism such as the world has never seen. Now UTOPIA IN AMERICA 7 is the time when my country has an opportunity, unselfishly and with firmness, to take a position which will not only end the present war more quickly and with far less loss of life than if she holds aloof, but will establish rules for the conduct of nations which after the war will make the world a better and a safer place for all men to live in. No nation will dare to enter into an unjust war or to wage a war barbarously if she knows that such action will bring upon her the active intervention of the rest of the world. December 1914. LOYALTY THE PRODUCT OF FREEDOM GREAT BRITAIN lias an asset greater than all assets of all other nations in the world, an asset that makes it certain that she will win this war. No other nation knew she had it Germany suspected it least of all and she herself was not certain she possessed it until she sought to realise upon it and found it worth more than all else she has. Yet this asset has cost her nothing, but has rather paid her rich dividends while she has been acquiring it. It is the unfailing loyalty of all her far-flung peoples. This loyalty is the by-product of the freedom which Great Britain has consistently given to those under her flag. Up to about a hundred years ago, England, like the rest of the great colonising powers, did not know the truth about foreign possessions. She had the false idea that Germany still has and is trying in this war to turn into cash, that foreign countries represent wealth that can be captured and turned to the profit of the con- queror, that a people beaten in war can be 9 io WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST exploited and the fruit of their labour used to enrich the victors. She believed as Germany believes to-day in national burglary, in thievery protected by the force of arms from the punish- ment which overtakes the individual thief when detected. Two great events in her history served to convince England of her error and to bring to her the knowledge which has become the basis of the present greatness and stability of her Empire. The first and far the most important of these was the revolt of the American colonies. Under the stupid and selfish Georges, their selfish and stupid ministers sought to use these colonies as sources of revenue, as taxable proper- ties from which might be derived moneys to help in carrying on the great European wars which she was at the time waging. She was genuinely and intensely surprised at this revolt. She could not understand the Bos- ton Tea Party. She did not recognise the fact that white men dwelling eighty degrees west are the same as those who dwell at the longitude of Greenwich. She regarded this revolt as one to be put down by force, not as one to be nullified by a change of policy; and considered the reten- tion of these colonies at any rate as trivial in comparison with European successes. LOYALTY ii She, therefore, felt that she could spare for subduing this revolution only a few troops, and these not her best, many of them being mer- cenaries; and the defeats they met troubled her not greatly. As a result, she lost forever because of her lack of democratic understanding the country that has become second only to herself in wealth and political importance, and second not even to her as a leader in those demonstrated principles of democracy which are now revolu- tionising the older civilisations. The other great event in recent English history was her experience with the East India Company. Even after she had realised that it was poor business to try to exploit white men under her flag, she none the less thought that it might be done with brown ones. But since the recall of Hastings she has broadened her wisdom as to them also. As a corollary, she has learned that she loses more than she gains when she tries to exploit those who do not live under her flag. Her future history will never have another opium treaty to chronicle. Since Great Britain adopted this later policy, she has been consistent in carrying it out. She has determined that all under her flag must be better off and safer for being a part of her empire, iz WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST and she has sought to link this empire together by ties of interest rather than to hold it together by the broadsides of her fleets. She has therefore consistently given to each constituent part the greatest measure of self- government for which it has capacity, varying from an administration such as that in India or Egypt, where the object is to build up and benefit the country administered, to the absolute and uncontrolled autonomy of her self-governing Dominions like Canada and Australia. Can any one conceive of a nation built on German ideals giving to a conquered South Africa self-government within a few years of the close of the bitter and costly Boer war, and allowing one of the conquered generals to become the head of this government? Even turbulent Ireland would have had home rule .years ago had all of Ireland desired it. This democracy which Great Britain is now so successfully practising in her Empire abroad has also had a tremendous reflex action at home, and year by year the authority of her sovereigns has been curtailed, one by one the powers and privileges of her peers have been restricted, until to-day it is the man rather than the rank that counts, even as in Belgium, where Albert is first not because he is king, but because he is Albert. LOYALTY 13 The British. Tory of to-day is more liberal than the Radical of a generation ago. No other European nation stands to-day for freedom as does Great Britain. From this freedom has come the loyalty which is bringing the active co-operation of every part of the Empire. This war has proved once and for all that free men will sacrifice everything for their freedom, and will die if need be to maintain the government that has given them that free- dom. We knew that white men realised this, and we knew that Canada, Australia, and New Zealand would spring forward with serried ranks of sober-minded and earnest soldiery at the call of the Motherland. But what we did not know was that the other races whose measure of self- government was not so great would likewise have the insight to recognise the fact that this is their war too. The most significant thing which the war has developed in its bearing upon the future of mankind has been the magnificent way in which India has rallied to the flag, and begged that she, too, might have the opportunity to prove her loyalty with her blood and her treasure. Here is a land which for centuries has been the victim of the feuds and strifes of warring principalities and incompatible beliefs, a land 14 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST in which, the mass of the people have not any- thing approaching the education of the western civilisations; where the bazaar rumour takes the place of the press, and the word of mullah or yogi is held the word of God. Yet this India, to us incomprehensible, has comprehended us, and those who in the black year of 1857 sought to kill us, to-day ask nothing better than to die for us. A half-century of unselfishness in administra- tion has bred a loyalty to Great Britain that even religious fanaticisms and the proclamations of Jehads have been unable to overcome. Rajah and Maharajah, Prince and Nizam, have offered to the great British Raj their lives and their treasure chests; Sikh and Ghurka and Pa than and Hindu plead that they too may bleed in the great cause. Has anything in the history of the world so made for optimism ? There is one further step for the world to take, and I still do not despair of seeing the world take it as a result of this war. This is to appreciate that the thing which earns and secures this deserved loyalty is an idea, not a nation. We see it typified in a nation, but in truth it is a cause common to all true nations. Political divisions of nations are supremely unimportant so long as the idealisms on which LOYALTY 15 they are founded are the same. The changes of boundaries which will result from this war matter nothing; the changes in the aspirations of peoples are all-important. England to-day happens to typify a democracy for which the world is willing to suffer, but this democracy is inherent in man- kind, not in England. This war belongs to every free people and concerns them broadly as much as it concerns England. Once the people of the United States realise this fact, I believe that nothing will be able to hold them from joining in the struggle. The world requires that the feudalism existing in Germany be destroyed, and to accomplish this destruction is the duty of every free people. To shirk this duty is pure selfishness. The end of all great wars can only come when all great nations have a similar idealism, when they recognise that there is a cause greater than nationality to which their loyalties are due. This end of war can never be brought about either by armament of disarmament; only the costliness of war may be varied by this means. Where nations are actuated by this supernational conception of freedom, war becomes futile and preparation for war needless. It is inconceivable that America and Great Britain should ever again come to blows because 16 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST both are loyal to the same supernational concep- tion of liberty and of the place of free men in a free world. The lesson that India teaches is that every race has capacity for this conception, and that the time when this supernationalism shall prevail throughout the world is much nearer than those who only see the details of contem- porary history and not its broader significance believe possible. Russia, the last land which we could expect to learn the lesson, shows clear signs that she is learning it; Italy shows that she has it almost learned; the pains of defeat will force Germany and Austria to learn it. To the earnest thinker the future of the world and of the humankind that makes it is brighter than ever before. The federation of the nations is almost in sight. December 1914. A LETTER To the Editor of Every Newspaper, Everywhere SIR, The United States has at last seen fit to make a protest. For months we Americans, who think our country still is what her history shows that she has been, have been hoping and expecting that a protest would be made. We looked for a protest against the invasion of Belgium, against the murder of civilians, against the mutilation of children, against the slaughter of women, wounded, and prisoners, against reprisals forbidden by the Hague Tribunal, against the bombardment of unfortified towns, against the levying of blackmail on conquered cities, against the strewing of floating mines in neutral waters, against the wanton destruction of universities, cathedrals, and works of art, against the insolent leaving of Belgium to starve while bleeding her white with extortion, against the taking of hostages, against the screening of soldiery with women and children, against calculated terrorism, against barbarisms that 17 B i8 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST have made this war hideous beyond any in modern history. But when the protest came it was in behalf of the copper trust and the beef trust, seeking arrangements by which they could add profits from German trade to the profits they are making from British trade. Let them hunt with the hound and run with the hare, and squeeze a few dollars out of each. Shades of Washington and Lincoln, that a Wilson and a Bryan should be in a position to do this thing ! December 1914, THE GERMAN-AMERICAN CANNOT the leopard change his spots ? Is it true that once a German always a German? I cannot believe it. The history of progressive evolution denies it. There can, of course, be no such thing as a German-American. The term itself is contradic- tory. America is the antithesis of Germany in all the things that count; in the idealism which is the basis of citizenship, in the freedom which is the perquisite of this idealism. . Germany is the past, the middle ages, pater- nally administered with all the latest scientific frills, feudalism brought up to date. America is the future; the centuries to come; self- administration and self-government by intelligent units ; the opportunity for the individual. In Germany the citizen exists for the benefit of the State. In America the State exists for the benefit of the citizen. This difference is fundamental. The German idea makes for a more efficient collective organisation, and creates a nation without a soul which can terrorise and bully. The American idea makes for the happi- 19 20 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST ness and progress of the units which form the State. This very difference is the cause of the great emigration from Germany to the United States. It began on a considerable scale in 1848, when the revolution drove many Germans to seek their pursuit of happiness under more favourable skies. The conditions then prevalent compelled them clearly to understand the difference in the lands, and these earlier immigrants knew why they came. If any question had made it necessary for them to choose whether their loyalty should be given to their new country or to their old one, there would have been no hesitation. They had already chosen definitely between freedom and tyranny, and their regard for Germany was only the natural sentimental regard for the land of their birth and not a loyalty to its political constitution. The underlying cause of the more recent influx of Germans has been the same. They sought greater freedom and greater individual opportunity. But later conditions abroad have not been such as to necessitate the clear per- ception of the difference of ideals as in 1848. Then he who ran might read, but afterward the issues were blurred and clouded, and many who THE GERMAN-AMERICAN 21 came failed to recognise the real cause of their coming. They saw, perhaps, only a better chance of prospering and failed to see that this better chance existed because of the difference of national ideals. If these people had to make their choice, they, too, would choose America, but some great necessity will have to arise to compel them to this choice and to crystallise their thought into a discriminating judgment. So long as this necessity for choice can be avoided, it is easier and pleasanter for them to let their sentiment run wild and to shout for Germany. These people cannot be both Americans and Germans. I believe that nearly all of them are Americans, even though they do not know it and think themselves Germans. There is of course among them a number of the blatant and the loud-mouthed, who shout for the Kaiser in order to bring personal promin- ence to themselves or to boom the sale of their papers. They claim to be representative of their fellows, and the falsity of this claim is not made obvious on account of the natural re- pugnance of the more clear-minded of those of German origin to declare against their native land. This blatancy also aids to colour the views of 22 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST those who have not the ability to reason and to differentiate, and in this is capable of great harm. The Ridders are from this point of view a real misfortune, not that they can mislead the wise, but that they may deceive the foolish. Unquestionably there are in the United States a certain number of German spies. The system of espionage has been carried by Germany to such an extent that reports from every country are constantly going to Berlin. But the fatuous State Department there seems absolutely unable to draw conclusions from the facts laid before it. Since it has never been allowed in Germany to criticise the Government, that Government believes that in other countries criticism means hatred. It is unable to comprehend that those whom we love we chasten. It fully believed that the British possessions and Dominions overseas would seize the opportunity of the war to throw off what it regards as the British yoke. The loyalty that comes from freedom is to it a sealed book. This stupidity at home to a great extent nullifies both the harm and the good that might come from the reports of these spies, for in so far as these reports relate to conditions of opinion Germany cannot understand them, and in so far as they relate to physical conditions of THE GERMAN-AMERICAN 23 defence and armament they are futile because Germany will never be in a position to wage war on the United States in the United States. The number of these spies is also insignificant in comparison with the number of people of German origin, however large it may be compared with spies of other nations. The extraordinarily amateurish Government now at Washington does not understand these conditions. One of the reasons why it is so sedulously maintaining a neutrality which patriotic Americans deem selfish and shameful undoubtedly is a fear of the German-born popu- lation in the nation. Mr. Wilson is probably above sacrificing the honour of his country for party reasons, and does not guide his actions solely by fear of Germanic votes, but really fears internal rebellion if he takes the stand that the history and ideals of his country demand. This fear I believe to be entirely unfounded, but it is doubtless one of his excuses for inaction. He ought to recognise that this fear must either have or lack a basis in fact. If the latter, he is building up a bogey-man and is frightened of shadows; if the former, nothing is more impor- tant for the country than that the disease should be diagnosed and the remedy applied as soon as possible. 24 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST The greatness of the United States has been due to its power of assimilation, to the fact that at the end of a generation the polyglot immigra- tion that has poured through Ellis Island has be- come American. I believe that the clarification of thought that a necessity for choice must induce will prove that the German immigration, too, has, with regard to its great mass, become American. If I am wrong, no price would be too high to pay to extirpate the cancer. America cannot remain America if it tolerates in any considerable part of its population ideals utterly inconsistent with its history and the democracy on which it is founded. If, of all the peoples to whom the United States has opened its gates, the Germans alone are incapable of becoming Americanised, then immigration laws should be made and enforced which would prevent another German from ever entering the country. That such a state of things exists is inconceivable, and the yammer- ings of the pro-German organs should deceive no one. Again I repeat that the German-American is an impossibility. One cannot serve God and Mammon. Until the choice has to be made between the democracy of America and the feudalism of Germany, sentiment and association THE GERMAN-AMERICAN 25 naturally cause the German-sprung to speak kindly of Germany; once, however, the issue is clear, democracy will, as always, come forth triumphant. Even if there were not a thousand other reasons, ranging from bleeding Belgium to the Hague Tribunal, why the United States should be aligned with the foes of Kaiserism, this proof of its democracy alone should be compelling. Let us demonstrate that Americans are Americans, no matter under what sky they were born. January 1915. NATIONAL HONOUR THERE is such a thing as the honour of a nation. It is the only thing that is worth fighting for. It is the only thing that can make future wars unnecessary. There is no phrase which has been so misused, none which has so frequently been made a cover for greed and aggression. It has been the cloak behind which Junkerism has hidden its ugliness. " Wolf! wolf! " has been shouted so many times that disbelief has become habitual. But the fact remains none the less that wolves do exist, and that the honour of a nation is its most holy heritage. Every evil cause seeks to bolster itself up with claims of good, and often succeeds in bringing what is really good into disrepute because the falsity of these claims is not recognised. There never has been a jingoism or a militarism that has not declared itself to be the guardian of national honour. It is a stock disguise. It has become so com- mon that those who have had the wit to penetrate it, but not the understanding to reason incisively, 27 28 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST have come to think that national honour is a mere mask, a tissue to cover national aggression, the time-worn excuse of the national bully. International treaties of arbitration have habitually excepted subjects of dispute which involve national honour; and many think that this exception has nullified their value because it is often claimed that national honour is involved when in fact only national interest or national desire is at stake. An excellent illustration of this false claim of national honour being involved is given by the recent Vera Cruz incident. Here a government, which was diplomatically unrecognised, and therefore diplomatically non-existent, refused to explode a" salute of a certain number of guns in token of respect to the nation which refused to acknowledge the existence of the erring govern- ment which refused to fire the guns. National honour was therefore involved and Vera Cruz had to be seized. But when the government which did not exist diplomatically ceased to exist actually, Vera Cruz was not evacuated. Later, when nothing had been accomplished, and the guns still remained un- fired, the troops were withdrawn from Vera Cruz. If this thing were not serious, it would be NATIONAL HONOUR 29 opera bouffe. Everybody knows that the ques- tion of national honour had nothing whatsoever to do with the affair. The United States can continue to exist without inconvenience even if General Huerta does not fire twenty-one guns. It cannot continue to exist if it ceases to be true to itself. It may well be that the United States not only ought to have taken Vera Cruz, but ought to have done a great deal more, but it is ridiculous to cloud the duty with nonsense about its honour being insulted by a lack of guns. National honour has to do with the conduct of a nation, not with the conduct of other nations toward it. The other idea is that which was at the root of the obsolete duello. If a cad thumbs his nose at a gentleman, the latter is no longer held to be wounded in his honour and obliged to risk his life. The same thing is equally true of nations. The carrying of chips on national shoulders is out of date, and honour is not injured by the ill- breeding of others. When thus stated in plain words, this proposition seems self-evident; but a failure to recognise it has been the basis of many wars which otherwise would never have been permitted to occur. Conditions may arise, however, where national honour is involved, where a nation must act to 30 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST preserve its honour. This honour is not affected by the act of another nation, but an outside act may be such that the nation damages its honour by not itself acting. A nation's honour is in its own charge and can be affected only by its own acts or failures to act. The most common instance affecting the honour of a nation is the existence of a condition which requires action for the fulfilment of its obligations. A nation cannot with honour fail in its engage- ments any more than can a business house. The most solemn undertakings of a nation are those which it voluntarily assumes by its treaties. So long as the obligations of its treaties remain in force any nation loses its honour if it neglects them. Belgium was in honour bound to resist the German invasion of her frontier. Rather than lose her honour she was willing to suffer the utter- most that can come to any nation. Her action and her sacrifice will forever place her name fore- most on the roll of them to whom honour was supreme. Great Britain was in honour bound to declare war against Germany when Belgium's neutrality was violated, and she has taught the world the value of scraps of paper when they contain a nation's honour. NATIONAL HONOUR 31 When the question of the obligation of the United States arose in connection with tolls on the Panama canal, Mr. Wilson very properly realised that the honour of his country demanded that it should do nothing that by any nicety of construction could be held to be contrary to its treaty understandings. Apparently, however, he has never heard of the conventions of the Hague Tribunal, signed by President Roosevelt, or assuredly he must, as to them also, have safe- guarded the honour of his country. There is also a national honour deeper and more fundamental than that which comes from written undertakings. This is the duty of every nation to be true to its history, to its ideals, to the con- ception of freedom on which it has been erected. Noblesse oblige for a nation, as for a man; and the honour of a United States demands a far higher standard of unselfishness than the honour of San Domingo requires. It is the duty of every President to guard this unwritten and inherent honour as sedulously as it is to see that his country's treaties are per- formed. The rank of a nation among its fellows may be judged by the fineness of this unwritten honour, for much must be given by them who possess much. It is the soul of a nation, and the greatness of this soul is shown by its willingness 32 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST to perform in the concrete what it professes in the abstract. The American people has a right to look to the President to express the soul of the nation. This nation has been founded on democracy, has bled for democracy, and through democracy has come to its present high estate. It has until now typified democracy to the world. Now that the deepest and most sacred honour of the nation demands that in the colossal struggle between democracy and absolutism throughout the world the United States shall make its position clear and unmistakable, Mr. Wilson will not be forgiven for not acting in accordance with the traditions and the nobility of his country. No fear of the blatant Germans in the land, " vocal out of all proportion to their numbers or their importance," will serve to excuse him. However interesting the game of party politics may be, he has no right at this time, and in this matter, to play it. I believe the honour of the United States is too great and too sacred a thing to be destroyed by any one man. If it shall happen that the man to whom the honour of the country is chiefly entrusted shall prove unworthy of his stewardship, the action which the honour of the NATIONAL HONOUR 33 nation demands may be delayed, but cannot be prevented. The judgment of the people when time has been given for the crystallisation of its thought will prove irresistible. Such a condition makes it doubly the duty of the clear-thinking and patriotic to spread the propaganda of national idealism, and to make it evident to the people that the very greatness of the land and its history forbids it to stand aside when all that it holds holy is at stake in the world. January 1915. AT THE END OF THE WAR THE time has come to consider what must be done at the end of the war to make the new peace a lasting one. There is, of course, only one possible outcome to the war which the world can tolerate. Germany and her allies must be compelled to a peace which shall not be threat- ened by the menace of militarism, and which shall make all Europe free from conscription, as the Americans are free. When two or three years of the best part of the life of every young Frenchman, German, and Russian are no longer required for military service, this relief will go far towards paying the enormous cost of the war. And when the non-productive expenditures on guns, fortresses, and navies are lessened by many hundreds of millions of dollars annually, the saving will pay the interest on a huge volume of war bonds. No peace can be economically permitted which does not provide for both of these great reforms. The world is fortunate in having at this time the unselfish and clear-minded services of Sir Edward Grey, for to the world, even in greater degree than to Great Britain, must these services 35 36 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST be given. His character and the history of his statesmanship make it clear that he recognises this world-duty. Of the great men of to-day Joffre, the re- liable; Kitchener, the organiser; Grand Duke Nicholas, the brilliant; Albert, the inspiration; and Grey, the statesman Grey is the most valuable and would be the hardest to replace. When Lincoln was murdered, it was truly said that in him the Confederacy lost its greatest friend. Even so, at the end of the war the people of Germany will have in the vision of Sir Edward Grey their greatest asset. There seems little doubt but that he will dominate the making of peace. By far the most important political event since the outbreak of hostilities was the protocol en- tered into by Great Britain, France, and Russia. This protocol contained two distinct provisions, and in the popular mind the fact that the first was more striking has caused the deeper import of the second to be overshadowed. First, it was provided that no one of the parties to the agreement would make peace without the consent of the other two. This makes it certain that the Triple Entente will win the war. By this the knell of the Kaiser was rung, as the Kaiser himself knows. AT THE END OF THE WAR 37 Secondly, it was provided that no one of the parties, in making peace, would demand terms not satisfactory to the other two. This makes it certain that the peace will be a lasting one. By this the knell of Kaiserism was rung; but whether the Kaiser himself has the vision to understand it is very doubtful. No greed on the part of any victor shall be allowed to impose conditions so bitter that in the nature of things they can be but temporary. The temperance of concerted wisdom, dominated by the temperance of Grey, will have to prevail. The world needs Germany and cannot afford to see her destroyed. But this Germany that must be preserved is not the Germany of to- day, but the Germany of to-morrow and to a certain extent of yesterday; not the Germany of the mailed fist and blood and iron, but of thrift and intelligent labour and scientific pro- duction; the Germany that helps to live, not that dooms to death. The world needs Goethe and Schiller and Wagner and Beethoven and Nuremberg and Munich just as it can no longer tolerate Bernhardi and Treitschke and Nietzsche and William II. and Essen and Potsdam. For a generation it will be difficult to get fair treatment for the people of Germany; and for a generation there will be upon these people a 38 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST burden of payment which will be hard to bear. These things are inevitable. The millions who have suffered deep personal loss from the war, to whom during the war the very name of Germany has been anathema, cannot forget and cannot lightly forgive. There will be a legacy of hatred towards the individual, a failure to recognise that the individual is the victim, not the cause, of conditions which have been insufferable. Unquestionably Germany, and the feudalism that rules her, was directly responsible for the war; equally unquestionably Germany, once the war was afoot, has been fighting for her very existence as she is now constituted. It is impossible to expect that the mass of her people should differentiate between the false Germany which must cease to exist and the true Germany which is entitled to their loyalty. Every instinct of their nationalism, every impulse of their training, every bar of their national tunes, has urged them to support the Government which they have never been allowed to discuss or to criticise as happier peoples have been allowed to criticise freer Governments. The very qualities of courage and efficiency which will make these Germans valuable to the world, once their point of view ceases to be dis- AT THE END OF THE WAR 39 torted, have now made them a menace to the world. Only when the outcome of the war is clear to them will they begin to question the leadership which brought it about. Because for a generation there has been no free press in Germany, Prussianism has been able to make the people see red, and until they cease to see red they cannot be expected to be disloyal to their Kaiser. But once the time comes, as come it must, when defeat and invasion clear their vision and they themselves see the falseness of their gods, then will they also appreciate the value of the political evolution which will entitle them to their place in the society of nations. This brings us to the consideration that at the end of the war there will be no problem of what to do with the Kaiser. If he is still living, if neither disease nor suicide nor assassination have already ended his career, nothing must be done which may make of him a legendary martyr. St. Helena is entirely obsolete. He may be safely left to the people whom he has deceived. To one of his temperament the knowledge of his colossal failure will be far more bitter than any other punishment which a civilised people could inflict upon him. The inevitable loss of his empire and the end of his dynasty will be the heaviest burden that can be laid upon him. 4 o WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST Personally, I do not expect that he will survive the collapse of his country, but I believe he will meet death at his own hands, if he does not suffer it at the hands of one of his dupes. What of the territory of the conquered nations ? Undoubtedly it will be trimmed to suit newer conditions. France will get back her ravished provinces. Alsace and Lorraine will again be French, and the statue of Strasbourg, in the Place de la Concorde, will doff her mourning. This is all the European territory that France will acquire. It is merely the restoration to the owner of the property stolen forty-four years ago. But there are other stolen properties which will also have to be restored. Heroic Belgium will arise greater than before, and Aachen will again become Aix - la - Chapelle. Even though the Scandinavian countries shall be able to remain neutral to the end, Denmark will probably get back the Schleswig - Holstein that the great European thief stole from her fifty years ago. With this restoration will have to be coupled some provision in regard to the Kiel Canal, which shall make it forever neutral and no longer a menace to the world. If, as seems probable, something like a federation be estab- lished of the three Scandinavian kingdoms, it is likely that to them, under proper guarantees AT THE END OF THE WAR 41 from all the great powers, may be entrusted the gates of the Baltic, both through the Cattegat and through the Kiel Canal. So much for Western Germany. In the east, the old Poland will be re-erected as an autonomous unit in the Russian Empire, and East Prussia, as far as the mouth of the Vistula, will become a part of it. This new Poland will, of course, also comprise Galicia, on the south. When we come to consider the Austro- Hungarian Empire, the questions of division become much more complicated and difficult. This empire, old and great as it has been, will cease to exist. For many years it has been an 'unnatural and artificial structure, and it will fall absolutely to pieces. Europe will at last be free of Hapsburgs, as it will be free of Hohenzollerns. Bukowina will become Russian, Transylvania will go to Roumania. The endeavour must be made to draw the boundaries according to racial populations, so that the units may be as homo- geneous as possible. The part of Hungary which is Magyar will probably be made an independent nation a limited monarchy or a republic. Bosnia and Herzegovina will, of course, be- come Serbian, with possibly Slavonia, Croatia, and Dalmatia. Trieste, with the Trentino, as 42 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST well as Albania, will be Italian, and the Adriatic will become an Italian lake, with trading rights assured for the seaports of Serbia and Montenegro. All that is Germanic of Austria should become a part of the new Germany. Many districts which are at present not at all German in sympathies are none the less probably racially sufficiently German to be safely constituted into German states. For this is the destiny of Germany, to be a confederation of states, prob- ably republican in form of government, each free and equal and relieved of Prussian domination. As military disasters twice bred a French republic, so will the downfall of Kaiserism bring about a republican Germany. It may not follow immediately on the heels of peace, but it is sure to come as a result of the war. A temporary government made up of duchies and kingdoms may be established, but it will only be to prepare the way for a Vereinigten Staaten von Deutschland. Then and then only will it be safe for the world to forget that the Teuton is a Hun. Turkey will cease to exist. The time has come for the Sick Man of Europe to die, and his death will extend to Asia also. The Ottoman Empire has long been an anachronism, and now is the time when " Finis " must be written. AT THE END OF THE WAR 43 The ownership of Constantinople will be the hardest thing to decide. There is no question but that Russia ought to have it. Can Russia be trusted to have it ? I believe that this will be the solution, and that the Dardanelles must be in Russia's immediate charge, under guaran- tees of perpetual neutrality. The greater part of what remains of Turkey in Europe will probably go to Bulgaria, including Adrianople. Of Turkey in Asia a strip along the Black Sea from the Caucasus should accom- pany Russia's ownership of the Straits, so that she shall have land access to the Bosphorus. The rest of Asiatic Turkey might well be erected into a Caliphate, under British protection. Germany will be stripped of all the foreign possessions which she has so signally failed to administer successfully. The greater part of them will go to Great Britain, not so much because Great Britain needs the colonies as because the colonies need Great Britain. The Cape to Cairo railroad will be all red. France may receive some additional African territory, as may also Belgium, for whom nothing will be too good; but Africa will become essen- tially British, except along the Mediterranean. The German islands in the Pacific will be British. Kiao Chow will be in Japanese posses- 44 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST sion; but if Japan is as wise as I believe her to be, she will restore it to China very shortly after the war. Nothing else that she could do would give her such prestige or so entitle her to a place among the leaders of the world. No other act could so confound those who cry of the Yellow Peril and see Tokio fighting San Francisco. Such unselfishness would repay Japan a hundredfold for what it costs her. In the matter of money indemnities, the sums which the beaten countries can pay are, of course, limited. Turkey can pay nothing. She is bankrupt and must go through insolvency. The highest amount which can be wrung out of what remains of Germany and Austria-Hungary after the trimmings already mentioned will not exceed ten billions of dollars, and may not be more than half of this. Not a shilling must come to Great Britain. Her greatness denies that she may take money pay for what she has done. Belgium must be given all the money needed to restore her so far as money can restore probably one and a half billion dollars. France must have back the ransom of which Germany robbed her in 1871, with good heavy interest, and also an indemnity for the destruc- tion of her northern provinces. It may take AT THE END OF THE WAR 45 two and a half or three billion dollars to pay the bill. Serbia and little Montenegro will also have to be paid; perhaps three-quarters of a billion for the former and two hundred and fifty million for the latter. Russia should be great enough not to demand money, although she could hardly be blamed if she sought to be re-imbursed for part of her outlay and for the destruction wrought in Poland. Japan also can show her magnanimity to the world by demanding no money. There remains the question of armaments. All of the German and Austrian dreadnoughts and ships of the line which have not been trans- formed into " unter see booten " must go to Britain. The world must trust Britain to guard the routes of trade until there shall be an inter- national navy to do this international job. The history of the last hundred years proves that the world will be safe in so trusting Britain. The Krupp works must be destroyed, except in so far as they are suited to the needs of peace. Such of the border fortresses as have not been destroyed must be demolished ; those of Germany under compulsion; those of the victors volun- tarily. The fact that they have proved of little 46 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST use against modern siege artillery will make the nations more ready to do this. Finally, the boundaries established must be guaranteed by every great power, each of whom must be bound to prevent with force of arms, if need be, any violation or forcible alteration of frontiers. If every great power is bound by scraps of paper, which will hereafter have more weight than in the past, to protect each guaran- teed frontier, even as Great Britain protected Belgium, national usurpation of real estate will cease. If these things are brought about, as they can be brought about, by the war, it will not have been fought in vain; and Tommy Atkins, Jean Francois, and Ivan Ivanovitch will deserve very well of the world for which they have suffered and died. It is chiefly up to Sir Edward Grey to justify their deaths. January 191 5. SOME CORRESPONDENCE Letter to Mr. Gould OTTAWA, January 15, 191$. Mr. B. A. GOULD, Toronto. Thank you for the three magazines which you have sent me. I have read with considerable interest the articles in which you so eloquently plead for the entry of the United States into the war on the side of the Allies. It would interest me very much if you will take the time to drop me a line and state just how you think the United States should take part, what direction the participation should take, and what you assume the results would be. I shall then be ready to argue the matter out with you when next we meet. I believe that in theory I go even farther than you do in respect to national obligation in such cases, but do not understand the facts in quite the same light as you, and certainly do not see the opportunity quite as clearly. 47 48 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST Mr. Gould's Reply TORONTO, January 19, 1915. To , Ottawa. I am glad so far as I am able to put into words what I think our country ought to do. This will necessarily involve a consideration of the altera- tion of conditions due to the failure of the United States to act heretofore, and how far it is possible, in my estimation, to remedy the evil already done to its prestige and its honour. At the very outbreak of hostilities, or even before, at the time when war seemed imminent, I think that the State Department ought to have sent an identical note to each of the powers involved, calling their attention to the fact that the United States was a signatory to the con- ventions of the Hague Tribunal of 1907, and as such signatory would expect each warring power in conducting hostilities to abide strictly by the rules therein set forth; and further stating that the note of the United States was based not only on its technical obligations as aforesaid, but much more broadly and fundamentally upon its position as one of the great powers, believing that modern civilisation, if unable to prevent war, should do all in its power to mitigate its horrors, SOME CORRESPONDENCE 49 and to spare, so far as might be, blameless non- combatants from its rigours. Such a note would have placed the United States in a position wherein any authenticated instance of the violation of the adopted rules of warfare, or of inhumanity or barbarism, could properly have been brought to its attention and made the basis of an emphatic protest addressed to the offending power. It is most unlikely that such protest would have remained unheeded, as no nation would have been willing to incur the odium of the adverse judgment of the greatest of the non- combatant nations, or to run the risk of having the 'immense resources of the United States in money, supplies, and equipment, besides an efficient navy and enormous possibilities in men, enlisted actively against it. Such a course would in all probability have resulted in allowing the United States to main- tain an honourable neutrality throughout the war, have prevented such reversions to barbar- ism as took place in many Belgian towns, and in the Austrian invasion of Serbia, have pre- served from destruction Louvain, Malines, and the Cathedral of Rheims; have stopped the baby-killing expedition to Scarborough and the reckless strewing of floating mines in neutral D So WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST waters; have forbidden reprisals and the levy- ing of ransom on captured cities; have made impossible other atrocities too numerous to mention here, and in other ways have greatly minimised the misery resulting from the war. It would also have given the United States a status that would have naturally made it an important factor at the making of peace, and would have given it enormous weight and influence in securing at that time essential ameliorations of international compacts, the value of which to the progress of civilisation cannot be overstated. This position not having been taken by the United States at the beginning of the war, I believe that the moment that the government became cognisant of the commission by any belligerent of barbarisms or atrocities, it should have investigated them, and, if substantiated, should have made them the basis of a vigorous protest. Such a protest would have lacked much of the force which it would have carried if a note or declaration of position, as previously mentioned, had been delivered, but it nevertheless would undoubtedly have had great effect and would have accomplished much in lightening the burden of sorrow which the war has caused. SOME CORRESPONDENCE 51 It would also have made such a protest as the commercial one recently made to Great Britain far more suitable, and would have re- lieved the United States from the accusation of caring only for its pocket-book. Whether or not this last protest was justified is of com- paratively little importance; it is supremely unfortunate that action should have been taken which can make it possible for the United States to appear to the world as negligent of high ideals and deaf to the calls of humanity, but insis- tent on the full money payment to which it is entitled. At this point I think I should call your atten- tion to the fact that the position of the United States should not in any way depend upon whether under a technical examination the obligations of the Hague Tribunal agreement should be held to be in effect or not. The United States signed them in the belief that they would be in effect, and certainly should not seek to avoid its duties thereunder on a technicality. The need now is for a statesman, not for a corporation lawyer skilled in evading legal responsibility, and statesmanship should be based upon the requirements of humanity and civilisation, a foundation much broader than the Hague conventions, which sought merely 52 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST to reduce to the concrete of definite regulation some of trie abstractions of international ideals. The government of the United States having, as I believe, hitherto signally failed to take the action due, not only to the world, but to itself, the only way to recover its prestige, and to make effective the power for good inherent in the nation, is to take action which will probably cause it to cease to be neutral. The opportunity for honourable and useful neutrality has been lost. I believe that the State Department should publicly notify the governments of Great Britain, France, Russia, Belgium, Serbia, Montenegro, and Japan that the course of events has been such as to convince the United States that its own safety and the survival in the world of the principles of democracy, upon which the nation has been founded, and which is its most sacred heritage, require that the result of the war should be a defeat of Germany, Austria, and Turkey; that the admitted breach of national guaranty shown by the invasion of Belgium makes it of vital import to all nations who themselves believe in maintaining the sanctity of such guaranties, that this breach bring punishment and the re-establishment of the obligation of such guaranties; that the militaristic system SOME CORRESPONDENCE 53 commonly known as Prussianism has shown itself to be a menace to the world and can no longer be tolerated; that the safety of small and unoffending nations must be assured; that at the end of the war international agreements should be made looking to a large decrease in armaments; and that in order to promote the accomplishment of these ends which it thinks so important, the United States is prepared to lend the allied belligerents its moral and financial support, and to agree so far as possible to prevent any of its citizens from aiding the German alliance. Such a communication would under ordinary circumstances at once call forth a declaration of war from Germany, and probably even under the conditions of approaching exhaustion there prevalent, would lead to such a declaration. It would then be for the United States to decide whether it would actively proceed to create forces suitable for use on the European terrain, or whether, like Japan since the fall of Tsing Tau, it would content itself with passive belligerency. In either case it would have re-established its prestige and put itself into a position where, at the end of the war, it could exercise an enor- mous influence in making conditions of inter- national agreement which would be of supreme 54 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST effect in advancing civilisation and promoting the safety and happiness of mankind. The one valid argument against such action by the United States seems to me to be the fear that such a course might to a great extent destroy its ability to mitigate the suffering in Belgium. But this drawback is insignificant in comparison to the good which can be accom- plished for the world and for future generations. American charity in Belgium maybe administered by Dutch hands. Many people fear that any such action on the part of the United States would be followed by revolt and sedition among those of German birth within its borders. I do not believe it; but even if it were so, I believe that such revolt could be put down with far less harm to the nation than is coming from an attitude incon- sistent with the ideals and the history of our past, and the doctrines of democracy upon which our country has been founded. We are too intelligent a people to fail to recog- nise that this war is essentially a conflict to decide whether democracy or autocracy shall prevail in the world, and we have a paramount duty to ourselves, to our conception of freedom, to the world of which we form a part, to do the utmost in our power to promote for the great SOME CORRESPONDENCE 55 mass of humankind the principles in which we believe. We know that a victory by Germany and the success in Europe of the Philosophy of Force would necessarily mean war at no distant time between Germany and America, and that this war would be much harder for us to conduct successfully at a time when Germany had beaten down the other opposition to her and could devote all her strength to crushing America. There is no use in blinding ourselves to the fact that the Allies are fighting the battle of America just as much fundamentally as they are fighting their own, and the dignity and generosity of the American people make it unfitting in the highest degree that we should be guilty of the selfishness of doing nothing to assist those who are in reality fighting for us and all that we hold holy. If we do our part in bearing the burden which German militarism has imposed upon the world, we may be instrumental in bringing about the enormous advance in world conditions which must be made to result from this war. Then truly at every place and at every time may each of us be proud to say: " Civis Americanus sum." BENJAMIN A. GOULD. WHAT THE WAR MEANS TO RUSSIA RUSSIA, dark and terrible, eager and striving, poetic and fanciful, degraded and sordid, Russia, the land of contrasts and contradictions, of wonderful possibilities, of awful failures, of the knout and the fervour of aspiration, of black bread and music, quick with the longing for freedom, heavy with the burden of tyranny what will the war do to Russia ? Is it not an awful thing, say many people, that England and France, who represent the farthest advance in European civilisation, should be fighting alongside of Russia the medieval? I say no, it is not awful; it is splendid, it is glorious, it is inspiring. In the spirit that makes this alliance possible lies the hope of the world. It typifies the future of mankind. It is a beacon- light for generations still unborn. It is the justification of humanity. King Edward the Seventh was worth a century to the world, the world that he saved. His few years of reign, during which nothing of moment happened, were none the less salvation. If he, not only the First Gentleman, but also the First 57 58 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST Diplomat of Europe, had not had the vision to create the Triple Entente, nothing could have prevented Germany from imposing her will upon all of Europe. Once the doctrine of physical superiority had made Europe a vassal to Berlin, America would have had but short shrift. There is no question but what ultimately the principles of democracy would have come forth triumphant, even if this calamity had overtaken mankind, but the victory of democracy would have had to be accomplished by the tedious processes of evolu- tion within a world dominated by absolutism. Revolution would have had to be engendered and ripened before it could hope to overcome the inertia of the conditions existing. The change would have had to come from within, and in spite of an autocracy doing all in its power to stifle it. In other words, the whole world would have been in the position in which Russia now is, except that it would not have had the assistance and inspiration from without which is now coming to Russia, and would have lacked the pressure from without which is now so markedly influenc- ing the Government of Russia. It is conservative to say that it would have taken the world a hundred years to reach the WHAT IT MEANS TO RUSSIA 59 point at which the end of this war will find it, and this saving of a hundred years in its history the world owes to Edward the Seventh. Example is of the same effect with nations as with men. The example of a successful demo- cracy in America was the incentive to the success of democracy in Europe. The downfall and ruin which is coming to absolutism in Germany will be an example to other autocracies which will make them mend their ways. The Romanoffs have never been fools, and they will mark the exit of Hapsburgs and Hoheri- zollerns from the European stage with an under- standing eye. The success of the French and British democracies will teach a lesson to all who are not involved in the German crash. And since in addition to example there is associa- tion with victorious democracy, the influence on Russia will be enormous. This generality can be fairly deduced from history and its truth emphasised by this war, that the world can afford to trust democracies but cannot afford to trust autocracies. People in the mass are not subject to the same influences which succeed in corrupting the individual. This is the first time that Russia has ever been in decent company. The cave man has 60 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST been asked out to dinner, and is looking for his evening clothes. His manners and his morals will both be permanently benefited by his association. He is going to take excellent care that his behaviour is such that he will be asked again. The influence of London and Paris on Petro- grad is going to be of supreme importance. Russia realises that her association with France and Britain places her in a position in the world which she has never before held. She is of all the nations the most self-contained, and hitherto has been content to go strictly her own way and work out her own salvation. Her contact with other nations has been altogether along her own frontiers, and her lust of conquest has been purely for contiguous expansion of her already enormous bulk. She has taken less part than any other great power in international politics, asking only to be let alone. The time for this isolation has come to an end, and Russia recognises this fact. She must henceforth take her place among the nations as a member of their society, and must lay aside the role of a recluse. It is, therefore, of great moment that in making her national friendships she should associate herself with those who are leading progress WHAT IT MEANS TO RUSSIA 61 rather than with those who hinder it, and her fortune in her allies is of happy augury not only for herself but for the world. A Russia not supremely influenced by the restraint of France and Britain and victorious under her old regime, might prove almost as great a menace to the world as Germany has been. But her victories will not have been gained by German methods or by her old methods, but by the granting of a nearer approach to democracy within her own borders, and the adoption in her foreign policies of French and British guidance. Russia was overwhelmingly defeated by Japan in a war wherein the mass of her people could hope for an amelioration of their lot only if Russia lost. That war was not a war of the people, but a war of the existing Grand Ducal Cabal. Had it been successful it would have served merely to confirm the system of absolu- tism prevailing. The cause of democracy needed Russia's defeat in 1904 just as it needs her success in 1915. Out of her Japanese defeat came the reorganis- ation which made possible the Russia of to-day. That defeat spelled clearly the lesson that official corruption and a sneering disregard of the needs of the mass of the people means ruin. It 62 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST emphasised the fact that the strength of a nation lies in the strength of her people, not in the strength of her rulers. Strong and wise rulers may make effective the strength of the people, as weak and foolish ones may nullify it, but without this strength behind the government, government is powerless. The war that Russia is now fighting is a war of her people, not of her rulers, and we see the apparent anomaly of a democratic war being waged by autocratic Russia. The powers that be in Russia know that this is a democratic war, and they have with extra- ordinary courage made a complete volte-face, and are carrying it on as a democratic war. The leaven that began its fermentation in 1904 is leavening the lump. In view of the long tradition of Russian absolutism, it is wonderful that Petrograd should show both the discernment and conviction necessary to carry out the present reforms, and to make this struggle one of the people and for the people. We cannot, of course, tell how far this dis- cernment and conviction has been instigated by Grey and the foreign influence, but no matter whence comes the impulse for the change, the full credit for it must be given to the dynasty. WHAT IT MEANS TO RUSSIA 63 The world is beginning to revise its earlier judgment of the Tsar, and to-day is attributing to Nicholas and his advisers qualities and vision far in advance of what it ascribed to him five years or even one year ago. Great events and great needs often produce great men and great wisdom. Out of the life-throes of America rose Lincoln; out of the life-struggle of Europe are rising Nicholas the Tsar and Nicholas the Grand Duke. The cause of democracy required that the bureaucratic war of 1904 should be lost by Russia, and through its loss democracy gained the first indications of a real parliament, as shown by the Douma, the first symptoms of an eco- nomic freedom, as evinced by the admitted efficacy of organised and concerted industrial strikes, and the first flickering light of religious toleration. Democracy now requires that the present war should be won, because it is democratic in its nature, and the success of Russian arms will gain for the Russian people an improvement in conditions which will for the first time permit the development of which they are capable. The writing has appeared on the wall, and the rulers have had the wit to understand it and the faith to act upon it. Mene, mene, tekel, 64 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST upharsin has not been wasted upon them, and great will be their reward. The Russian Empire, like the British Empire, is being unified by this war, but whereas the unification of the British Empire has been lateral, has been the bringing into closer com- munion of many widely separated parts, the unification of Russia has been vertical, the bringing together of different and hitherto antagonistic strata of its society. The Little Father is to-day closer to the Moujik than ever before. Nihilism, socialism, industrialism, sabotage are being merged in Russianism, and when, after the war, they again break forth, it will be with a much diminished virulence. The blood which is being drained into the watersheds of the Vistula is cementing Russia into a national entity deserving of the loyalty which its previous history forbade. The Government of Russia is recognising these altered conditions with a splendid courage and a clairvoyant insight. It is taking no half measures. It appreciates as never before that it must look to the welfare of its people, and in the crisis it is showing an unselfishness entirely unparalleled in the annals of autocracy. When before, for example, has such a govern- ment, at a time when revenue was needed WHAT IT MEANS TO RUSSIA 65 urgently and insistently, voluntarily given up an assured profit of many hundreds of millions of roubles annually? Yet this is what Russia is doing to-day in cancelling its vodka monopoly and forbidding at an hour's notice all alcohol to nearly two hundred millions of people. Those who have done this, who have forbidden it not only to the moujiks but to themselves as well, are the drunken Grand Dukes, the aristo- cracy hitherto the most debauched and dissipated of Europe. There is no question but what the sacrifice will be repaid unto Russia a hundredfold, but who would hav.e dared to expect it from the quarters whence it came ? It is one of the mar- vels of this marvellous war, and shows the un- suspected instruments which democracy adapts to its purposes. The influence of the company which Russia is keeping is shown in the ukase in regard to Poland. The promise is made that Poland shall again become a self-governed unit, although still remaining a part of the Russian Empire. This is a clearly British conception, a Canada, an Australia. No other empire has ever done it, but it has been proved that it works. British influence will make it impossible that this promise shall not be carried out at the end of the war, and the Polish pride which has hitherto 66 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST threatened the Russian Empire will become one of its firmest supports. With self-government in Poland, self-govern- ment in Finland will necessarily come, and the fears of Sweden will be forever allayed. It is a true statesmanship that can turn a danger into a protection and a succour, even as in modern therapy the disease itself furnishes the immunis- ing serum. It is a clear demonstration that democratic understanding can come even to a proverbial autocracy. There is also evidence that the other great blot upon Russia's escutcheon will be cleansed by this war, and that the persecution of the Jews will cease. The government, instead of foster- ing, will subdue the anti-Jewish riots, and with- out government instigation and toleration the fire of such demonstrations will at first merely smoulder and will finally be extinguished. Pre- judice will, of course, continue for much longer, but even it will gradually lessen with the cessa- tion of political disability. It means the libera- tion of a race within a nation. Russia must find other revenue to make up for what she has given up from the vodka monopoly. In order to afford this greater revenue there must be increased economic prosperity to support added taxation. That WHAT IT MEANS TO RUSSIA 67 this prosperity will come is certain. The greater efficiency of a populace free from the curse of vodka can pay the vodka profits twice over, and still have a huge profit for itself. The increase of unity in the nation will also have a definite effect in improving its industrial capacity. The certainty that hereafter Russian trade can pass freely from the Euxine to the Mediterranean will stimulate it greatly. Russian finance need worry only about the immediate present; later Russia can count on a revenue far greater than she was receiving before she surrendered the perquisites from her vodka. Therefore, I say that it is a glorious and inspiring thing that Russia should be fighting at the side of Britain and of France. She is being born again, her trammelled soul is being freed, and in the aid and the example of her allies she finds her hope of liberty. Not only for themselves has their democracy justified itself, but it has proved itself the hope of others struggling through a great darkness towards the light. It is proof of the brotherhood which is the crown of true democracy, and France and Britain are honoured in the fact that it is to them that Russia looks for help in this time of her great awakening. January 1915. THE BIG WORLD AND THE LITTLE NATIONS IN a truly civilised world, bulk should no more be needful to the safety of a nation than to the safety of a man. In early times, a man had to depend on his strength and his fleetness to save him from physical disaster. The rule of the strong prevailed, and the hard doctrine of the survival of the fittest demanded bone and muscle in plenty. To-day in civilised lands the five-footer is as safe as he who tops six feet unless he unwisely seeks to engage in bar-room brawls or com- mingle with thugs. The things that, owing to his size, the big man only can accomplish are not those which are worth the most. Brawn alone is worth only a very few dollars a day; there is no limit to the value of brains. This war is going far to assure to the little nations their safety, and in this regard to civilise the world. The little nation that be- haves itself as it should will have little to fear, and the rules which will be established for the conduct of little nations will make them much 69 70 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST less likely to offend than in the past. Example, counsel, protection, and the great influence of unified international opinion will all make towards increasing wisdom and restraint. The British Empire is really not much more than a coalition of little nations under the protection and guidance of a collective Empire which guarantees them freedom and safety. Canada is a little nation. Australia and New Zealand are little nations. Each is free, each is safe, because each has behind its freedom and its safety the Empire of which it is a part. After this war has brought about new standards of national obligation, the other little nations will be free and safe because their freedom and their safety will be guaranteed by the world of which they are a part. No big bully nation will ever again dare to attempt to walk over the well-behaved little nation as Germany has trampled upon Belgium. The freedom of little nations within an empire has worked well and justified itself; the freedom of little nations within a world has worked well and justified itself; it is only a step to have the world guarantee the latter as the Empire guarantees the former. No great nation is injured by the progress and prosperity of a little one. The old idea that THE BIG WORLD 71 there could be only so much wealth, and that the more A has the less there is left for B, is entirely exploded. We now know that the more wealth A produces the better not only for A but for B as well, who must profit by A's prosperity. Modern transportation and commercial inter- change deny absolutely the old idea of national selfishness. Great Britain knows this, and for many years has consistently practised this selfish altruism of endeavouring herself to prosper in the pros- perity of others. As an example, Norway has prospered, and has built up a commerce that per capita is considerably greater than the commerce of Great Britain herself. This has been made possible by the safety of the sea routes which Great Britain has maintained and has paid for. Yet Great Britain does not grudge Norway her commerce, but like every nation that has to do with Norway has benefited by it. English tonnage and German tonnage competed, but until Germany put herself outside the pale of nations her ships were protected by the British fleet. Both countries profited by the added world wealth arising from the building of the German merchant ships. No nation except Germany herself is to-day suffering as much as 72 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST Great Britain from the lack of merchant tonnage due to the necessity of forbidding the sea to German vessels. In peace, the prosperity of one nation makes in a lesser degree for the prosperity of all. In exactly the same way in this war, in order to inflict a greater injury upon Germany, it has been necessary for Great Britain to inflict a lesser injury upon herself, and deprive herself of the German shipping, the carrying power of which she so urgently needs. The same thing will be true when the hugely populous nations of Asia produce in proportion to the resources of the land and the number of the people. Europe will benefit from the added trade far more than she will suffer from the added competition. The yellow peril is a fiction more airy than a summer cloud. There will always be work for every pair of hands to do in the world. The hardships which come from unemployment do not come from lack of work or from overplus of labourers, but only from a breakdown of the insufficiently organised systems of bringing the two together and financing them. Some of the little nations have been an inspira- tion to the world. Switzerland has a people as rugged as her own mountains and a history as THE BIG WORLD 73 noble as her own scenery. Belgium to-day has written her name in letters of gold across the scroll of time, and has made for herself a glory and a fame that shall endure so long as the deeds of men are chronicled. Better for Germany, with all her science and all she has accomplished, that she were sunk to the bottom of the sea, because unborn genera- tions and future cycles of mankind will see in her the black and guilty cause of Belgium's noble sacrifice. Better for the Kaiser that he had never been, because of the infamy which shall forever cling to his name for what he has done to Belgium. And even as Belgium shall be exalted in the hearts of men, and shall serve to inspire and ennoble those who come hereafter, so shall the very name of the Germany of William the Second be loathed and abhorred. Liege shall rank with Thermopylae and Albert with William Tell, while the name of Hohenzollern shall be cursed with that of Attila and Borgia. Other little nations have shown and are showing flashes of nobility. See the splendid bravery of Serbia, clouded as is her good name with plot, intrigue, and murder. She shows that the substance is there that can be wrought into free and noble people. Greece herself may again 74 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST be worthy of her past, and a new Acropolis be the crown of a new Athens. The little mercenary nations, seeking ever payment in lands and moneys, the Bulgarias and the Roumanias, may themselves become the mothers of lofty tradition, as is Montenegro. Such huge emotions, such overwhelming experi- ences as the world to-day knows may engender unsuspected noblenesses. Other little nations will be born of this war, and must be guarded and guided until they, too, have justified themselves. A new Hungary, free and proud in her race and the history of her sons, will take her place among her equals. Out of the reek and stench of the Ottoman Empire will arise new nations, an Armenia at liberty to worship the God of her choice, a Syria through whose lighted paths the feet of pilgrims may in safety pass to the waters of the Sea of Galilee, to the Temple of Jerusalem, and to Mecca. These little nations, the new and the old, those who have already proved themselves and those who under the happier auspices of the future shall have ample opportunity to prove themselves, must all be guaranteed and protected in their rights by the new big world. Hereafter they need not look for help only to THE BIG WORLD 75 the particular power within whose sphere of influence they may happen to be, but may rest sure that it is the part of the world as a whole to see that they are not wronged. And even as they will be protected against others, others will be protected against them. Frontiers, as estab- lished after this war, must be inviolable and alterable only voluntarily. After this war there can and must come a world peace guaranteed by every great power and agreed to by every little one. The cloud that has hung over the Balkans must be forever dispelled. No sneering Germany may ever again make a mock of littleness or tear her international scraps of paper to shreds. What will be prac- tically a Constitution of the World must be drawn up. Thus only may the devastated cities and the rows of nameless graves be justified. February 1915. PEACE MUST MEAN PEACE THE world cannot afford to have peace before conditions are ripe to make peace permanent. To-day the greatest enemies of mankind are those who seek an immediate peace. I do not believe that there exists any one who more deeply desires peace than I, but I trust that it will not come until the toll which the world has paid and is paying has justified itself in the outcome. No intelligent person can think that a peace brought about now would or could be permanent. It would merely serve to make what has already happened futile. We cannot afford to have the lives which have been lost wasted, but they must serve to rebuild a better world than the one for which they were sacrificed. Then truly it may be said that these countless brave and splendid men have not died in vain. Some writers, from whom greater insight might have been expected, have dared to wish that the outcome of the war might be what they call a stalemate, that neither side should gain 77 78 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST a decisive victory. They do not realise that this would mean that the whole thing would have to be done over again, and the opportunity to advance the world a hundred years in a twelvemonth would have been lost. This advance in civilisation will no doubt have cost largely in suffering, misery, and all that is the base and ignoble accompaniment of war, but the major part of this cost has already been paid, and the world cannot permit that this payment shall accomplish nothing. I earnestly believe that it would be better for the world to have Germany and all the abominations which she stands for in this war supremely victorious than to have the outcome nugatory. In such an event the thought that this war has evoked and its lessons of the neces- sity for democratic advance would be such that world-revolution would be inevitable, and the destruction of absolutism would come from within at a cost in human unhappiness probably far less than in the new struggle between the present systems which a failure of decision would make certain. It cannot be denied that a system which makes a war like the present one possible can no longer be tolerated. The twentieth century might as well be the dark ages if such a thing as is now PEACE MUST MEAN PEACE 79 going on could ever happen again. A catastrophe as horrible as this must carry in its very horrors the lesson of how a repetition of it may be avoided for all future time, else optimism is dead, progress a lie, and evolution a fraud and a snare. It is an insult to human intelligence to say that no remedy can be found for such wars between such nations. I assert boldly that the remedy has been found and the greater part of the civilised world is already free from the danger of great war except with the other part. The remedy is democracy, and the safety of the democratic part of the world demands that the other part must be made immune to the war-fever. Even as a community must protect its en- lightened members by enforcing on the ignorant and the stupid regulations which shall prevent epidemic, so must the world take steps which shall make it impossible for autocratic selfishness or ambition to endanger the whole structure of civilisation. The burden of militarism and all the countless evils which follow in its train is inherent in absolutism, and is adopted by democracies only as a defence against autocratic aggression. France has been compelled to con- scription, but unquestionably against her will, by the active fear of imperial and militaristic 80 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST Germany at her borders. It will be a glad day for France when this incubus of fear, only too well founded as the event has proved, is forever lifted from her shoulders. This optimism for the future does not mean that after this conflict all war forever will cease, but it does mean that war between the great powers who have attained the highest achieve- ments of civilisation will be at an end. The small and backward nations will undoubtedly require compulsion as heretofore, and military forces sufficient to compel them will be necessary. These forces will be on a very different scale from those which for a generation have made of Europe an armed camp, and their duties will be essentially those of an international police. No community, however advanced, is free from sporadic instances of criminality, and every community requires a police force sufficient to cope with it. The progress of a community is quite accurately measured by the proportion of its population required for this policing, which in a country like the United States is only a fraction of what was needed a few centuries ago, even though life and liberty are incomparably more secure. In like manner, as the constituent nations of the world advance in democratic understanding the percentage of the population PEACE MUST MEAN PEACE 81 of the world needed for its armies will rapidly decrease. The test of democracy lies not in the nominal form of a government but in the spirit that underlies it. Thus Mexico under Diaz was nominally a republic, but actually an auto- cratic dictatorship, and that unhappy land is to-day reaping the bitter harvest sowed by that absolutism. On the other hand, monarchical Britain is truly a democracy, and becoming more and more so with each succeeding year. Names matter nothing. The same terminology is used for the Empire of the Guelphs as for the Empire of the Hohenzollerns, but the things themselves are as far apart as daylight and darkness. Democracy means education, and in this lies its hope and its worth, but education does not always mean democracy. There may be a narrow and intensive education adapted only to effect a specialised value of the individual and not incompatible with the worst features of paternalism. This is better illustrated by Germany than by any other example. To deny German education would be to limit the word to a very constricted definition, although I am by no means sure that it ought not to be so delimited. True education 82 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST has a breadth of understanding which means wisdom and is essentially democratic; a narrow education may mean only knowledge and be the best foundation on which to erect absolutism. Verboten is the watchword of Germany, but verboten by whom ? If the edict is the result of the collective wisdom of a thinking people, it means freedom ; if it is an expression of the will of an oligarchy, no matter how intelligent, it may mean only the efficiency of trained and specialised units, an efficiency which may in its very excel- lence be supremely dangerous. A democratic efficiency is almost the summum bonunt of humanity; an autocratic efficiency may be the curse of the world. Even after a democratic government has been established, considerable time may be required to bring the true fruits of democracy in the broad education and understanding which alone assures continuance of democracy. This time will vary- according to the capacity of the people, and we shall doubtless see in Germany a much quicker attainment of real democracy than in many less intelligent lands where opportunity has been greater. This direct democratisation of Germany and Austria and the tremendous impulse toward underlying democratic principles in Russia will be the gain of the world from the war. PEACE MUST MEAN PEACE 83 Nothing is more difficult to arrive at than a comparative estimate of world-values, and it is hard to say that the world-advance will be worth the world-sacrifice of the war. It is clear, how- ever, that the war and its consequent misery having occurred, the world must so far as may be get value for what it has paid, and cannot afford to have the huge expenditure wasted. Peace and its blessings require that the con- ditions which have brought war must cease, and peace cannot be accepted by any intelligent lover of peace until autocratic militarism is destroyed. No half-measures will serve. It was an unspeakable crime to bring on this war; it would be a crime even greater to stop it now before it has purged the world of the system which caused it. If it be true as has been stated that any influ- ences are endeavouring to bring about peace at this time without an acknowledged defeat of what Germany stands for, they are attempting a most evil thing. Fortunately, there is no danger of their success, as the capable hands of Sir Edward Grey have the matter well under control. The pacifists and the peace societies will find in the final outcome of this war their aspirations nearer to becoming facts than any one a year ago would have dared to prophesy. The Hague 84 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST Tribunal will stand forth doubly important, its greatest injury having come from the house of those who claim to be its friends in the failure of the United States to regard it as more than a midsummer night's dream. It is the fashion now to laugh at Norman Angell, yet nine-tenths of his conclusions are true and by this war are proved to be true. It is clear that even if Germany should win, her victory will be Dead Sea fruit in her mouth. Those who believe in the future of the world and love their fellow-men cannot allow this war to be stopped before it has run its allotted course. The surgeon's knife has been laid to the cancer of the world, and the operation must now be carried through and the cancer eradicated. The menace of organised forces of millions of men, trained and equipped for aggression and foreign conquest, must no longer exist in the world. February 1915. AMERICANS IN CANADA ARE we Americans who live in Canada doing our full duty ? Have we not a moral obligation which we are not entirely performing ? It is impossible to imagine any American who lives in Canada being a partisan of Germany. We are too close to things. We understand the Canadian people too well; we see too clearly what they are fighting for; we know from our own experiences too unquestionably that many of the German accusations against Great Britain are lies. We live in a country as free as our own; we are under laws made by the people and for the people; we have found here a people like our own in language and education, in religion and aspirations, in all that goes to give character to a nation. We have practical experience of the fact that the " colonies " of Great Britain are not " subjugated," but that they enjoy a system of democratic government that differs in no fundamental essential from our own. We have found that the pursuit of happiness can be carried on by us in exactly the same way, 85 86 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST and under the same conditions, whether we are living North or South of the political boundary which runs across the continent. We realise that we are not living under a tyranny or a despotism when the flag which floats over our heads is the Union Jack instead of the Stars and Stripes under which we were born and which we love. I hold no brief for England. I know well that much of her history in the more distant past has been entirely inconsistent with the ideals of an American. But I also know that the England of to-day is not the England against which we fought in 1776. I know that much of her territory was acquired by methods of aggrandisement which differ in no essential from those which Germany is to-day endeavouring to utilise. But I also know that the English world is to-day democratic and sane, as the United States is democratic and sane. The British imperialism against which the American Colonies revolted is to-day a name, not a fact, and is no more like Napoleonic im- perialism or Russian imperialism or German imperialism than is the democracy of our own republic. The pioneer in modern democracy was of course the United States, but during the last fifty years the British Empire has made a success- AMERICANS IN CANADA 87 ful test of inherent democracy which has been even wider and more convincing than our own in that it has been applied to peoples more varied in race and character, and living under con- ditions of surroundings, climates, and influences more widely differing. Perhaps a little personal testimony may be permitted. It has been my good fortune to travel widely, and I am familiar with most of the coun- tries of Europe and Asia, as well as North and South America. I have also the advantage of speaking, more or less incorrectly, German, French, Spanish, and Italian, as well as of having picked up enough Japanese and Hindustani to get along with. Whenever, during the last twenty-five years, I have come to a British port, I have had a feeling of being at home, of safety, and sanity, and civilisation, which cannot be explained by the mere accident of language. In Hong Kong or Calcutta, in Vancouver or London, I have found the same underlying spirit of freedom, of self- reliance and self-respect which we have been wont to associate with our own country. Democracy is a system of thought even more than a system of government, and everywhere under the British flag, as far as my experience goes, the people are thinking democratically. 88 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST I am emphasising these facts to show that whatever anti-British feeling exists in the United States is not justified by what Great Britain is to-day. Present conditions count, not those that prevailed a hundred years ago. The old pastime of twisting the lion's tail has to a great extent gone out of fashion, but there is still left enough of the desire to do so to make it our duty, so far as we can, to counteract it. This old anti-British feeling in the United States is in a way quite natural. Aside from our civil war, the only important wars we have waged have been against England, and our heroes have been those who fought " the hated Red-coats." Our school histories have done much to continue this hostile sentiment, and have led to the general idea that Great Britain was our natural foe. The earlier British policy of hogging every- thing on which she could lay her hands has caused in us a hazy impression that this national selfishness is still continuing. In addition to this, there has been an immigration of Irish, violently opposed to Great Britain, who have had a political influence far greater than their numbers warranted, and this, too, has tended unduly to colour opinion. We Americans who live in Canada know well that however justifiable these sentiments may AMERICANS IN CANADA 89 have been a couple of generations ago, they are no longer justifiable. We know that not only is the British Empire not decadent, but that on the contrary it has advanced in the last fifty years to an appreciation of democracy which closely parallels our own. We are convinced from history and experience that a true democracy is the one safeguard of the world, and that this true democracy is found to a greater extent under the flags of the two great English-speaking nations than elsewhere in the world. With these convictions, is it not the duty of every one of us to give to our friends in the United States the result of our experiences of living in Canada ? We cannot too often impress upon them that to-day the British people have the same ideals and the same conception of freedom as we ourselves. The things they are fighting for are the same things which we hold most sacred. In carrying on war they are governed by the same underlying principles of honour and fair play in which we believe. Their ways are our ways, and their standards are our standards, just as their lan- guage is the same as our language. They do not spell Culture with a K any more than we. There is no question but what Germany is 90 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST carrying on in the United States an active pro- paganda seeking to turn American sympathies to the German side; and there is little doubt but what this is being financed direct from Berlin. If we Americans were not a patient people, we would not have put up with the activities of the Munsterburgs, Ridders, and Dernburgs. Von BernstorfFs vapourings we should have had to stand unless we desired to request Germany to recall him and send some one with a better- balanced tongue to take his place. The height of German insolence has been reached when, under this instigation of Kaiserism, the Germanic voters are being organised into a political party threaten- ing political extinction to those who are unwill- ing to aid the German side. The apparent fact that this pro-German cam- paign is proving futile does not relieve us Americans from doing all in our power to make it fail. None of the Allies have thought it wise to establish a bureau in the United States for disseminating partisan literature, but have relied on the good sense of the American people to make a just decision as to where culpability for the war lies, and as to the side to which their sympathies should be extended. This makes it all the more incumbent upon us Americans in Canada, who have greater opportunities for AMERICANS IN CANADA 91 judging than those in the United States, to spare no pains or trouble in circulating our views and our sympathies as widely as possible. Each one of us may be able to reach and to influence only a few persons across the border; but these people in their turn may influence others. We are convinced that all that is needed to bring others into our way of thinking about the great issues of the war is to have them know the truth and think clearly about it. Let each one of us, to the best of his ability, undertake to bring this knowledge and this clarity of thought to friends and relations across the border in whatever way seems most effective. Let us not tire of writing them letters, and send- ing them papers and pamphlets. This spreading of the propaganda of the underlying democracy of this war among any people in the United States who may be inclined to hold aloof from partisanship, and to regard the war as something which concerns them not at all, is a way in which each of us may serve our country and our world. The issues at stake are so vital to civilisation that we should neglect nothing, no matter how small, and shrink at nothing, no matter how great, to aid in the great cause. One evident object of the pro-German cam- 92 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST paign is to irritate the American people against the Allies, and to cause as much friction as possible. Nothing would please Germany more than to bring about a rupture of friendly rela- tions between the United States and Great Britain. Even the absurd attempt to blow up an international bridge and claim that this was " an act of war " is merely a crude endeavour to embroil the two nations. As I have often said before, it is inconceivable that these two nations, sharing the same language, underlying demo- cratic government, institutions, and ideals, should ever have a difference which cannot be adjusted amicably; but it is none the less the duty of each of us to use his influence to make this impossibility doubly impossible. War between such nations can never result except from a complete misunderstanding of each other; we who are of one and in the other can do much to make Great Britain understood in the United States. Then the vapourings of the pro-German agitators will indeed fall upon deaf ears. February 1915. OPTIMISM I AM an optimist, intensely and constitutionally. If I were not, I do not think that life would be worth while. This war, hideous as it is, serves only to double my optimism. The lessons it teaches are not those of incidental reversions to barbar- ism, but of the progress of the great majority of the world far beyond its earlier barbarism. Science is evolution, and evolution is merely another name for optimism. The laws of the universe have been unchanged for all time, but the capacity for utilising these laws by mankind has come with the evolution of mankind. The advance of mankind has not been only along the lines of an understanding of the laws of science as applicable to mankind, but also and even more importantly of an understanding of mankind itself, its purposes and its possibilities, its ability to command nature and to create for itself a continued growth and an increased opportunity. To-day we recognise as never before the happiness that comes from service, the only true happiness, I believe, that exists. It matters not 93 94 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST wherein this service lies, whether it be by king or by farm hand. All true service brings accom- plishment, and the pride of accomplishment is the greatest happiness which human hearts can know. The toymaker who has builded a Noah's Ark, the engineer who has builded a mighty dam, the Napoleon who has builded an empire, for each the pride of accomplishment is the same, how- ever different the means to bring it about. This ambition to do is the mainspring of the world that drives it steadily on. With maturity of thought this ambition is more and more directed into lines of usefulness, and more and more serves to accelerate the progress of the world. But sometimes this ambition is warped and distorted, and instead of making for progress makes for retrogression. Then it has to be curbed and halted by the wiser part of the world, and the good there is in it, the possibility of advance contained in its vital force, redirected and made to serve a useful purpose. There is no nation to-day which has more of the vital desire to accomplish than Germany, no nation which can do more to serve the world if its energy be directed aright. I do not hate the Germans; in many ways I admire them more than any people, but I do intensely hate the OPTIMISM 95 perversion that has misdirected their splendid energy until it is an evil, not a service. Evolution alone is as apt to work downward as upward; it is only when evolution is coupled with selection that it means progress. The power of selection is what Germany lacks to direct her progress upward ; and the sane part of the world must compel Germany to reorganise so that this vital energy shall become an asset of the world instead of a liability. Like the elemental forces, this human dynamic force must be guided and controlled until it shall construct, not destroy. The present demand of the world is for service that shall straighten out the twisted German mind, and undo the evil of years of false philo- sophy and unworthy ambitions. The great mass of the German people has never been allowed to criticise or to reason about things governmental, but has been fed upon militaristic ideals and pro- mised riches and comfort from military successes. When war came, they were told that the time had come to profit from the years of preparation, and that national solidarity would make in- vincible the German Empire. They were told that defeat was impossible, and that it was the duty of Germany to impose upon the world the German system, the superiority of which had for so long been dinned into their ears. 96 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST When the time comes, as it must within a few months, when the falsity of these statements becomes apparent to the German people, when the country is invaded and the impotence of the authorities to prevent it is evident, there will be an awakening and an upheaval among the people which will mean the destruction of Prussianism and the birth of a real Germany. Once the idols of a people are overthrown, none are so quick to see the feet of clay as those who used to worship. Heavy as has been the burden which Prussianism has laid upon the rest of the world, it is the German people themselves who have felt its weight the most, and who will gain the most from being freed from it. When this fact is brought home to them, they will them- selves insist upon the regeneration of their nation. This world-service of recreating Germany has got to be done with fire and sword. The cancer of militarism has eaten so deeply into the German body politic that no remedies milder than laying knife to the root of the evil will avail. It is there- fore the duty of every man of every nation which has undertaken this world duty to give himself up whole-heartedly to this service. Let him be very sure that from the pride of accomplishment of this service will come to him greater happi- ness than he has ever known. OPTIMISM 97 The hugeness of these present times is creating vision in the minds of men, vision of a world speeding ever onward and upward to nobler ideals and loftier conceptions. We glory as never before in being a part of this world, and we rejoice in being active units in the movement of civilisation. We feel the exhilaration of being in great things and of great things, and the personal share that each of us is taking thrills us as never before with an appreciation of the bigness of humanity. What do we care for the fatigues and the dis- comforts of our training, of the dangers and sufferings and wounds and even deaths of our battle lines, compared with the pride of seeing our duty clearly and doing it steadfastly and un- selfishly? Life and the world we live in has become for us immeasurably bigger because of the vision that has come to us, and the pettinesses that used to loom so large now count as nothing. Why should I not be optimistic ? I see around me everywhere men aroused to a splendid realisa- tion of duty who of old seemed to have no thought or soul above the sordid commonplaces of life. I see sacrifices and sorrows borne willingly and uncomplainingly for the sake of an ideal. I see courage and bravery intelligently used and taken as a matter of course. 98 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST I see women holding back their tears lest they should even for a moment unnerve the husbands and sons whom they are sending into danger and perhaps to death. I see whole nations laying aside small and unworthy things and accepting the obligations of their nationhood. More than ever do I believe in the men who make the world. Most of all, I see the whole world sane and un- corrupted. In vain for years has Germany sought by specious argument and cynical promise to spread its doctrine of the Philosophy of Force. The world has listened and turned away abso- lutely unconvinced. To-day Germany and what she stands for has no friend in the world aside from Austria, her catspaw, who already in bitter- ness is bewailing her subserviency, and Turkey, the barbarous, who is finding that German gold is of a verity only dross. Everywhere have the peoples of the world had the vision to see that freedom could not exist if German aggression should be triumphant, and everywhere have these peoples lent their aid and their sympathy to the cause of liberty. There is no neutral people in the world, even those whose governments have taken no official stand having made it very clear to which side go out their hopes for success. Should the present allied OPTIMISM 99 forces prove unequal to the task, these other nations would undertake the duty. Again, almost the whole world believes that out of this war permanent good can come, and that no such wars between great nations can in the future take place. It believes that inter- national questions can be settled by means more civilised than blood and slaughter, and that there will be no need of such armaments as have in the past overburdened the world. It is only among the few who are partisans of Germany that I hear the pessimistic belief that war must always be and that it is inherent in humankind. The world is awake and the world is sane. There has come to the peoples of the world vision of a future brighter than any they have ever before dared to conceive, and for this vision they are willing to suffer and to die. Why, indeed, should I not be an optimist ? February 1915. THE FIRST SIX MONTHS ALMOST all the progress which. Germany has suc- ceeded in making was accomplished during the first six weeks of the war. Since then the Allies have been able to prevent any further consider- able invasion of their territory, and in several places German and Austrian land has in turn been invaded. This initial success emphasises the advantage of knowing a couple of years in advance the date on which war is to occur. In this instance it gave Germany an advantage which to say the least was not fair play. But the world has come to realise that Fair Play and Kultur (spelled with a K) are not always synonymous. So many volumes have been written about the responsibility for beginning the war that it is futile to go over the matter again. The impartial world has weighed the matter carefully, and has come to the unbiased conclusion that the fault was Germany's, and that Austria was merely used as a catspaw; that the war was determined upon some time in advance ; and that every pre- paration for it had been made by Germany which 101 102 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST could be effected without making clear to other nations that war was intended. Two governing factors decided the time when war was wanted, as it is now easy to see by looking back. The first of these, which made it necessary for the militaristic oligarchy to bring the war on as soon as possible, was the constant growth of socialism in Germany. This growth was taking place in spite of the absence of a free press, and was the outlet for the ever-fermenting forces striving for democracy, forces always at work in an autocracy. It was merely another manifestation of the inherent desires for liberty which was the cause of the German revolution of 1848. The socialistic movement was beginning to threaten the supremacy of the military clique, and if allowed to continue unchecked might even have become a menace to the whole imperial system of government. The release of Germany from absolutism, which is going to be accom- plished through the slaughter and defeat of this war, stood a good chance of being brought about internally by the socialists. The final overthrow would undoubtedly have been through revolution, and would unquestion- ably have involved bloodshed, but its cost to Germany in lives would have been a mere THE FIRST SIX MONTHS 103 nothing in comparison with the losses of the war. There never yet has been an autocracy which had enough patriotism to be willing to sacrifice itself for the sake of the people, and the Junker ele- ment did not hesitate to involve the country in war to save their own precious necks and positions. To be sure, they thought that the outcome of the war would be very different from what it will be, but none the less they knew that it would cost the people heavily. They were well aware that even if their armies were supremely success- ful the people of the country would get nothing out of it to repay the cost of war; all the ad- vantage in added wealth and power would be absorbed by the Junker leaders. They realised fully that the call to arms and the pathos of the appeals for the Vater- land would arouse a spirit of patriotism which would for the time being utterly overwhelm the socialists, who had not yet become strong enough to resist such an appeal. They also knew that the longer such a national call was delayed the more the danger that the socialists would become strong enough to resist it at the outset. Only a year or two more of the growth of the movement might have made it impossible for the declaration of war to find a unified nation. 104 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST Already there is evidence that in spite of the military repression of all such outbursts and in spite of the fact that German territory has not yet to any great extent been invaded, there are beginning to be insistent demands for peace from the socialists. It would not have taken a much longer in- cubation of socialistic doctrines to have caused these demands to be made before war was actually in full swing, and then where would Junkerism have been ? But if the war had been successful throughout and the German armies had dictated terms of peace while in possession of Paris and Warsaw, Junkerism would have been too firmly in the saddle to run any risk of being unhorsed, and the threat of socialism would have been postponed for many a long year. In addition to these internal conditions which urged the bringing on of the war as soon as possible two external influences also forbade delay. One of these was the fact that France, terrorised by the addition of half a million men to the regular German standing army, had de- cided that it was necessary to increase the term of compulsory military service from two years to three years, and if Germany and France were to fight it was obviously better for the former to THE FIRST SIX MONTHS 105 have the war take place before this change in the French conscription became effective. Also it was evident that Russia was rapidly recovering from the loss of military power conse- quent upon the defeats of 1904 by Japan, and each year of delay in bringing on war meant greater strength for the Russian armies. Ger- many had no idea that they were anything like as effective as they have proved, or that a military genius like Grand Duke Nicholas would be in command of them, or that the Russian nation would show a solidarity in favour of war against Germany as striking as its opposition to the Japanese war, but Germany none the less realised that each year of delay made the Russian nut a harder one for the Teutonic hammer to crack. Against these conditions all calling for the bringing on of the war as soon as possible was one compelling and unavoidable factor which prevented the declaration of war before 1914. This was the fact that the Kiel Canal was not ready until then, and without the Kiel Canal Germany could scarcely hope to be successful against Russia and France at the same time, even if England should remain neutral. These considerations make it clear why this war did not occur before 1914 and why it was io6 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST not postponed until after 1914. The very date is an added proof that this war was desired and brought about by the German military authorities. In their plan of campaign the Germans made two vital errors, both of them due to the fact that they fail to comprehend the hearts of men. They never thought that Belgium would be heroic, or that in their sweep across that ill-fated land they would encounter more than a merely perfunctory opposition. The Philosophy of Force, the Sacredness of Might, had for so long been their idol that they could not conceive of a little nation willing to oppose their war machine and to suffer martyr- dom for an ideal. Idealism has never gone with the militaristic brand of Kultur, and Germany failed to make any allowance for it. The delay of two weeks which the glorious defence of Liege imposed upon Germany upset all the plans of Berlin and was the salvation of France, allowing time for the French army to be mobilised and for the little band of British to reach the neighbourhood of Mons for their heroic retreat. It also allowed time for the French to retrieve their original colossal mistake of ex- pecting the real invasion to come through Alsace- Lorraine, and the march through Belgium to THE FIRST SIX MONTHS 107 be not much more than a demonstration of force. The French strength was massed along the line from Verdun to Belfort, and but for the delay in Belgium could not have got to the Marne in time. Liege fell, but Paris still is Paris. The other great mistake of Germany was in underrating the promptness with which England would act. Berlin was probably well aware that the violation of Belgium would be sure ultimately to bring England into the fray, but Berlin un- doubtedly counted on England's muddling about for three weeks or a month before she entered -the war, by which time all the fat would have been in the fire. One of the reasons for the present bitterness of German hate against the British lies in the fact that all the German plans were dislocated by the quickness of Great Britain's decision. The very attitude of Grey throughout the fateful days from the 23rd of July to the 2nd of August, when he was doing everything in his power to prevent war, probably made Germany all the more sure that he would be slow to enter his country in the war. The petulant surprise of the German chancellor that Great Britain would undergo the pains of war for her treaty with Belgium, " for a scrap of 108 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST paper," shows the German inability to under- stand that a country which uncompromisingly desired and sought peace would none the less unhesitatingly and immediately declare war where the honouring of treaty obligations re- quired it. This surprise at England's entering the war when she did shows the insincerity of the present German claim that this war is one which Great Britain has forced upon Germany from jealousy of the growing German commerce. But then con- sistency has never been characteristic of the German State Department, as is shown by the six different official explanations or excuses for the violation of Belgian neutrality, each one of them inconsistent with the others. The German drive against Paris having been turned back at the critical moment when it appeared as if it would prove successful, and the armies forced back to the Aisne, they proceeded then to entrench themselves and to extend their lines until they reached from the Swiss border to the North Sea. Tremendous efforts were put forth to advance to Calais and threaten England by holding one side of the Channel at its narrowest point, and also to break through in the neighbourhood of Soissons and St. Mihiel to renew the drive against THE FIRST SIX MONTHS 109 Paris. These endeavours proved futile, and no material change in positions has taken place. Both sides have shown wonderful heroism and bravery, and the losses on both sides have been heavy. The Germans have suffered most, both because of their habit of charging in mass forma- tion and because the offensive against entrench- ments is always more costly than the defence. At the outset the German artillery held a marked superiority, but this seems to have been entirely overcome and the superiority now appears to be on the side of the Allies. The marksmanship of the allied infantry has been from the beginning much superior, and in the matter of mobility the network of railways available for both sides has given neither any great advantage. The use of aeroplane scouts has prevented any great surprise by either, as movements of great bodies of troops cannot be concealed from the enemy. In the Eastern theatre the changes have been much more spectacular than in the West. As a whole, it may be stated that the Austrian armies have proved far inferior to their adversaries, while there has been little to choose between the success of the Germans and the Russians. The one Austrian deed which stands forth is the heroic defence of Przemysl, which at the time of no WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST writing is still holding out against a Russian siege certain of ultimate success. In every other great clash the Austrian armies have melted away before Russian attacks, and even little Serbia, by heroic efforts, has driven the invaders from her territory with enormous loss. As a result, Austrian powers of resistance have been nearly destroyed, and, except where stiffened by the presence of Germans, Austrian troops are able to offer no great opposition to the Russian armies. It would seem fair to prophesy that within a very few months Austria will be as helpless to assist Germany to any great extent as is Turkey, which has yet to score a victory of any account. The great advantage which Germany has held over Russia has been the mobility of her troops due to the splendid system of strategic railways along her frontier. The Russians have been able to move only slowly and ponderously, while the Germans have been whirled from one point to another for tremendously concentrated attacks. These attacks have seldom failed to make progress, but in every case they necessitated the withdrawal of men from some other part of the line. As a result, the retreat of the Russian troops at one point has been accompanied by an THE FIRST SIX MONTHS in advance at another, and the German nimbleness has given more exercise than progress. Thus the Russian defeat at Tannenberg in the early part of the war was accomplished by the withdrawal of German troops from the west and probably had much to do with the German defeat on the Marne, while the invasion of Galicia went steadily forward. The German drives against Warsaw were accompanied by Russian advances in Bukowina and East Prussia, and now that the latter movement requires German opposition in force, Russia will be able to regain the ground lost in Poland. The losses of men on both sides have been enormous, but on the whole the German losses have probably been heavier than those of the Russians who opposed them. The net result of nearly seven months of war has been that the German armies have been able to make no material progress beyond what was accomplished in the first six weeks, that German commerce has been driven from the seas and the German navy weakened much more than the navies of the Allies, and that all around Germany is a throttling and slowly closing line of enemies through which she has been unable to break no matter how spendthrift she has been willing to be of the lives of her soldiers. ii2 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST Were conditions to continue as they are, it might be fairly said that the struggle was a drawn game or a stalemate. But conditions cannot remain as they are. The supremacy of the British fleet is causing economic distress which is certain to have a telling effect in increasing the German agonies. The question of food and war supplies is becoming more and more urgent, and most of all, the shortage of men is what is certain to defeat Germany. At the very outset, German strength was at its maximum. Her losses have been so huge that she has been able to do little more than replace the men who have been disabled, and as time advances she will scarcely be able to do this. Her adversaries, on the contrary, were weakest at the beginning, and are steadily growing stronger. The collapse of Austria and Turkey will shortly free all the troops that have been engaged against them for operations against Germany. France has been able not only to make good the losses in her ranks, but will be able in the spring to increase her fighting forces by not less than a million and a half of men. Great Britain will be able to bring forward about two million new men " when the war begins in May," as Lord Kitchener is said to have expressed it. Russia's countless population THE FIRST SIX MONTHS 113 makes the forces which she can furnish almost inexhaustible, and the slow -moving Russian military machine is steadily equipping them and bringing them forward. Three million men is a low estimate of the number of new troops which she can furnish in 1915. In addition to this, there is every prospect that Roumania with half a million effectives, Greece with almost the same number, and Italy with a million and a half of soldiers will be among Germany's foes before next summer. To offset these new foes she can look for no new allies, the best that she can hope for being that German gold can buy Bulgarian neutrality. These considerations show that Germany's case is hopeless, and the sooner she recognises this fact and sues for peace the less onerous will be the terms. She cannot hope to retain her former place in the world, her colonial dreams must be abandoned, her own territories shorn, her armies disbanded, and her idea of dominating Europe ended forever. If, in her blind stubbornness, she continues a strife in which ultimate victory is absolutely impossible, if she makes it necessary, as she can, that a vast additional number of lives be sacri- ficed to force the fortifications on her own soil H ii4 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST before the victorious Allies can pitch their tents in Berlin, the degradation she will have to suffer will be even more bitter. Then will the voices of her misguided children be raised in even greater lamentation, and the progress of the world pur- chased at an even greater price. February 1915. THE VOLUNTEER ARMIES WHY do the men of the non-conscript armies of the British Empire enlist ? All the other armies in the war are easily understood, for the men who make them up have no choice but to be soldiers. But in the great armies now being made ready in the United Kingdom there is no man who has been forced against his will to become a unit in the huge machine. Yet by the time the war has been in progress for a year, Great Britain will have under arms almost the same proportion of the population as conscript France, and the British Dominions are preparing contingents as fast as they can be equipped and trained. It is certainly worth while to study the incentive which makes these men willing to undergo hardship and the chance of death, and to find out whether in it lies the reason that these volunteer troops are the most effective of all the armies. In the first place, the average of intelligence in this volunteer army is probably higher than in any of the others. We certainly believe that the "5 n6 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST average intelligence of the English - speaking nations is as high or higher than that of any other people, no matter how insistently the Germans may claim that their brains are the best in the world. In a conscript army, the average intelligence must be the same as the average intelligence of the nation from which it is drawn, as the men are taken indiscriminately and the question of psychological selection does not enter into the matter. But in the British armies the question of voluntary choice is a factor, and the causes which lead to enlistment might appeal more strongly either to those above or to those below the average intelligence of the country. It seems very clear that in this war it is those above this national average of intelligence who are moved to volunteer. Undoubtedly there is a considerable number of men who have enlisted as a last resort, of men out of employment and out of money, who could look for no relief from the sufferings of poverty except by entering the army. The number of these is, however, quite insignificant in comparison with the total army. There must be nearly three million able- bodied men on the rolls, and it is, of course, absurd to suppose that even during the hard THE VOLUNTEER ARMIES 117 times resulting from trie war any great part of this huge number would be driven by necessity to enlist. The unemployed belong, as a class, to the less efficient, and all that is necessary to convince us that this army is not in any great degree made up of the inefficient is to see the men themselves, or to study the reports of what they have done and how they have done it when in the presence of the enemy and under fire. The Kaiser would give a good deal to have the British armies made up of the inefficient, but neither the first small force of British regulars who underwent the already historic retreat from Mons, nor any of the hundreds of thousands who have been sent to reinforce and increase this original British Expeditionary Force have failed to do steadfastly and efficiently the work which has been entrusted to them. No, the British armies are clearly not made up of the unemployed nor of the dregs and scourings of the slums of London and Manchester, Glasgow and Dublin. It would be better for the cause of Germany if they were. The bulk of the army is made up of the great middle class, the strength of every nation. These men have gone voluntarily, leaving conditions of safety and comfort for danger and hardship. ii8 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST The vast majority of them made a distinct sacri- fice in money when they took the small pay of the army in place of the earnings from their regular pursuits. They surely do not enjoy fighting, except, perhaps, in the excitement of the battle itself, and much less do they enjoy the toilsome days of training and preparation. No one can make me believe that these men do not understand what is the underlying issue which is to be decided by this war, and that the conviction of the justice of the British cause is not the real reason of the sacrifice they are making. To accomplish results as big as this voluntary enlistment there are various contributing causes. One of these is the loyalty to the country which this crisis has made evident. This is the finest tribute which a nation can have, and is a com- plete and irrefutable answer to any accusations of tyranny or bureaucracy. No country can have such loyalty from such an intelligent mass of its citizens unless it deserves it. No autocracy or oligarchy has ever had such loyalty. The nation is of one mind in regard to the war, and one in determination that it must be carried to a successful conclusion. Politics are thrown aside and only statesmanship counts, and the statesmanship which has taken control THE VOLUNTEER ARMIES 119 can rely on the unanimous assistance of an un- divided people. There is, however, an even more potent cause than the loyalty to the nation, and this is the loyalty to the great and idealistic conceptions of democratic freedom of which the nation is the immediate representative. It might be possible to imagine a nation which deserved well of its own people but not of the world, although this would be almost a paradox. It is conceivable that in some structure, such as Germany, a government, while seeking forcible and unjust tribute from other nations, should seek to distribute its acquisitions for the welfare and benefit of the mass of its own people, and thereby gain a selfish approval which would have the appearance of loyalty. But this would be very different from the loyalty which Great Britain is to-day finding in her sons. They are loyal, not for what they are going to get from Great Britain, but for what Great Britain is and what she stands for in this war. It would, of course, be foolish to say that the ordinary enlisted man in the army has reasoned out first causes and second causes, and after a philosophical examination of them has decided that his country is right and entitled to his help. 120 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST Although the army is perhaps the best educated and most intelligent great army that has ever been organised, with the possible ex- ception of the American armies at the end of the Civil War, such a mass of men will never analyse a complicated issue to its component parts. It is too much to expect. But none the less, although he could not put it into words, Volunteer Tommy Atkins knows what is at the bottom of things and what he is fighting for. He knows that Great Britain is right, and that she is not seeking her own welfare only, but also the welfare of the world. He may phrase it that the German blighters must not be allowed to run things, but in the back of his head he knows what it is all about. This comprehension of fundamental and abstruse things, even without the ability to put them into words, is the wonder of democracies and is what makes democracies safe and sane. The volunteer army is essentially democratic, even though it has to submit to discipline and orders that may appear quite undemocratic. This army knows that it is not fighting to determine whether British commerce or German commerce shall be dominant on the seas, or whether Germany shall extend her borders to THE VOLUNTEER ARMIES 121 include Belgium and Poland, but rather to decide whether democracy shall grow and spread or absolutism prevail, whether free peoples in a free world shall have freedom to govern them- selves or not, whether the world is to be liberated from autocratic militarism and allowed, without fear, to develop, each nation according to the capacity and deserts of its people. Volunteer Tommy may not be able to express this, but he knows it, and has volunteered that, with his sweat and the blood of his body, he may help to bring it about. Then here's to Volunteer Thomas Atkins, who is serving his world with an altruism as fine as has ever been seen. He does not know what the word means, but he knows that something in him forbids him to stay behind, and that he would not be pleased with himself if he did not go. He is true to his best instincts. Besides the mass of the army, made up as I have shown, there is an extraordinarily large number of men of the highest stations in society, to whom their present duty has come as a re- vealing light. They have cast aside idleness and luxury, and found in an increased self-respect and a willing and patriotic sacrifice such happiness as they have never known. Where they have been unable to get the positions as officers to 122 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST which their education and knowledge entitle them to aspire, they have enlisted as privates, and are doing uncomplainingly and thoroughly work such as they never expected to have to do. To them also all honour. February 1915. ADDRESS GIVEN AT AN INTERNATIONAL DINNER OF THOSE WHO DESIRED TO EXPRESS THE ESSENTIAL UNITY OF DEMOCRATIC IDEALS OF THE UNITED STATES AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE, HELD AT TORONTO, FEBRUARY 23, 1915 MR. CHAIRMAN, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN : It seems especially fitting that in this year, 1915, when the two great English-speaking nations are celebrating the centenary of peace between them, we should be meeting on an occasion like the present one, where our object is to strengthen those bonds of friendship that already exist between the people of the British Empire and the people of the United States of America to an extent probably greater than between any other two nations in the world. We believe that both of these great nations have during the last hundred years reached a degree of civilisation which makes it impossible that differences between them should ever arise incapable of being settled by amicable negotia- tion. We believe that, so far as the other is con- 133 124 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST cerned, each nation could disband its armies and do away with its navies, and that the roll of the drum or the blast of the bugle calling the citizens of either nation to war against the other will never again be heard. The fact that for a century there has been a frontier between Canada and the United States extending for three thousand miles, without fortifications on land, and without vessels of war on the Great Lakes, and that during all this time no disputes have arisen which made either nation feel this lack of military preparation, surely is of good augury for the future. We have proof by the experience of a hundred years that we have reached a degree of civilisation where the various differences which are certain to arise between such nations can be settled without injustice to either by the decision of an impartial tribunal, and that the two nations will accept and abide by such decisions in exactly the same way as civilised men abide by the decisions of the estab- lished authorities in their private affairs. I believe that the underlying cause which makes this international amity possible is the fact that the fundamental conceptions of freedom are the same in the two countries. The systems of government of the two nations may differ in unimportant details, but this does not prevent ADDRESS 125 them from being in their great essentials of democratic freedom, and government of the people, by the people and for the people, the same in their objects and their ideals. The great war now in progress in Europe is much more than a war between certain nations ranged on one side and certain other nations ranged on the other side. The forces of the Allies are fighting to make possible of continu- ance the democratic forms of government wherein free peoples may exercise the rights of choice in so far as these rights are not inconsistent with the rights of others. Democracy is a system of thought even more than a system of government, and the advance in the world of true democracy during the last hundred years has been remark- able and encouraging. In opposition to this, the German nation is attempting to establish the medieval system of government by force, irrespective of the wishes of the people governed, and to extend the scope of this government far beyond the borders of Germany itself. The obsolete doctrines of the divine right of hereditary rulers is there coupled with a feudalism which is entirely out of date, and which has been made possible even within the boundaries of Germany itself only by the denial to the people of a free press and the 126 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST repression of public expression of criticism of the government. In other words, the struggle is between the future and the past, between the twentieth century and the dark ages, between the happiness, safety, and freedom of the masses of the population of the world and the desire for the extension of power on the part of a few here- ditary rulers and the favoured bureaucrats who always fawn upon such hereditary governments. The greatest nation of the world to-day which is not actively taking part in this colossal struggle between progress and reaction is the United States. This nation more than any other has been the leader of modern democracy, and has by its example of successful democracy done more than any other to cause the wonderful growth of democracy in Europe. The United States came into being as a result of a revolution against Great Britain at a time when Great Britain had not learned the lesson of democracy of which to-day she is so great an example, and this very revolution did more to make Great Britain clearly understand the importance of democracy and the unwisdom of attempting to continue feudalism into the twentieth century than any other event in history. The greatness of the present British Empire is largely due to this lesson which she has so thoroughly learned. ADDRESS 127 To-day perhaps the most striking thing which has been brought out by this war is the unfailing loyalty to Great Britain and to the British system of democratic freedom shown by all the parts of the British Empire. No government ruling by force and by fear has ever had such loyalty, and the most significant fact I know is that from New Zealand and Canada, from India and Australia, and even from the great mass of the population of South Africa which has been a part of the British Empire for so short a time that it has not had an opportunity fully to realise the value of British freedom, have come not only expressions of sympathy but active participation in the burden of the war, and a practically unanimous offer of assistance to the last man and the last dollar. The lesson learned from India is most illumin- ating. Here is a land proud in an ancient civilisa- tion, rich in tradition, and teeming with a population the great mass of which has never had the opportunity to acquire education as we of Western nations know it. For centuries the different states and different races that go to make it up have been at war with one another, and the bitterness of these feuds has been greatly intensified by religious zeal and fanaticism. When first India came under the domination of 128 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST England, the old ideas of the possibility of using a subject nation for profit, of exploiting a colony, still prevailed, and led to the scandals incident to the regime of Warren Hastings. But for the last half-century Great Britain has appreciated that she could profit from India only through India's prosperity, and she has ad- ministered India for the welfare of India. As a result India has known peace and has made great strides forward, and has been fired with a loyalty incomprehensible to Germany which can only understand the old and outworn theory of colonial exploitation. Germany expected that at this time of British peril India would grasp the opportunity to revolt, and expected that, in addition to war in Europe, Great Britain would have great wars in Asia to carry on. But the people of India have realised that their state has been better than ever before, and those who in the black year of 1857 sought to extermin- ate the English now ask only to be permitted to die in the British cause. No endeavours to stir up religious fanaticism, no proclamations of Jehads, have availed; but with a splendid unani- mity Rajah and Maharajah, Prince and Nizam have come forward, and Sikh and Ghurka, Pathan and Bengalee, Hindu and Mohammedan, are serving eagerly beneath the Cross of St. ADDRESS 129 George. Thus even to a people not yet ready for a full enjoyment of democratic responsibilities has come an understanding of the inherent un- selfishness of British democracy, and the result has been a loyalty which has astounded Germany and has made it certain that British institutions are essentially right and are to continue to pre- vail in the world. There is no question but what in the United States public opinion is intensely sympathetic with the British cause, and but what in view of the past history of the United States and the democracy upon which the country has been founded, and in view of its ideals and its position among the leaders of civilisation, it would be impossible for American sympathy to be with the doctrines for which Germany is fighting. The very origin of the United States was due to the refusal of its inhabitants to live under a system which at that time paralleled the present German system of colonial administration almost as closely as the British democracy of the present day parallels the democracy of the United States. Great Britain and her Allies have been so certain of this understanding of the fundamental conditions leading to the war by the people of the United States that they have not thought it 130 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST necessary to establish any bureaus in the United States for disseminating partisan information, or for endeavouring to colour American opinion, but have relied upon the good sense of the American people to make a just decision as to where lies the culpability for the war, and to which side the welfare of the world requires that victory shall come. I think that the American people has made up its mind as to which side desired the war; and the invasion of unoffending Belgium, together with the policy of terrorism carried out in that country, has greatly prejudiced the German cause. Much more important than the question of the origin of the war is that of the fundamental issues to be decided by it, and what will be the result to the world of a victory by either side. As to these questions, opinion is still much mixed in the United States, and it is essential that the truth in regard to them should be made clear and apparent. It is a condition of actual warfare which is our present concern much more than the theory of its beginnings, about which opinion has already been formed. Many people still hold hazy views about it, and even have an idea that the German assertions that commercial jealousy is the real cause of the strife have a basis of fact. ADDRESS 131 They fail to recognise that the real issue is whether the progress of democracy which has done so much to increase the happiness of the world shall continue, or whether it shall be set back a century by the success of autocratic militarism. Further, they fail to give due weight to the fact that a great and real advance in world conditions as a result of the war is only possible of accomplishment by a total defeat of Germany. We all hope to see this the last great war between great nations, and we have every reason to expect it to be so. But should Germany prevail, it is clear that progress can only come from a new and even greater war against a successful despotism of which military power is the gospel, or else by the overthrow of such a despotism by revolution. The hope of a Federation of Europe, of an in- ternational tribunal to which all international disputes must be referred, and which shall have under its direction military forces contributed by the nations in due proportion and sufficient to enforce its decrees, is possible only through a success of the allied nations. Optimism can only expect immediate essential amelioration of world conditions through the defeat of Germany. The Germans in America, together with others especially sent for the purpose, are carrying on an 132 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST active propaganda in the United States. At first their desire was to turn American sympathies to the German cause, but the failure of this en- deavour has been so evident, except among those of German origin, that to a great extent this has been abandoned. At present most of the energies of these people are being devoted to attempts to cloud the real issues at stake and to cause friction and irritation between the United States and the Allies. There is little doubt but what this propaganda is being financed direct from Berlin, and that it is being carried out with the thoroughness so characteristic of Germany. It began many years ago, and has been helped forward in every way possible, from the gift by the Kaiser of Germanic museums to the tour of Prince Henry, the Kaiser's brother. The political power of citizens of German origin has been carefully fostered, and endeavours have been made by the organisation of associated German societies to make this political power a serious menace. Of late these people have had the effrontery to come out in the open and declare that this organised political power will be used to defeat any candidates who have not aided the German cause. Pro-German repre- sentatives have been elected to Congress from communities where the German element is strong, ADDRESS 133 and every endeavour is being made to interfere with the assistance to the Allies which American citizens would naturally seek to render. This organised German effort in the United States clearly imposes upon individuals of the allied nations the duty of opposing it and counter- acting its evil influences, since officially the Allies have taken no steps to accomplish it. This meet- ing to-night is for the purpose of again emphasis- ing the insistent importance of this duty, and of awakening each individual to a sense of his duties in this regard. Those who live in Canada are best situated, . both in geographical location and in the intimacy of relations social and commercial with the United States, to carry out this great duty. Those who, like myself, are American citizens resident in Canada, can perhaps do more to promulgate our views than the Canadian citizens themselves, and I believe that the duty of each American to work for this end is clear and not to be denied. It is impossible to imagine any American who lives in Canada taking the part of Germany. We are too close to things, we understand the Canadian people too well, we see too clearly what they are fighting for, we know from our own experience too unquestionably that the German 134 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST assertions that the colonies of Great Britain are living under a despotic tyranny are lies. We live in a country as free as our own, we have laws made by the people and for the people. We have found here in Canada a people like our own in language and education, in religion and aspira- tions, in all that goes to give character to a nation. We have found that the pursuit of happiness can be carried on by us in exactly the same way and under the same conditions whether we live under the Union Jack or under the Stars and Stripes, which we love and to which we are loyal. We know that what is called British imperialism is a name, a term, and does not represent any- thing like the imperialisms of history, and that it differs from German imperialism as daylight differs from darkness. The people of the United States are too intelli- gent not to realise that they are interested to almost as great an extent as Europe in the out- come of this war. The world to-day is very dif- ferent from the world of a hundred years ago in its essential economic unity and in the fact that now each nation is influenced by the conditions prevailing in other nations to a much greater de- gree than formerly. The advances in methods of communication and transportation during the ADDRESS 135 last seventy-five years have done more to bind the whole world together than the whole period of recorded history before that time. In the old days, a nation might exist secluded and apart from other nations of the world, and might be touched only lightly by the conditions prevailing elsewhere in the world. This old national circumscription is a thing of the past, and no nation which aspires to even a small degree of modern civilisation can fail to be vitally affected by conditions elsewhere prevailing. The commerce and finance of a nation are no longer dependent merely upon its internal conditions, but are world wide and international to an extra- ordinary extent. Money surpluses seeking invest- ment are no longer confined to the country of their origin, but are liquid, and flow to whatever country offers the most attractive prospects in safety and profits. The United States can no longer hold aloof from Europe as in the days of Washington. In view of the growth of the nation since that time to a great world power, having a huge area, a vast population, and weighty interests in every capital of the world, it is of necessity vitally interested in any event which is of such world importance as the present war. It is, therefore, unquestionably the duty of the United States 136 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST to use its great influence to make this war bring about a lasting bettering of world conditions. Even if it shall be possible for the United States throughout the duration of the war to remain governmentally neutral, and to avoid the neces- sity of active participation in the war, this does not alter the obligation of the nation to interest itself in the outcome, and to strive to make the changed conditions resulting from the war such as will promote the safety and happiness of mankind. Furthermore, it is universally recognised by all writers on international law that the official governmental neutrality of a nation imposes upon its individual citizens no obligation of personal neutrality. So long as the nation as such, and through its established government, does nothing to aid either party to hostilities, there is nothing to prevent the maximum of aid being rendered by individuals of the nation. Almost the only activities by individuals which international law recognises as inconsistent with national neutrality, and which therefore a neutral nation is obligated to prevent, are the organising within its boundaries of armed forces for use against one of the belligerents, and the sale of armed vessels of war. Other individual activities are not only permissible, but at a time like this ADDRESS 137 appear to me to be the moral duty of the citizens of the nation. It is impossible to conceive of the people of any nation being neutral in any world crisis as vital as that caused by the present war. The conditions of life, both during the war and at its conclusion, are certain to be affected to so great an extent that every intelligent citizen must of necessity have a deep concern in it. This war belongs to every man and every nation. I think that there can hardly be any American in Canada who will disagree with the views that I have expressed to-night, however unwilling he may be to go with me the full length of my beliefs in regard to the present duty of the United States as a nation. I, therefore, wish to impress upon every one of my fellow-countrymen living in Canada the overwhelming importance of making Canada, as one of the component parts of the British Empire, and the British Empire as illustrated by Canada, understood in the United States. Each individual may be able to reach only a few persons in the United States, but these persons may in turn influence others, and in this way the good which we seek to accomplish may be made to spread throughout the nation. War between such nations as the United States and Great Britain can never result except from 138 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST a complete misunderstanding of each other. We Americans who are of one nation, and in the other, can do much to make Great Britain understood in the United States, and it is our duty to do so to the uttermost of our ability. Those in control of the German propaganda are doing their utmost to cause friction between the governments of the United States and of Great Britain, and nothing would please them more than to be able to bring about a rupture of the existing friendly relations. I desire again to emphasise the fact that such a rupture can only come from a complete failure of the two nations to comprehend the funda- mental democracy upon which they are both established, and there lies upon the individual citizen of each nation a weighty moral obligation to do all in his power to make this fundamental democratic unity understood at home and abroad. This obligation is heavy upon the citizen of Canada because geographically he is in a position to make his country known and appreciated in the United States, but it probably rests even more heavily upon the United States citizen living in Canada. He is in an even better posi- tion to bring about real accomplishment in the direction of mutual respect and confidence. Let us, therefore, both Americans and Canadians, ADDRESS 139 spare no effort to promulgate the understanding of this essential unity of democratic government and democratic ideals in the United States and in the British Empire. If we can succeed in making this unity understood, we may rest certain that nothing can ever occur to break the bonds of peace between the two nations. No German machinations, no isolated centres of pro-German sympathy in the United States, will have power to cause more than a momentary irritation. I believe, also, that we ought to impress upon the people of the United States the fact that, until the time shall come, which as a result of this war may be nearer than any of us have hereto- fore dared to hope, when the commerce of the world which affects the world as a whole, and which is carried out along the sea routes of the world, shall be guarded and have its safety assured by an international navy established to perform this international duty until such time shall come, I say, it is safe for the world to entrust to Great Britain the policing of the sea routes. For generations Great Britain has held un- questioned supremacy upon the seas, and during the last hundred years the instances in which she has used this supreme control of the ocean routes unjustly are few and isolated. It is im- possible not to believe that Great Britain is 140 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST steadily advancing in democratic civilisation, and it is impossible, therefore, to believe that Great Britain will not in the future, as in the past, use her mastery of the seas to further the safety of international commerce whether the same shall be under the British flag or under that of any other nation. It is foolish to attempt to frighten the American people with the threat of danger to its commercial interests from Great Britain's sea power, as it is only necessary to call attention to the fact that British sea power has prevailed for many years and American commercial interests have not been thereby damaged. Great Britain for many years has herself paid the cost of carry- ing out what should be an obligation of the world in policing the trade routes and making them safe for the commerce of the world, and no nation has been injured by the fact that Great Britain has policed them. Germany in this war seeks to wrest from Great Britain her naval supremacy. We have no assur- ance that should Germany be successful and acquire this supremacy it would be used with the same restraint as has characterised British supremacy. In this matter it would surely be unwise to change the guardianship which for generations has proved safe and trustworthy ADDRESS 141 unless the change were to make such guardian- ship purely international, and dependent upon the world as a whole rather than upon any one nation. To sum up, therefore, it is fair to say that the struggle now going on is not so much a struggle between enumerated nations on one side and the other, as it is a struggle between two systems of government, between two systems of thought, between modern democracy and medieval feu- dalism, and in this struggle the people of every nation in the world are vitally interested. The people of the United States with a history behind them of one war fought for their own liberties, of one war fought for the liberties of a race held in bondage within the nation, of a third war fought for the liberties of a weak and im- potent people at the borders of the country, cannot but be vitally concerned in this struggle for the liberties of the world, and even should the United States not take part in actively promoting the preservation and extension of these liberties by an actual participation in the war against Germany, it must render all the help to the cause of the allied nations which its intelligent and patriotic citizens can render without involving the nation in the war. Upon each of us rests a great and important duty to perform. The place of America in history will be largely dependent H2 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST upon the attitude taken at this time by the citizens of America. Let us, therefore, spare no pains, each according to his ability, to make this attitude one which shall redound to the lasting credit of the nation, and which shall be consistent with the history of its past and its hopes and aspirations for the future years. I wish again to emphasise the fact that the reason that the sympathies of the United States have been, and ought to be, extended to the allied nations is that the fundamental issue is the ex- tension of democracy. This growth of democracy is what may succeed in making possible a federa- tion of the nations and the establishment of an international conclave or tribunal which shall make future great wars impossible. The govern- ment of the United States is essentially the estab- lishment of a federation in which self-governing and autonomous states have voluntarily ceded to a federal government such of their sovereign rights as seemed necessary to make the federation effective, and have given to this federal govern- ment power to enforce its federal regulations. In like manner, the British Empire during the last fifty years has shown a marked tendency to become a federation much the same in effect as the United States federation, and this movement towards this form of government in the British ADDRESS 143 Empire is still continuing. The chief difference between the origin of this British federation and that in the United States is that in the former the central government granted to the component parts of the Empire powers and authorities not inconsistent with the exercise of federal control, whereas in the case of the United States the com- ponent states originally had complete sovereignty and gave up part of it to the central government. The result in each case is much the same, although historically it was reached through different methods. A federation is founded essentially upon an idea which is sure to have more and more im- portance in the highest civilisations. This is what may be termed super - nationalism, and is a recognition of the loyalty due by a people to a conception of freedom and of order higher than what is due to the nation. The states of the United States are in effect each of them free nations, which have, nevertheless, recognised that there is a duty superior to that which they owe to themselves, and the federal government is in effect a recognition of this super-nationalism. Much the same is true of the component parts of the British Empire as at present constituted. The greatest safeguard for the future of the world and for permanent peace between such 144 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST nations as the United States and the British Empire will come from a recognition of a funda- mental super-national loyalty due not only to an established government greater than the different states in America and greater than the local governments of the various parts of the British Empire, but to a conceptionof a civilisation greater than any government hitherto established. It will be a loyalty due to a system of world con- trol which shall be superior to any nation. This may serve to make more clear what I said earlier in the evening that I believe democracy is more a system of thought than a system of government. If a people thinks democratically, it means that this people has an appreciation of a super-national loyalty which is due not merely to the nation but to the world as a whole. This super-national loyalty is by no means incon- sistent with loyalty to the nation, in exactly the same way that loyalty to a federal government is not inconsistent with loyalty to one of the states which compose it, or to a municipality within the state. It is the underlying recognition of the super- national obligations of a people which restrains the nation and makes it worthy. It matters not what you term this spirit which I have called super-nationalism, as it might in many cases ADDRESS 145 equally well be called ethics, or national morality, or an understanding of the meaning of freedom, or true civilisation, or any of various other terms. I am convinced, however, that it exists, and that in it lies the hope of the world. Many fear that after this war the world will be endangered by the Russian autocracy in exactly the same manner in which it has been endangered by the German autocracy. I cannot believe this, for the reason that however much we democrats disapprove of the existing form of Russian government we cannot fail to see there an insistent demand by the people for democratic freedom. The people there are thinking democratically, and an ultimate accomplishment of democracy cannot fail a people which thinks democratically and earnestly desires democracy. This unrest and constant struggle towards freedom in Russia is in marked contrast to the supine and phlegmatic acceptance by the people of Germany of the autocracy there prevalent. The German people has been willing to accept the efficiency of an able dictatorship, and has lacked the protesting individualism which is making the Russian people democratic. An eager individualism is a necessary accompaniment of a people which thinks democratically, and when such individualism within an autocracy becomes 146 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST powerful and insistent it must of necessity mean an end to the autocratic system of government. A consideration of these things makes it evident that if the time shall come when the United States, which seeks no direct profit in territory or indemnity from the European struggle, can, nevertheless, no longer keep aloof and becomes involved in the war, it must be on the side of the allied nations and against Germany. The people of the United States hope to be able with honour to avoid an active participation in the war, however deeply some Americans may feel that the struggle is not national but super- national, and that, therefore, the United States ought to be carrying its share of the burden. Public opinion in the United States is being educated to an appreciation of the truly super- national character of the war, and if any concrete event shall occur to bring home to the United States its immediate interest in the struggle, the fact that this opinion has been created and exists will be of great importance in making the nation ready for its decision. If such time shall come, the world will see that the same people who shouted " Cuba Libre " and bled to prove their words will be ready as freely and as nobly to bleed to prove that Belgium is a country and not a road. FRANCE THE pathos of incidents caused by the war is often such as to wring the heartstrings, and to double the determination that this war must be the last one ever to take place between great nations. Next to Belgium, the burden of the war has fallen most heavily upon France, and the calm resignation and uncomplaining self-sacrifice with which the people of France have met the calls upon their patriotism serve as an inspiration to those who believe that men and women can rise to heights of unselfishness which shall make war a thing of the past. Ever since 1870 the spectre of Germany militant along the frontier of ravished Alsace- Lorraine has compelled France to a conscription which she did not wish. The French people have no longing for military aggression, and no desire to extend the boundaries of their European domains, other of course than the wish for the home-return of the lost provinces. But they recognised the threat of Germany, and knew that it was neces- sary for the safety of their land that each son of France should give up to his country two years 148 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST to be devoted to military training, and that so long as physically able to serve he must remain subject to the call to arms. The patience with which the people accepted this obligation and this national duty is sometimes intensely pathetic. The announcement that war had been declared found the people unspeakably sad, but unswerv- ing in their determination to meet the crisis. There was no excitement, none of the marching and shouting which we should have expected from a nation which we have always considered as much more mercurial than we. From the very beginning, the war was accepted as a thing as inevitable as fate, as a thing bigger than all the interests of the individual, as a thing to which such interests must be subordin- ated without question. Whatever orders the authorities gave were obeyed unhesitatingly and without criticism, and the bare statement that it was " pour la patrie " justified every sacrifice. The dignity with which the mass of the people accepted their duties under the new conditions imposed by war was as remarkable as it was admirable. In Paris there was practically no disorder, only an inexpressible unhappiness and sorrow which contrasted strangely with the accustomed gaiety of the city. On the first night of war a few men FRANCE 149 marched along the boulevards and a few stones were thrown against shops bearing German names, but nothing which could be termed rioting took place. The next day such shops bore placards giving the name of the regiment and the position in it of the owner of the shop, followed by a statement that during his absence the shop was entrusted to the people of Paris. This ended all disorder, the populace accepting the confidence placed in it, and showing itself worthy. This confidence in the people of France was illustrated by another incident. The call came to one reservist to appear for entrainment for the front at one of the railway stations. This man had just lost his wife, and was left with two children, three years old and one year old. He had no near relatives, and had been taking care of the children himself. At the appointed time he appeared at the station, carrying the baby and leading the other child. There was the usual crowd of persons present, and the soldier addressing them said : " My country has called for me, and I am here. But my children, I have no one with whom to leave them. What shall I do with my children ? " A working woman among the spectators stepped forward and said: " Give them to me, I will take care of them ISO WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST for you until after the war, and in this way I, too, can help la France." The wonderful thing was that neither thought that there was anything extraordinary in it, and the soldier went to the battle-front sure that this woman whom he had never before seen or heard of would take care of the children and return them to him if he ever came back from the war. Occurrences like this, of which, did we but know them, thousands have taken place since the war broke out, make us firm believers not only in France but in the men and women who make the world. We cannot but know that in Germany, too, there is the same inherent good in human nature, and that the whole trouble has been caused by the wrong German system which has repressed the people instead of stimulating them to individual progress. It is their mis- fortune that they have not enjoyed democratic opportunity; it is their fault, to a much smaller degree, that they have not demanded a freedom which they were prevented from learning. France came out of the war of 1870 chastened in spirit and with the consciousness of a great injustice against which she was helpless. The evil of the Second Empire was made clear, and republicanism was born of her very misfortunes. Her people, with a splendid courage, met the FRANCE 151 financial burdens of that war, and astonished the world by paying off the indemnity imposed by Germany in three years. But until the present time France has never been able quite to recover her old self-respect; the knowledge that she had been forced to act under compulsion, and had been powerless to prevent the ravishing of Alsace and Lorraine, left her not perhaps embittered, but certainly with a sadness as a nation. Now she has again found her soul, and as a nation can meet any nation as an equal. Her soldiers have met the finest fighting machine in the world, and have shown not only the old Gallic fury of the charge, but an immovable firmness and steadfastness in the trying days of retreat and impending disaster. The devotion of the army to its best ideals, even when the prospects were most discouraging, was almost British in its doggedness. France does not seek to gain much materially from this war; her great gain is the moral restora- tion of her self-respect. The only European terri- tory which she will seek will be her own lost provinces; in money she will not get back more than what was taken from her in 1870 with interest and part of her present war costs; in foreign lands she may strengthen her colonial interests. iS2 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST But she will gain an added freedom for her people; her democracy, which since the Franco- Prussian war has been largely on trial, will be strengthened and assured; and she will for all time be freed from the fear of an insolent and sneering Germany at her gates. The sacrifices that she has made for her army have justified themselves, but these sacrifices will no longer be necessary. As an outcome of the war military conscription will cease throughout Europe, and the relief will perhaps be more grateful to France than to any other nation. The national qualities of France, the cheerfulness under conditions that would have disheartened many nations, the thrift and the genial kindness that have char- acterised her, will have an added opportunity for growth and expansion. Vive La France! February 1915. GERMANY UNCIVILISED CIVILISATION does not consist in knowledge; that is often one of its least important attributes. Neither does it consist in religion or in the much misused term of culture in the sense of what the Romans called the humanities. It is almost impossible to give to civilisation a definition which will not fall short at one point or another; it is inclusive of so much which is ethical, which is scientific, which is govern- mental, which is artistic, which is social, that to know what the word really means we have to study the history of all that has happened since the birth of man with a view to understanding its bearing upon what man is to-day and what he may become during the development of the future. A true civilisation must be both exceedingly complex and exceedingly simple, however para- doxical this may sound. Its simplicity lies in the fact of its universality, of its catholicity, of the fundamental broadness that must make it applicable to every unit in the body politic. Its complexity lies in the need that it be equal 154 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST to the assimilation of every discovery and every advance, and that it be able to meet every new condition and new need. It must be above nothing, no matter how small, and beneath nothing, no matter how great. One of the clearest evidences of civilisation is toleration. This presumes a broadmindedness which can eliminate the relative unimportance of personal views wherever these views do not ripen into action prejudicial to the existence and growth of civilisation. This toleration applies to many things, social as well as religious. If the world were truly civilised, it would of necessity mean an end to war, for war would be quite superfluous, and could accomplish nothing of value. This is the truth underlying Norman AngelPs Great Illusion. That war has been brought about by a nation is in itself a proof of the lack of civilisation of that nation, and when the methods of carrying on the war are even more barbarous than the fact of its inception, this proof is doubly clear. No matter how the analysis of present European conditions is made, one of the most salient facts that becomes evident is that scientific and educated Germany is fundament- ally uncivilised. In its very derivation, civilisation is what pertains to the citizen, and differs but slightly from politics in its broadest meaning. It would GERMANY UNCIVILISED 155 therefore seem impossible that in an autocracy, where the citizen as such has but little influence, a true civilisation could fructify; and a considera- tion of history will emphasise this fact. More of the essentials of a true civilisation will be found in the town meeting of the New England village, with its unadulterated democracy, than in the scientific complexities of a German militarism. We look back with horror upon the Inquisition, and regard the acts of a Torquemada in trying to compel a belief in the Roman Church by means of rack and wheel as the acme of barbarism. But wherein does this differ in kind from the acknow- ledged intention of Germany to spread the virtues of its " Kultur " with fire and sword and to impose them upon unwilling peoples ? The Pilgrim Fathers sought the right to worship as they chose, and, like the Huguenots of France, were willing to suffer for this funda- mental of freedom. Can Germany believe that in this twentieth century those who have been bred to an appreciation of the right of individual choice will be content to have a German system, to which they are antagonistic, thrust upon them, and that a German success, if such a thing were believable, would be more than a temporary lull while the forces of freedom were recruiting them- selves for revolution ? No people which has ever ruled itself will be 156 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST content to be ruled by others, and no people which has known freedom will ever return to bondage. Any attempt to bind a free people is to breed revolution ; it is a sowing of the wind from which the whirlwind will inevitably be reaped. In contrast with this intent to extend by force beliefs and systems upon those unwilling to accept them voluntarily, let us note the tolera- tion of British government since Britain became democratic. It pleases Great Britain to call her- self a Christian nation, and she has even dignified a particular creed of Christianity with govern- mental approval and entitled it the Established Church. But nowhere have other branches of Christianity or other religions more freedom to exist and to proselytise than in Great Britain, and some very respectable drawing-rooms are even open to those monists who believe they have progressed far beyond what Christianity has to offer. Much more striking, however, than the religious toleration in Great Britain, where religion matters not a fig, is the British toleration in countries like India, where religion is still a vital and active thing, and may at any moment burst into a devouring flame. The King chooses to call himself Defender of the Faith, but he proves himself infinitely greater than his title in being a defender of every faith that any of his GERMANY UNCIVILISED 157 subjects choose to embrace. Some of the concrete results of religions have been detrimental to orderly government and have had to be sup- pressed, such, for instance, as the practice of suttee by Hindu widows, but, in as far as religious rites have not been inimical to the essentials of government, all persons in British territory are free to believe and to worship as they choose. This toleration is perhaps the greatest proof that Great Britain is as much entitled to claim to be civilised as any nation to-day existing. With the United States, she shares the most universal freedom of belief, and with the United States she holds the best promise for the future. Along with religious toleration goes toleration of criticism. This is the greatest safeguard of democracy and of civilisation, and the lack of it in Germany is the fundamental cause of her barbarism and of this war. Since the German Empire was erected there has been no free press there, and the lack of it alone has enabled the militaristic powers to deceive the people and to prevent an understanding of democratic ideals which would have made impossible an acceptance of the Philosophy of Force. It is true that in English-speaking countries this freedom has sometimes almost degenerated into licence, but it cannot be misused to such an extent that it 158 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST ceases to be supremely valuable, and to make toward civilisation as much as any other one factor. Civilisation presupposes a sanity of vision which will prevent excess even under new and different conditions. Cannibalism is impossible to a civilised people; it is revolting to the con- ception of the dignity of man upon which every civilisation must be based. Equally impossible to a truly civilised people should be terrorism and reprisal, and the fact that, in Belgium and Poland, Germany has made use of them, forbids her any right to claim civilisation. Justice is one of the foundations of civilisation, and justice rests upon responsibility. To seize hostages and shoot them for the acts of others over which they have no control is an act of injustice entirely incompatible with even a modicum of civilisation. Yet Germany admits and glories in this barbarism, and by so doing ranks herself with the Huns and the Visigoths. Every one has a bit of the barbarian in him, and civilisation is an artificial product. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is human nature, and it is impossible not to expect that those who have suffered from German barbarism will have a strong impulse to retaliate in kind when the opportunity comes. The degree of civilisation to which the British nation has attained will largely GERMANY UNCIVILISED 159 be measured by the restraint which it shows when it has both opportunity and provocation. I believe that the British armies as a whole will show that they have an understanding of the duties imposed by civilisation which will dif- ferentiate them sharply from the Teuton war machine. It is, of course, inconceivable that Great Britain should forget herself to the same extent as Germany, and should commit acts of slaughter and destruction where no military advantage other than terrorism could be gained. On the other hand, vengeance is a very human quality, and however safe German women and children, burgomasters and civilians may be, it will un- doubtedly be hard to prevent acts of revenge upon German soldiery. Let those upon whom rests Great Britain's reputation spare no en- deavour to keep British hands clean of such acts. Civilisation is largely an appreciation of the rights of others, and under the breadth of this definition no one could claim that Germany has shown herself civilised. The invasion of Belgium was one of the most uncivilised acts of history, and no sophistry or casuistry can make it other. The temptation to Great Britain to violate Holland has been enormous, but no one has ever suggested that Great Britain do so. The chances 160 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST are that Holland herself has reached a state of civilisation where she will realise that she is com- pelled to enter the war against the barbarism of Germany, and that when the time is ripe Holland will invite England to pass through Dutch land to the performance of her great task, but Holland knows well that she can rely on British civilisa- tion, and that until she enters the war her boundaries are safe from British invasion. Civilisation and unselfishness are closely re- lated, and here also we find that Germany fails to measure up to the standard, and that most of the other nations also fail to a lesser degree. The most selfish and most uncivilised of modern national institutions is the custom house, and as might have been expected it has been the most prolific cause of war. It is possible from a philo- sophical viewpoint to justify the existence of the custom house only as a convenient means of raising revenue, of taxing the people within a country. When its scope is admittedly extended beyond this, as when protective duties are imposed, it is a national selfishness incom- patible with the highest civilisation, which should aim to give equal opportunity to all people re- gardless of national boundaries. This conception of civilisation may seem Utopian when the development hitherto attained is considered, but it is none the less logically GERMANY UNCIVILISED 161 sound. A perfected world-civilisation ought to aim at giving no selfish advantages to any one people; this is the root of world democracy, just as national democracy aims at the destruction of selfish privilege within the nation. The uncivilised and selfish desire to seek special advantages by one nation over other nations, a narrow and egotistic nationalism, is the funda- mental cause of all wars, and the custom house is the instrument by which this selfishness is most frequently carried out. Incidentally, I might mention that from a philosophical standpoint the most evil of all tariffs is the preferential tariff, which seeks not only to create unnatural economic conditions between those within the nation and those with- out, but further seeks to destroy any fair equality of opportunity for those outside of the nation. This is true in spite of the sentimental and even altruistic arguments which have often been used to justify a preference and to make it appear as a noble and unselfish action of devotion. The world still has far to go to reach a real civilisation, but the nearer it can come to it the more impossible will war become, and the greater will be the happiness of mankind. Let us imagine what would exist in a completely civilised world. Democracy would be universal, and with it would be universal education. Every people would be 162 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST governed in units of the size desired by them- selves. There would be no incentive to national extension or conquest, because there would be nothing to be gained by it. The citizens of one nation where population was becoming unduly dense would be free to go to whatsoever other land they wished, there to find democracy and opportunity. With universal democracy there would be no governmental advantage in colonies or subject territory; with universal free trade there would be no economic advantage in them. Equality of opportunity would create an aris- tocracy of ability regardless of race, creed, or nationality. It would be a world where justice would be more nearly universal than ever before. There is no nation in the world which yet approaches this ideal of civilisation, of super- national civilisation, but the evidence shows that Germany is farther from it than any other nation, with the possible exception of those which, like Turkey, are frankly barbarous and anachronistic. We come back again and again to the old thesis that the only thing which can lead to civilisation is democracy, and that an autocracy, no matter how sedulously it may ape the appearance of civilisation, lacks and must lack its fundamental requirements. March 1915. PATRIOTISM PATRIOTISM is a sentiment which may be made use of to accomplish any national purpose, good or evil. It is an effective means of appealing to those who do not have the keenness of insight necessary to analyse causes and conditions, and frequently stands for much that is wrong and retrogressive. It is often used as the cloak under which national selfishness and even bureaucratic selfishness may conceal its ugliness. A real patriot is one who insists that his country shall act worthily, not one who is willing to support his country through thick and thin no matter whether its course be praiseworthy or not. In other words, a true patriot is he who demands that his country shall take the course which shall develop in it the highest ideals of which it is capable, and who is willing to sacrifice everything for the fructification of these ideals. It is therefore clear that in a given event the world will be better or worse off for the existence of patriotic sentiment according to whether the success of the cause for which the country stands and for which the spirit of patriotism is aroused 163 164 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST is one which shall benefit the world or which shall injure it. If the former, there is nothing which can be of more service in creating in men a willingness to undergo the sacrifices needed to attain the end; if the latter, there is nothing which more dangerously can cause worthy men to give unselfish endeavour for that which is unworthy. The spirit of nationalism is what may be un- worthy and is what is commonly called patriotism and evoked under that name. Whether this nationalism is truly patriotic depends on the worthiness of the nation and its cause. There are few things which are in their nature more wrong than to use noble motives for base accomplishment. This is a perversion which when understood vaguely, but not clearly dis- tinguished, can do more to discredit nobility of motive and make it seem not worth the while than almost anything else. It is the converse of the Jesuitical, and seeks to make the means appear to justify the end. It may serve to dim those ideals which hold the hope of progress. It therefore behoves the true patriot, he who feels that his loyalty and his endeavours are due to his world, to determine whether his country is worthy, and whether by promoting his country's cause he is promoting the cause of civilisation PATRIOTISM 165 and the welfare of mankind. These latter objects are what the evolution of the world requires, and it is to these supremely that loyalty and patriotism are due. To come from the abstract to the concrete, it is of value to note in this war how each nation has made appeals to patriotism, and to try to see in each case whether the appeal is one which will help or will hinder progress. The case of Germany is, of course, the most interesting and the most vital, because of all nations Germany is the one from whom most might have been expected by the world. No nation has itself advanced more in scientific knowledge or in certain phases of industrial efficiency, and no nation had more possibilities in it for advanc- ing the world. If these qualities were the ones sought to be perpetuated and enlarged by the call to patriotism, if these qualities were threatened from without and needed defence, every German ought to have answered the call willingly and enthusiastically. But the preservation and protection of the good qualities of the nation were not the object of the call to the people. These things were not endangered, but that which has been for years the most evil thing in Germany, that which has more than nullified all the good coming from the i66 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST nation, was at stake. The military caste, the Junkerism, the bureaucracy, had been threatened by the great increase in Socialism. True, the Socialists could only speak through their repre- sentatives in the Reichstag, and under the peculiar form of German government it mattered not at all what they said in the Reichstag. Germany has the forms of a parliamentary chamber, but this chamber has none of the powers of a real parliament. It is absolutely subject to the throne and to the Bundesrat, and is nothing except a safety valve through which the dissatisfactions of the people might be harm- lessly blown off. The brilliance of Bismarck's ability was in no way more clearly manifested than in his giving much of the appearance with none of the substance of popular representation. Powerless as the Reichstag was, it was none the less very disconcerting to the Junker rulers to see the seething Socialism which was becoming so prevalent throughout the country, and they realised that however impotent this Socialism might be under existing forms of government, any further great extension of it might easily make it so powerful that it would overthrow the regulations which made it impotent, and with them bring the Junkers crashing down. The burdens of militarism were becoming almost too PATRIOTISM 167 heavy for the people to support, and any great revolt against militarism would be a revolt against the Junker caste who lived only by it. What course then would be so effective for the Junkers as to bring on a war, to justify their army by its use, and to shout for the Vaterland and scream patriotism with voices that should drown any protests from helpless socialists and serve to make a deceived populace turn to the Junkers through a mistaken patriotism ? It is not the first time that foreign wars have been brought about to conceal a domestic malady of the nation, nor the first time that a generous but mistaken patriotism has been aroused to act as the bul- wark of an absolutism which was in reality the greatest foe of the people cajoled into rallying to its defence. Once the war was afoot, the German rallying cry was that the Empire was fighting for its very existence. This was absolutely true if its exist- ence as heretofore constituted was intended, for the world cannot afford to tolerate its continu- ance. But the German people are not fighting for their own existence; indeed aside from the losses and suffering of the war and the burden of hatred and debt under which they will have to labour for many years, the lot of the people will be far better under the new conditions of demo- 168 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST cratic freedom which will come to them after the inevitable defeat of Germany. The longer Germany continues her hopeless struggle and the greater the losses she inflicts upon the nations opposing her, the heavier will be the burden which the people of Germany will have to shoulder after the war, and the longer will it take them to regain the conditions of peaceful prosperity which is their right. It would have been altogether too much to expect from the bulk of a people that they should appreciate these facts and have the wit to detect how false a note was struck in the appeal to their patriotism. They had had only forty-five years of nationhood, and for all this time into their ears had been dinned panegyrics of this new nation. The doctrine that the state was the supreme excellence, to which every right of the citizen must be subordinated, had been pro- claimed as an established fact, and any attempts to attack this doctrine had been treated as treason. With wonderful skill the Junkers had identified themselves with the state in the popular mind, and had instilled into the people the belief that to the state their highest loyalty was due. It was therefore only natural that, when the cry of danger to this state was raised, the people believed that they were acting with PATRIOTISM 169 a noble patriotism in sacrificing everything for what was in fact their greatest enemy and oppressor. Even if this was to be expected from the mass of the people including the socialists, from whom clear thinking was not to be anticipated, how- ever much we must sympathise with the restless- ness which was manifesting itself in impossible methods, the fact that the intellectuals also accepted the call as one of a true patriotism is almost incomprehensible. When one reads the weak and futile expositions of men like Eucken and Haeckel, when one sees the names of men of .world-wide reputation for learning and sagacity appended to a justification childish in its self- evident falsities, one can only presume that despotism in Germany has gone even farther than supposed, and that these men wrote and signed these things because they were ordered to do so. It is impossible that they believed in such puerilities. To approve their sincerity is to insult their intelligence, and these men have long ago proved that they are not unintelligent. The only manly voice that has been heard from Germany is the voice of Harden. He justifies his country with an avowed acceptance of the Philosophy of Force. The rest are cowards and hypocrites. 1 70 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST How different is the call of patriotism in a country in the position of England! There the call rings out true and unashamed, and there is no conflict between the narrow loyalty due to the nation and the broader loyalty due to the world and to mankind. However much national interests and selfishnesses may have been in- jected into the war, however much Great Britain and France and Russia are going to gain in national advantage from the victory which is coming to them, this sinks into insignificance in comparison with what the world as a whole and the progress of mankind is to gain from their triumph. The colour of patches on a map matters little so long as it does not mean injustice and exploitation; that democratic freedom may be made to spread across all the colours on the map matters supremely. That a big green or purple splotch shall not absorb a little yellow or blue one and hold it in bondage is essentially im- portant; and this war is going to make it safer and easier for the great masses of people in every colour to carry on their pursuit of happiness and to continue the evolution to which they are entitled. Again and again we come back to the same consideration which this war has driven home to us with such trip-hammer blows, that the struggle PATRIOTISM 1-71 is between democracy and absolutism. The very patriotism which when it is given to aid in democratic advance is the noblest unselfishness of which human nature is capable becomes when given to autocratic reaction hideous and dangerous. This difference has always been felt even if it has not been reasoned out and analysed, and every great patriot of history will always be found to have been on the side of the mass of the people and against those who sought to enslave them. Patriotism is the love of country, and country is the people who make it, and the world of which it is a part, not the dictator who rules it. And when a nation among nations seeks to play the role of dictator and despot, that nation is no more entitled to the sacred patriotism of its people than would be an Attila or a Nero. March 1915. THE DECREASING VALUE OF NATIONHOOD ONE of the most important things taught by this war is that the value of nationhood is lessening. This may seem an extraordinary assertion, but none the less I believe it to be true. In the early development of mankind, the nation was of paramount importance, and was necessary for the physical safety of its citizens. The first nations were little more than the re- striction within geographical boundaries of the old tribal relationships, which theretofore had been merely sociological and not dependent upon location. They were a direct and natural result of the development of tribes from wandering communities, subsisting on the chase and follow- ing wherever the promise of game might lead them, into agriculturists with a definite interest in a definite locality. The need for mutual assist- ance in self-protection had caused the organisa- tion of the nomadic tribes; this same need continued even after their wanderings had ceased, and was the basis of the establishment of nations. These early tribal and national 174 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST relationships were the first evidences of the principles of co-operation, and were established both for protection against the inroads of other tribes and nations, and in turn for being able more effectively themselves to accomplish pre- datory expeditions upon their neighbours. With the advance of civilisation, the need of the organisation of nations for the physical pro- tection of their inhabitants became less, but the advantages of a continuance of co-operation for governmental and administrative purposes became more and more evident. The rulers of these nations found that they could best accom- plish their desires by instilling into the people under them a sense of the sacredness of the national entity and of the obligation due to the state above that due to family or self. This patriotism, often false, often evoked for selfish and sordid reasons, has been one of the most important influences of history, and has some- times fructified into the most splendid instances of philanthropic unselfishness, and sometimes degenerated into the most evil examples of aggression. Belgian heroism and Prussian in- solence have both been effected by this means. Up to comparatively recent times it was almost wholly within a nation that civilisation developed, and it is only with the modern facilities of com- VALUE OF NATIONHOOD 175 munication that the internationalism which is so marked an accompaniment of recent advances in the arts and sciences became possible. To-day most of the things which count in life are inter- national, and this very fact of the broadness of their foundation permits them to attain a per- fection and a rapidity of growth impossible under the old restrictions of nationalism. Thus art, religion, medicine, literature, and the many applications of science are not confined to any one nation, but, as soon as they exist for one nation, of necessity and automatically they become part of the wealth of every nation. Finance, along with commerce, has become notoriously international, and even social aristo- cracies are to a certain extent becoming inter- nationalised. This extension of the chief interests and pur- suits of mankind beyond national boundaries is perhaps the most valuable result of advancing civilisation, and in the course of time will do much to bring about a uniformity of the benefits of civilisation throughout the world. It will tend to create a uniformity of knowledge and under- standing which as time goes on will make national boundaries of less and less importance. The ultimate limit of this development of inter- nationalism will be when there is a universal and 1 76 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST advanced civilisation throughout the world, at which time the divisions between nations will be of little more importance than are the divisions between counties at the present time. Such a Utopian condition can of course only result from a universal adoption of the funda- mental principles of democracy, but if anything in the future is certain it is that in the develop- ment of the world these principles will be uni- versally adopted. Democracy is a necessary consequence of the general education of a people, and the greater efficiency of an educated people makes progress in education sure to come. It is interesting here to note the fact that the interdependence of nations has already become such that it can no longer be said that any nation is at liberty to govern itself as it chooses regardless of the ideas of others. Such a govern- ment if fundamentally undemocratic may in its effect upon the people governed be such as to cause the nation to be dangerous to others. Thus, for example, it is clear that all of Europe had a vital interest in the fact that Germany has permitted no freedom of the press, because it is evident that only by denying to the people their right to a free press could the Prussian absolutism have built itself up to a strength where it became a menace to Europe, and the cause of the present VALUE OF NATIONHOOD 177 war. No matter from what direction the first cause of the war is sought, ultimately an investiga- tion will inevitably show that the underlying cause was the fact that the people of Germany have not been allowed to discuss and to criticise the government imposed upon them. Both the early growth and the later decline of the importance of the national entity have been necessary results of the development of civilisa- tion. When a people first began to advance beyond the savagery of their neighbours they required this nationality to protect them from the inroads of barbarism from without, and to allow of progress within the nation of the arts of peace in accordance with its capacity. Along with this protective need was joined the desire for aggressive conquest, belief in the value of which up to a century ago was an accepted doctrine of almost every nation, and the sur- vival of which in Germany up to the present time constitutes one of the clearest proofs that she is far behind other nations in the essentials of modern civilisation. Practically all of recorded history deals with this phase of the development of the world, and concerns itself with the efforts of people as members of a nation, and not with their efforts as members of the human race or as citizens of M 1 78 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST the world. A natural result of this is that history has to relate chiefly the annals of war and battle and the endeavours of nations to advance them- selves at the expense of other nations rather than by their aid. A great change is, however, now taking place in the course of this development of the world, and I firmly believe that the present war is the termination of the earlier progress along lines chiefly national, and that it marks the culmina- tion and end of the endeavours that have existed for thousands of years to localise culture and knowledge, or to confine them to any one lan- guage or any one race. If the war accomplishes this, as I believe it will, no matter what its cost it will have justified itself to the world. This fundamental change of progress from lines merely national to lines universal, a change which marks a great turning point in the history of mankind, has only been made possible within the last century by the advances in methods of communication and transportation. The world to-day is for all practical purposes smaller than were most countries two hundred years ago, and it has much greater unity than many of the great empires of history. This unity is sure to increase steadily with the increase of knowledge and the wideness of its dissemination, and the VALUE OF NATIONHOOD 179 next few centuries will bring about far greater changes in the basic establishments of civilisa- tion than has the whole Christian era up to this time. The co-operation of the thinking men of the whole world, and the communication to each other of the results of their work, allowing each to begin his researches where the others left off, will also permit a rapidity of development hitherto unprecedented. It is this universal co- operative influence, only felt for a hundred years, which has allowed the last century to produce greater scientific discoveries and greater results in their application than all of history before, and this influence will prove cumulative and will serve to speed up progress to an extraordinary extent. The development of civilisation along inter- national lines is certain to make great wars im- possible in the near future, and the world may confidently look forward to a time when war will be merely the exercise of police powers upon backward, uncivilised, or recalcitrant nations. International civilisation, international com- merce, international finance, international brains, have already developed to a degree which will shortly make impossible the barbarism of such a war as the present one. The only thing that made it possible in 1914 was the survival of 1 80 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST medievalism in the German government, a medievalism existent in the great nations of to-day only in Germany, and perhaps to a lesser extent in Russia. In Germany it will be forcibly destroyed; in Russia it will be ended by the example of the fate it brought to Germany and by the influence of Russia's progressive allies. Moreover, the world has been made to realise as never before the cost of such wars ; and the con- certed wisdom of the nations will be exercised as never before to make them impossible. As a result of the war there is no question but that militarism on any such scale as has been existent in Europe will no longer be tolerated. The false proposition that preparedness for war is the greatest assurance of peace has been definitely contradicted, and this old bulwark of nationalism has been destroyed. In addition to the philo- sophical reasons showing the futility of arma- ment, the very practical one will be felt that Europe will have been so nearly bankrupted by the war that she cannot afford the expense. It has been evident for many years that no one nation, no matter how powerful, could maintain a military strength sufficient to protect itself against a combination of the other nations, the nearest approach to the accomplishment of this having been the British ability by naval supre- VALUE OF NATIONHOOD 181 macy to protect the natural isolation of an island kingdom. Consequently the great Euro- pean powers have sought to establish a balance of power under which the abilities of one group should be maintained more or less on an equality with those of the other group. This alignment necessitated an admission, no matter how tacit, that disagreements between the nations of one group could be adjusted by methods other than war, and the very fact of this grouping of friendly nations under the practical necessity of remain- ing friendly and not fighting each other has de- monstrated that war itself is needless and has become an anachronism. The result of this war will be to destroy utterly the balance of power, and to leave one group enormously preponderant. The detachment of Italy from the unnatural Dreibund, the de- struction of Austria-Hungary as an empire and of Germany as a military power, and the flocking of all the weak and hungry nations, eager for some of the spoils of victory, to the side of the conquering Entente powers, will leave these powers entirely unopposed and supremely able to do what they choose. It is impossible to believe that they, who have proved that they are able to agree under the stress of war, and who will have the horrors of war so new before 1 82 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST their eyes, will be unable to agree upon a basis of peace between themselves. They are already in alliance, and the greater the number of nations which join them before the final collapse of the German coalition, the greater will be the pro- portion of the world prepared by the brotherhood of war for the brotherhood of peace. For this reason, if for no other, it is from a world point of view desirable that all the Balkan nations, Italy, and perhaps Holland and the Scandinavian kingdoms should definitely join with the great protagonists, and most of all that America should have the vision to see that now is being fought the last great world-fight for the principles which have made America, and that every civilised consideration demands that she ally herself definitely with the progressive powers and under- take at least some of the financial burdens of the war. Alliance in war and federation in peace are not very far apart, and it is surely not too much to expect and to demand that one shall grow into the other. The greater part of the world will at the end of the war be in active alliance. The whole world outside of Germany, Austria, and Turkey is united in its sympathies with the Entente powers. When all of this world is united in federation, as it can and must be made to be VALUE OF NATIONHOOD 183 united by this war, it will be easy to open a link in the circle and to admit a reconstructed Germany and Austria along with other minority nations to complete a federation of the world. The ideal, of course, which we all hope to see will be an international federation with a tribunal to which all international disputes must be sub- mitted, and which shall have military forces sufficient to enforce its decrees. This last con- dition will probably be impossible of immediate accomplishment, and for a time the enforcement of such decrees will have to depend upon a voluntary acceptance of them by the nations interested, backed by the very effective pressure of international opinion. It may also be possible to have a majority of the more powerful nations engage to compel an acceptance of these decrees. When such a tribunal has been in existence for a number of years, when obedience to its orders has become customary throughout the world, when with disarmament the power of any one nation for instant effective military action has become greatly diminished, it will be com- paratively easy to bring about an acceptance by the nations of complete individual disarmament coupled with proportionate contributions to an international force competent to compel obedi- ence to the mandates of the international i8 4 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST tribunal. Only when such a condition exists can the world as a whole be said to be approaching civilisation. From the foregoing considerations it is clear that the great value of national entity has become merely its military power, and that with this war and the disarmament which will necessarily be consequent upon it this value will be greatly decreased. Military power has been shown to be a danger rather than a protection. The strength of France or Russia or Great Britain could not keep them out of the war; the weakness of Holland and Denmark has not dragged them into it. The accident of Belgium's location, not her impotence, is the cause of her martyrdom. Never again will the doctrine that the state exists except for the benefit of the citizen be allowed to prevail. The false conception of a holy and sacred abstract thing, greater than the citizens who compose it, is forever destroyed. The world recognises that the greatness of a man depends upon what he is, not upon the nation to which he may chance to belong. Is Chopin less valuable because Poland has ceased to be Poland, or Maeterlinck of less account because he is a Belgian, not a Russian or an Englishman ? It matters little to a man nowa- days whether his country be weak or powerful so VALUE OF NATIONHOOD 185 long as it gives him safety and opportunity; it is evident that mere bigness can give neither. The best example of what the evolution of a federation of the world will be is what the federation called the British Empire already is. The nations which make it up are free and self- governing, and yet war between Canada and Australia is inconceivable. The moral force of the federation to which they belong has, however, been enough to make them voluntarily contribute in men and money to this war, even though they were not themselves actively threatened and though an invasion of either Canada or Australia was most improbable. If it were not for the name, there would be nothing to prevent every free nation in the world voluntarily joining and be- coming a part of the British Empire or of the United States or of any other similarly con- stituted federation. A nation doing so would lose nothing of its freedom or of its right of independent self-government, but would enter a brotherhood which would make fratricidal war impossible. The federation of the world is nothing more nor less than a big British Empire or a big United States, and the evolution of mankind and the progress of civilisation make it inevitable that it shall come. The steamship and the telegraph and the railroad train have made it 1 86 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST inevitable ; it is merely a question of the time at which, it is to take place. I believe that it can be made to follow as a result of the present war, and if this is accomplished William II. will have proved himself the greatest benefactor the world has ever known by making it clear that such as he must for evermore belong to a bygone and unregretted past. The contrast of medieval Prussia with the world of to-day will make possible the universal federation of a near to-morrow. April AMERICAN AMMUNITION IN BRITISH TRENCHES THE New York papers are printing full-page advertisements, signed by the publishers of a large number of foreign newspapers issued in the United States, appealing to the American people, industries, and workmen not to manufacture, sell, or ship powder, shrapnel, or shot of any kind or description to any of the warring nations of Europe or Japan. The thing to me as a citizen of the United States most appalling in the attitude of my country is the failure of vision of many of my fellow-citizens, including the President. They cannot see that this war is not a conflict between nations, " a quarrel," to use Mr. Wilson's phrase, but is a struggle between two incompatible systems. The great change in the world during the last hundred and fifty years has been the growth of democratic institutions, and the present war is the last struggle of reactionary feudalism to stem this tide of democratic advance. The national ambitions and selfishnesses which have been injected into it are insignificant in compari- 187 i88 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST son with the importance of the main issue, which is to decide whether government of the people, by the people, and for the people is a fraud and a delusion and is to perish from off the earth; whether Runnymede and Waterloo and the French revolution were in vain ; whether Bunker Hill and Valley Forge and Gettysburg were in vain. Even if many Americans are too blind to see this, Great Britain and France know it, and are determined that no peace shall be permitted until the great purposes of the war shall have been fully achieved. Prussianism must be destroyed, and its destruction will prove, not only for Europe, which it will free from ever-present fear and the burden of preparedness, but even more for the honest and intelligent people of Germany, whom it will emancipate, the greatest good which has ever come to them. The allied powers are going to win decisively, and the war will not end until they have done so. The greater the superiority in men and munitions which they are able to command the sooner will Germany be overwhelmed and the less will be the payment of suffering and misery for the world and for the people of Germany. The truest friends of permanent peace and of the people of Germany are those who seek to have AMERICAN AMMUNITION 189 this accomplished as quickly as possible. The mistaken persons who signed the appeal to Americans to desist from supplying munitions of war to the allied powers are enemies of mankind, of America, which has an interest as great as Europe in seeing the principles of democracy on which the nation has been established made possible of perpetuation, and of the people of Germany, whose agonies they seek to prolong. Their lack of vision causes them to perpetrate a wickedness. If they were heeded they would bear the responsibility for needless months of war and the needless deaths of hundreds of thousands of men. I rejoice that such mawkish and mistaken sentimentality is mostly confined to the foreign- born and the hyphenated. This is a time when the makers of shells and of gunpowder are working for the cause of permanent peace. The greater the output of their factories now the sooner will it be possible to remodel them to serve the arts of peace and the more quickly will the world be in a position to continue its democratic advance with the spectre of a threatening medieval feudalism for ever banished. April 1915. THE SADNESS OF THE WORLD THE world is sadder than ever before, but this sadness is not all evil. There is in it much of inspiration, much of nobility, much of unselfish- ness. The determination to accomplish, the unalterable decision to do what is needful re- gardless of cost, the grim certainty that the devotion of all that is dearest to danger and to death is warranted and justified, imparts to our sadness a quality of pride which ennobles it. The nature of the sadness in England and in France seems quite different from that in Germany. In the first two countries there is a singular lack of bitterness in it; it is the result of obedience to a duty almost religious in its purity; of a sacrifice to all that is loftiest in human aspirations. The call of the spiritual has been heard, and the resources of these countries are being dedicated to the purposes of the exist- ence of mankind, the advancement of the world of men. There is little of malice, little of hate, nothing of fear; only an understanding that the biggest thing is happening which has ever taken place, and a knowledge that the people must be 191 192 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST broad and whole-souled to be equal to the occasion. There is an appreciation that now more than ever before must there be an over- whelming example of that co-operation which is the foundation of civilisation. The German sadness is of a different quality. In it is the gall of hate; it has a bitterness which seems wholly without consolation. The doctrine of the super-man, the super-race, the super- state, has not in it the seeds of happiness to be found in the ideals of world federation; and of necessity the sorrow over sacrifices for this doctrine has not the cleanness of sorrow over sacrifices for less selfish ends. Hate and happi- ness are incompatible; in like manner grief impregnated with hate is far more bitter than grief over a perished happiness. John Jay Chapman is right when he says that the cause of the German reversion to barbarism is fear; much more right than Dr. Sarolea who attributes it to a collective insanity such as came over France in 1793. That madness was emotional, intensely emotional; the present German outrages are calculated, cold, and in- tended. Germany realises that the thing she is attempting is the biggest thing in history; she is frightened at her own temerity in attempting it, and is trying to bolster up her courage with THE SADNESS OF THE WORLD 193 bluster and braggadocio. She is endeavouring to persuade herself that she is not afraid of what she is doing, and that she is indifferent to the judgment of the world; like an Oriental running amok she tries to hearten herself by spitting in the face of civilisation and shouting that she cares nothing for the opinion of others. And the sorrow she is experiencing is correspondingly polluted and unclean, drenched with a black fear that no assumption of carelessness of con- sequences can mitigate. The sadness of the civilised world is like the grief for the ending of a noble and useful life; the sadness of Germany is mingled with an un- relenting shame like that of a mother mourning over a murderer son strangled upon the gallows. The one has left a heritage of honour and a legacy of light; the other has bequeathed only disgrace and a sense of inconsolable horror. THE WAY OUT AT this time the heart of Canada is heavier than ever before as the lists of the casualties to her soldiery near Ypres are coming in. This loss is bitterly hard to bear, and the houses of mourning are pitifully numerous. It seems in truth as if Death loved a shining mark, and among the fallen are many of our noblest and our bravest, struck down by murderous and illegal methods in the prime of their strength and their useful- ness. Their high ambitions, their noble unselfish- ness availed them not; their courage and their devotion to duty could not save them; they lie many of them in unmarked graves in an alien soil, their only memorials being the unchanging love in the anguished hearts they have left behind to sorrow for their untimely deaths. Say not that these men have died in vain. Rather have they justified their world and their ideals. Their example shall serve to quicken the pulse of those who are weak and who hesitate; their willingness to surrender life itself for duty shall bring home the eternal truth of the prin- ciples of freedom and liberty for which they died; 196 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST their sacrifice shall make more certain the sane and wholesome progress of the world for which they gave their lives. The people of Canada are more determined than ever that the just cause for which these men strove shall prevail, and that there can be no payment so heavy as not to be warranted for this purpose. The noble deaths of noble men given in a noble cause is an inspiration which reaches to the understanding of even the dullest, and from the seed that these men have sown will grow blossoms in soil from which such flowers could scarcely be expected. There is only one thing more horrible than such a war as this, and that is the condition which makes such a war possible. The frightfulness of the crime of this war is being impressed upon the world to such an extent that the determination to end once and for all time the sources from which such wars can spring is unalterable. We will pay the cost this time; we will send our bravest and our best beloved ; we will endure all that is necessary to establish our just purpose to the end that neither our children nor our children's children shall ever again be called upon to pay such a toll to barbarism. We believe that we know the cause of wars and that the remedy which shall make them impos- sible between enlightened peoples is clear and THE WAY OUT 197 evident. We believe that desire for war does not exist in the mass of the citizens of any civilised nation, but that it results from the selfish ambitions of rulers, of men who seek by the sufferings of others to advance their own desires. We believe that when those to whom the destinies of a people are entrusted derive their power from the will of the people and retain their power only so long as they are faithful to the people they can be trusted to prevent the un- necessary horrors of war. We believe that war between two enlightened democracies has become next door to impossible. The common sense of millions of people is too great to permit of unjust wars ; the sense of justice of millions of people is too exact to allow of unjust demands. Autocracy and absolutism have existed since the birth of history, and since the birth of history autocrats and dynastic rulers have caused wars in order to advance their own ambitions. It is only within the last century that the possibility of the people of a nation being educated to a degree where they are capable of self-government has been realised; it is only within the century that the possibility of eternal peace between great nations has become more than a filmy dream; it is only the concerted wisdom of free and intelli- gent democracies that can accomplish it. We 198 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST cannot conceive to-day of any condition arising which, could cause war between the United States and Great Britain, not because the two nations are of the same blood and the same language, but because they are of the same de- mocracy and have the same intelligent ideals. When their blood and their language were even closer than now they fought against each other, but this was before England had adopted to her- self the great experiment of democracy instituted in modern times by the United States. Militarism is a universal attribute of absolu- tism; it is entirely foreign to the spirit of democracies and is adopted by them only as a defence against threatening autocracies. The conscript armies of France existed not because France desired them but from fear of the Prussian absolutism at her borders. When by this war Germany has been made democratic as is the inevitable result of her inevitable defeat, France will do away with militarism as have England and America. With the most evil of the modern autocracies, Germany and Austria - Hungary, forced to democracy by this war, with democratic ideals and influences regenerating Russia and Japan, the world may confidently expect that great wars between great nations shall never again occur. It is for this that our inspired young THE WAY OUT 199 manhood has suffered and has died, and we are prepared to continue until the purposes of this struggle have been accomplished. The thing to me most pitiful, sadder even than the losses of those soldiers who are dying on the field of battle, is the blindness and lack of vision of those who see only the horrors of the war and not its fundamental cause and the advance in the world we love that must be made to result from it. It matters not how much we may abominate this war, no intelligent and sincere altruist can wish that it end until its results have justified it. Those misguided pacifists who would have it cease without the absolute overthrow of the Prussian absolutism are enemies of mankind; they should heed the noble rebuke of Theodore Roosevelt to those who are unable to differentiate between Belgium fighting for her honour and her existence and Germany the desecrator and violator of an unoffending nation. War is almost the most horrible thing that can come to a people, but even more horrible would be a slothful ease that would sacrifice faith, honour, justice, and truth if they entail war. Let us rejoice that our leaders, chosen by ourselves, have the vision to appreciate this, that our eager and splendid young men will dare and die for their ideals, and that our noble womanhood will 200 WAR THOUGHTS OF AN OPTIMIST continue to send forth their dearest and nearest, bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh, at the call of duty. May those of us who cannot share in the battle-lines themselves be worthy of the heroes who have gone, and in our turn do what we can for the world we love, the welfare of which has been so gloriously supported by the blood of those who have fallen at Langemarck. May 1915. THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS WILL. BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH DAY AND TO $1.OO ON THE SEVENTH DAY OVERDUE. on -,..< 1^7 DEC 8 l&iy . i-.ii.-j - REG - - - LD 21-95m-7,'37 YB 21330 359931; UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY