LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OP 
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 presented to the 
 UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
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 by 
 
 Mrs. Joseph Weisman 
 in memory of Leo Perla
 
 WHAT IS ''NATIONAL HONOR"?
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 UKW YORK • BOSTON - CHICAGO • DALLAS 
 ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., Limitkd 
 
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 TORONTO
 
 WHAT IS 
 "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 The Challenge of the Reconstruction 
 
 BY 
 
 LEO PERLA 
 
 WITH 
 
 A SPECIAL INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 NORMAN ANGELL 
 
 "What is called National Honor is at pres- 
 ent altogether too much a matter of capricious, 
 private, and often merely personal judgment 
 simply because the nations are not as yet self- 
 conscious moral beings." — Josiah Royce. 
 
 Nm» 1 nrk 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1918 
 
 All rights reserved.
 
 Copyright, 1918 
 By the MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Set up and printed. Published, April, 1918.
 
 TO 
 MY WIFE AND COLLABORATOR 
 
 REBECCA CUSHMAN PERLA 
 
 WHOSE INSPIRATION AND STRENGTH 
 MADE THIS WORK POSSIBLE
 
 "To argue that a nation's Honor must be defended by 
 the blood of its citizens, if need be, is quite meaningless, for 
 any nation, though profoundly right in its contention, might 
 be defeated at the hands of a superior force exerted on 
 behalf of an unjust and unrighteous cause. What becomes 
 of national Honor then?" — Nicholas Murray Butler, 
 President of Columbia University.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 It is a hopeful sign that this book which at- 
 tempts to furnish a reply to the question, "What 
 is National Honor?" should be the work of a 
 young man at the outset of his writing career; 
 that it should be prompted, not by the cynicism 
 of an elderly observer wearied with seeing na- 
 tional honor invoked time after time on behalf 
 of shamefully dishonest causes, but by the sin- 
 cere desire of a youthful and flexible mind really 
 to know what underlies the potent magic of the 
 word. 
 
 It is hopeful, because we have for some years 
 been demonstrating to one another that the old 
 ideals governing national conduct are somewhere 
 defective. Our declared aim in fighting the pres- 
 ent war is to destroy certain ideas which have 
 taken possession of the minds of some hundred or 
 more million folk; and if the aggression which 
 those ideas have prompted is dangerous, it is be- 
 cause certain other ideas — including our feeling 
 for "national honor" — which have governed the 
 relations of the western democracies, have stood
 
 X INTRODUCTION 
 
 in the way of a unification sufficient even to enable 
 those democracies promptly to present a cormuon 
 front to a common danger. Had the western 
 world been really unified in our generation, its 
 power would never have been challenged. 
 
 If we are to do better in the future, certain 
 fundamental ideas of international relationship 
 must be changed, and change of that character 
 must be the work of minds having the flexibility 
 of youth. It is upon the young men — as many 
 of them as will be left alive — that will fall the 
 task of rebuilding the house which the elder gen- 
 eration has pulled about their ears. If the new 
 is to be sounder than the old the moral founda- 
 tions will have to be thoroughly and ruthlessly 
 examined. 
 
 Perhaps the author of this book will talk to a 
 world a little more disposed to tolerate that prob- 
 ing, than was the world to which some of us 
 talked in that past age which ended in 1914. 
 Perhaps he would say that — he does indeed imply 
 as much in this book — our failure was due in some 
 measure to the fact that we attempted to work 
 through ideas rather than through feelings, that 
 we addressed ourselves to the head, rather than 
 to the heart. 
 
 Yet this very criticism of his shows how this 
 discussion of the international problem has
 
 INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 shifted in the last fifteen or twenty years. It is 
 ahnost certain that if he had been writing this 
 book a generation ago, he would have turned his 
 criticism the other way about. This notion of 
 looking upon the internationalist, or peace advo- 
 cate, mainly as an "intellectual," an over-ration- 
 alized person, belongs to the last few years. For 
 a long time previous to that he was looked upon 
 as an over-emotionalized idealist refusing to face 
 with the calm ej^es of reason the sordid facts of 
 the physical world, especially certain "biological 
 laws" concerning the struggle for life and the 
 survival of the fit among nations, which a mis- 
 reading of Darwin has made enormously popu- 
 lar. He was an "amiable and well meaning 
 soul" with his heart in the right place but with 
 a weak head. It is perfectly true that if we go 
 farther back still — to the period of Tennyson's 
 Claude, with its defense of the War fought for 
 the maintenance of Turkish Power, we find an 
 attitude towards the Pacifism of Cobden and 
 Bright not dissimilar to that which now marks 
 the attitude of the man in the streets towards in- 
 ternationalism. As those very practical business 
 men could hardly be represented as dreamers and 
 idealists they were of course sordid bagmen. 
 
 We sometimes indeed find the same person re- 
 vealing this swing between two mutually exclu-
 
 xii INTRODUCTION 
 
 sive appraisements of the motives which push 
 men to war. Even so able and honest a mind as 
 that of the late Admiral Mahan revealed it in 
 striking fashion. In 1908, in his "The Interest 
 of America in International Conditions" he 
 wrote : 
 
 "It is as true now as when Washington penned the words, 
 and will always be true, that it is vain to expect nations 
 to act consistently from any motive other than that of 
 interest. That, under the name of Realism, is the frankly 
 avowed motive of German statecraft. It follows from this 
 directly that the study of interests — international interest — 
 is the one basis of sound, provident policy for statesmen. 
 . . . Governments are corporations and corporations have 
 no souls . , . must put first the interests of their own 
 wards . . . their own people." 
 
 Yet a j^ear or two later, in criticism of a book 
 of my own, which he conceived to be based on 
 just the assumption of underlying forces in inter- 
 national affairs which he had thus outlined, he 
 wrote as follows: 
 
 "The purpose of armaments in the minds of those main- 
 taining them is not primarily an economical advantage in 
 the sense of depriving a neighboring State of its own or 
 fear of such consequences to itself through the deliberate 
 aggression of a rival having that particular end in view. 
 . . . The fundamental proposition of the book is a mistake. 
 Nations are under no illusion as to the unprofitableness of 
 war in itself. . . . The entire conception of the work is 
 itself an illusion, based upon a profound misreading of
 
 INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 human action. To regard the world as governed by self- 
 interest only is to live in a non-existent world, an ideal 
 world, a world possessed by an idea much less worthy than 
 those which mankind, to do it bare justice, persistently 
 entertains." ^ 
 
 The writer of this introduction has a rather 
 special experience of the changes of attitude just 
 indicated. His first book on international af- 
 fairs, wi'itten on the morrow of the Boer war, 
 and the American conquest of the Philippines, 
 and towards the end of the Dreyfus affair, was 
 an attempt to analyze the nature of patriotism. 
 It leaned strongly to the view that that impulse 
 did not derive its force so much from any ration- 
 alized idea of interest as from the desire to sat- 
 isfy hungry emotions of domination and pride. 
 More constructively, it was a plea for the intro- 
 duction into national ideals as well as into na- 
 tional conduct, of the standards of private inter- 
 course, where vainglorious pride in power and 
 possessions would send a man to Coventry. The 
 book fell entirely flat so far as the public were 
 concerned: had no sale whatever. By the critics 
 it was treated as an interesting example of the 
 extent to which a sentimental idealism could lead 
 a student's gaze away from the real necessities of 
 the hard and work-a-day world in which we live. 
 
 1 North American Review, March, 1912.
 
 xiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 Fifteen years later the book was followed by 
 a second one, in which an attempt was made to 
 examine critically the assumptions upon which 
 those criticisms had been made. How far could 
 war be regarded as part of the inevitable struggle 
 of men for sustenance? It took very definitely 
 the view that in the last analysis the wars of great 
 modern states were irrelevant to that struggle, 
 that they had no basis in biological necessity or 
 advance, and that their "inevitability" was not 
 rooted in material need or advantage. The au- 
 thor, this time, became for his critics a sordidly 
 minded person who supposed that mankind went 
 to war because it "paid." 
 
 My only excuse for recalling this little bit of 
 personal experience is that it does bear rather 
 pertinently on the questions which this book 
 raises: the real springs of human action in such 
 things as international conflict. And human mo- 
 tives are never simple even in individual action. 
 The capacity for self-deception in the interpre- 
 tation of our own motives even seems illimitable. 
 We may honestly convince ourselves that our 
 motive in a given course is of one kind when it 
 may well be of quite another. The parent who, 
 maddened by the annoyance of a petulant child, 
 finally lets himself go may honestly beheve that 
 the terrifying thrashing which he administers is
 
 INTRODUCTION xv 
 
 given simply and purely because it is best for the 
 child, "and hurts me much more than it hurts 
 you," when, in fact, it is merely the much needed 
 relief to a long-restrained irritability that has be- 
 come at last uncontrollable. 
 
 Two or three things seem pretty clear in this 
 elusive research. One is that however remote 
 may be the "sense of self-interest," it almost cer- 
 tainly has its place in the feelings which move 
 men in the mass ; another is that we are able by a 
 psychological alchemy to transmute the motive of 
 interest into an idealistic one. We can say pretty 
 definitely, for instance, that the institution of 
 domestic slavery had something at least to do 
 with the North and South war; that in a sense 
 the South fought for it and the North against 
 it. Yet it would not do to say that all the 
 idealism was on the side of the North and that 
 the Southerners went to war merely for the 
 profits on slave labor. They fought for their 
 "rights," for their country, the South, for their 
 honor. Yet all those things had formed them- 
 selves about an institution that had economic 
 roots, and two rival ideals and systems were in 
 truth involved. On the one side was the slave 
 system which seemed to many Southerners to of- 
 fer, in a yet undeveloped country, the building up 
 of a civilization that should be stable and secure.
 
 xvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 promising to the white race on this continent op- 
 portunities for an ordered intellectual and politi- 
 cal development, a culture touched with refine- 
 ment and distinction not possible otherwise, and 
 promising to a still savage people a discipline and 
 gradual civilization not possible otherwise. A 
 great deal could be said — and was said — for the 
 idea, though the Southern slave-holders were not 
 perhaps in the best position to be impartial judges 
 of the merits of a system which made of them a 
 privileged aristocracy, the masters of a servile 
 people. Yet genuine loyalties formed about it, 
 and many a gallant gentleman gave his life freely 
 and nobly for an unselfish ideal (after all one 
 cannot well die for "profit" unless one is very 
 sure indeed of one's mansion in the next world) . 
 But the ideal, however unselfishly supported, was 
 one which, not only had arisen in very definite 
 economic causes, but which millions in the 
 North were giving their lives to destroy believing 
 it to be evil. Here on one side of a hne were 
 seven or eight million folk passionately convinced 
 that they had moral right in their favor; and on 
 the other side of the line more millions as pas- 
 sionately convinced that the contrary cause was 
 right. Did the planter's economic relation to 
 slavery play no part in the universal opinion of 
 the South, or was the division of opinion a mere
 
 INTRODUCTION xvii 
 
 miraculous coincidence? It is no slur upon the 
 memory of very gallant men to say that but 
 for certain economic factors that particular moral 
 conflict would never have arisen. 
 
 A generation before the Southern rebellion the 
 British Empire had faced a slavery problem in 
 certain of its possessions. It approached its solu- 
 tion from the economic standpoint and provided 
 for fair compensation for manumission — thanks 
 largely to the efforts of Quakers, who however 
 "sordidly commercial" they might have been were 
 able at least to combine intense feeling on the 
 slavery question with a capacity to see the point 
 of view of the planter. If at that time — during 
 the first half of the nineteenth century — the eco- 
 nomic aspect of the Southern problem had been 
 fairly faced by the country as a whole, and the 
 necessity of expending, as an act of economic 
 justice, an amount equivalent say to about one- 
 twentieth of what was finally spent upon the war, 
 the conflict might have been forestalled, the posi- 
 tion of the negro in America would be a good 
 deal better than it is ; lynching as unknown as it is 
 in Jamaica, and the white race of the South and 
 North alike richer in its original elements, by 
 some millions of Anglo-Saxon stock of the best 
 strain — the children of the men who would have 
 been their fathers if the war had not taken them.
 
 xviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 Yet it is the North and South war which is usually 
 cited as the typical instance of the irrelevance of 
 economic issues to the great wars of history. 
 
 I had almost written "economic motive" — and 
 should have had to qualify it by saying that the 
 motives were not immediately economic, but were 
 motives arising out of economic issues — and being 
 marvelously changed in the process. For in our 
 psychological analyses we are apt to speak as 
 though a given motive preserved its distinct 
 character when it became associated with others. 
 But the combination with others may absolutely 
 transform it, as certain materials in combination 
 with others undergo wonderful chemical trans- 
 formations. Nitrogen, in many of its com- 
 pounds, is a harmless and inert stuff much used 
 by the agriculturist ; but this same stuff may 
 become the deadliest explosive known if combined 
 in certain proportions with other equally harm- 
 less elements. Nitro-glycerine is a great deal 
 more than the sum of two perfectly harmless 
 materials. The combination has changed the 
 character of both. It would be untrue to say 
 that nitrogen caused the Halifax explosion or 
 that glycerine did; for if either could have been 
 withdrawn, or the two could have been detached 
 and carried separately, there would have been 
 no explosion. To detach the economic element
 
 INTRODUCTION xix 
 
 from the sum of those motives which make war, 
 may do a great deal more than merely "take away 
 one of the motives leading to war." It may de- 
 prive all the others of their explosive power. 
 
 Thus it may be true that German aggression 
 cannot be explained purely in terms of economics, 
 and yet it may be equally true to say that the 
 diversion of the economic motive — a different 
 conception of their interests on the part of the 
 people as a whole — would have neutralized the 
 danger of Teutonic power in the world. And it 
 would be a very bold man indeed who would 
 say that economic motives, ideas as to the material 
 advantage to be derived from the political control 
 of territory, will not play a very large part in the 
 problems of the future — in the destiny of Russia 
 to-morrow perhaps the new sick man of Europe 
 and the spoil of rival imperialisms — in the de- 
 velopment of Mitteleuropa, in the relations of 
 Japan to Siberia and China, and those of the 
 United States to Mexico and South America. 
 
 To recognize that in the vast economic interests 
 centering around the settlement of some of these 
 territorial problems there are the elements of ex- 
 plosion is not to put forward the proposition 
 that men fight out of a "finely calculated eco- 
 nomic hedonism or out of the intellectual per- 
 suasion of the advantages of war." It may be
 
 XX INTRODUCTION 
 
 perfectly true that the explosion when it comes 
 will be precipitated by some moral question, and 
 yet equally true that if we could have kept the 
 nitrogen of economic interest apart from the 
 glycerine of moral indignation, the explosion 
 would not have occurred. 
 
 Despite these reservations, however, I think 
 that Mr. Perla is on the right lines in his insistence 
 upon the need of providing an emotional equiv- 
 alent for war as the best general method of ap- 
 proach to successful internationalism. Yet the 
 very act of calling attention to the new object- 
 ive for our emotions, involves an appeal to the 
 intellectual perceptions. It is not so much a 
 matter of appealing to the heart instead of the 
 head, as of appealing to the heart through the 
 head. The heart represents the motive force of 
 our emotions, the head the direction that the 
 force shall take. 
 
 I have attempted to illustrate the matter 
 thus: "On the other side of the street you catch 
 a glimpse of a man wanted by the police for the 
 revolting murder of a little girl. At once your 
 sentiment is excited to an intense degree ; it blazes 
 up in wild clamor and you give the hue and cry, 
 and the crowd catch the man. And then you 
 seee that on his left hand he has five fingers : the 
 murderer had only two. Now, because your
 
 INTRODUCTION xxi 
 
 mind is capable of certain purely logical processes 
 — and thanks only to that — the wild current of 
 your sentiment is immediately changed, and you 
 are now mainly concerned to see that an innocent 
 man does not suffer a threatened lynching. You 
 are just as 'sentimental' as before; the engine 
 of your heart is beating as vigorously, the emo- 
 tional power is just as great but it happens (to 
 state the thing in mechanical terms) to be turning 
 the wheels of action in an opposite direction be- 
 cause certain levers, which are your mental per- 
 ceptions, have been shifted by contact with cer- 
 tain facts. A common counsel is: 'The engine 
 alone is what matters; provided only that that 
 has plenty of power you can throw away your 
 steering gear as an encumbrance, and the driver 
 can shut his eyes.' Well, it is because mankind 
 has often been guided by that idea that history is 
 so largely a record of bad accidents. 
 
 "For note this: in an age of simpler enthusi- 
 asms the steering gear in this case might not have 
 worked so well. In an age when most men be- 
 lieved that any ordinary murderer would not hesi- 
 tate to call in the ever-convenient witch to remedy 
 so trifling a matter as a missing finger, the simple 
 logical mechanism by which you recognized the 
 man's innocence might not have worked; you 
 would have wanted to see whether God indicated
 
 xxu INTRODUCTION 
 
 the man's innocence by allowing his arms to be 
 boiled for half an hour without injury. And 
 goodness of heart, the affection of the crowd for 
 their own children, their detestation of so abom- 
 inable a crime as child murder, would have cost 
 an innocent man his life and fair name." 
 
 When the little group of Dreyfusards in the 
 closing years of the 19th Century determined to 
 save France from a militarism which expressed 
 itself in identifying the "honor of the army" with 
 the maintenance of an injustice, and in elevating 
 the irresponsibility of a military court above the 
 honor of justice, they could only in the first in- 
 stance appeal to intelligence. And if the French 
 had not been an intelligent and an intellectual, as 
 well as an emotional people, the Dreyfusard 
 cause would have been hopeless. Before the 
 Dreyfusards could divert the flow of emotion 
 from one objective — an erroneous and mistaken 
 sentiment of patriotism — to another — the deter- 
 mination that the honor of France should not 
 be rooted in injustice — they had to show first the 
 nature of the thing to which France was com- 
 mitted, and the nature of that to which the re- 
 visionists desired her to be committed. The 
 transfer of emotion involved a judgment, a dis- 
 crimination, comparison, a balancing — an intel- 
 lectual process. And it is worth noting that "in-
 
 INTRODUCTION xxiii 
 
 tellectual" as a term of contempt was first used 
 so far as I know by the anti-Dreyfusards who 
 resisted the revision of the Dreyfus trial. Cer- 
 tain it is that that historical re-trial was made 
 inevitable by the work of "intellectuals" who ral- 
 lied to the defense of Dreyfus. The association 
 between "intellectualism" and Dreyfusism in that 
 affair was unmistakable, and did not escape the 
 notice of the defenders of "the honor of the 
 army." The truth was, of course, that the "in- 
 tellectuals" were moved by an emotion as intense 
 as that of the military party; but it was an emo- 
 tion excited by a vision beyond the range of the 
 normal mental eyesight of militarists. It comes 
 down perhaps to this, that as civilization rests in 
 the last resort upon the intelligent cooperation of 
 men for the purposes of fighting the forces of 
 nature, our salvation depends upon discovering 
 with our minds the things that matter, and then 
 giving our emotions free rein. Once having de- 
 cided with our heads the right course, the more 
 that our hearts can hold us upon it and give our 
 efforts driving force, the better. 
 
 But without that intellectual discrimination the 
 choice which is made between two emotional im- 
 pulses will simply be determined by the relative 
 strength of the two competing emotions — and the 
 strength of an emotional impulse has no relation
 
 xxiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 whatever to its social utility. In society even the 
 instinct of self-preservation is no guide as to its 
 value in self-preservation, as the results of the in- 
 stinct which prompts five thousand people all to 
 rush for the doors of a building which some one 
 has falsely declared to be on fire, abundantly 
 proves. 
 
 Why is it worth emphasizing all this? Be- 
 cause the very proper protest of modern psy- 
 chologists against the over-intellectualizations of 
 human motive of which their predecessors were 
 guilty, is being used in our time to justify the 
 disparagement of reason, to put forward the 
 dangerous doctrine that judgments which are 
 the outcome of passion are of greater moral worth 
 than those which we reach by emotional discipline 
 and intellectual rectitude. A whole group of 
 interests seem now to be pandering to emotional 
 appetites which can only be satisfied at immense 
 social cost. 
 
 It is well to know that so vast a field of our 
 conduct is not rationally motived, that reason 
 plays so small a part therein. The knowledge 
 should be a warning to increase the part of rea- 
 son, to put us on our guard against unrealized 
 forces that may destroy us as readily as serve us. 
 The glorification of emotion and impulse in poli- 
 tics has come near to wrecking the unity of
 
 INTRODUCTION xxv 
 
 western democracies and rendering them in- 
 capable of that degree of integration which is so 
 necessary if we are to meet such unity and disci- 
 pline as autocracy manages to impose. Such "in- 
 stincts" as nationalism, undisciplined and uncon- 
 trolled by an intelligent foresight of conse- 
 quences, are so disruptive a force in any associa- 
 tion of states as to make any voluntary unifica- 
 tion of our scattered democracies impossible. 
 And if that should prove the case, the last word 
 will be with autocracy, whatever individual mili- 
 tary power each one of our nations might achieve. 
 Cooperation between the democracies — which in 
 fact means a democratic internationalism — is the 
 onty means by which we can make effective use of 
 our collective power against a common danger. 
 And that cooperation will run counter to many 
 a "natural" impulse. 
 
 Norman Angell.
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 As the molten steel is drawn from the crucible 
 at white heat and poured into forms, so public 
 opinion must be directed in the heat and passion 
 of war, if it is to harden into definite ideals of re- 
 construction. The purpose of the present work 
 is to aid in the formation of such a public opinion. 
 An untimely discussion of peace may weaken the 
 morale of a country at war ; but an inquiry into a 
 technique of reconstruction, when such inquiry is 
 designed to help in the carrying out of the 
 avowed object of the war, can only add strength 
 and purpose to its prosecution. 
 
 National Honor has been the cause of almost 
 every war of history. Yet the two Hague Con- 
 ferences omitted it from their jurisdiction. The 
 League to Enforce Peace disposes of the prob- 
 lem by excluding "non- justiciable" questions 
 (i.e., honor) from the field of its endeavor. 
 Even the Inter- Allied Labor Conference fell a 
 victim to the masked phrase and in its proposal 
 of a court of arbitration to insure the future peace
 
 xxviii AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 of the world, it excluded all questions of "honor." 
 National Honor is the fundamental casus belli 
 and the challenge of the reconstruction. To de- 
 fine it is to lay the corner-stone for universal, all- 
 inclusive arbitration without which the peace of 
 the future must rest as a house built upon sands. 
 My purpose in this work is not to put the ques- 
 tion "What is National Honor?" in a spirit of 
 cynicism. In view of the elastic way in which 
 the term has been used to characterize a vague 
 sum-total of national obligations dimly inarticu- 
 late, the question is certainly justified. Only 
 when public opinion has become informed of the 
 perversions and misapplications of national 
 honor, will it feel ready to re-christen this popu- 
 lar war-slogan, and to invest it with genuine prin- 
 ciples of right and justice. 
 
 When the Roman Catholic monk takes the 
 three vows of chastity, poverty and obedience, we 
 know exactly what these ideals are, for which he 
 might be willing to give his life. When a physi- 
 cian speaks of "professional honor," we are no 
 less clear as to the specific, ethical prohibitions 
 that he has in mind. But when a nation declares 
 that "national honor" is the sublime ideal for 
 which it is ever ready to suffer annihilation if 
 necessary, that it is the one thing which it can 
 never consent to arbitrate, we know almost noth-
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE xxix 
 
 ing about the implications which the phrase com- 
 prises. 
 
 If we are to meet adequately the problems of 
 reconstruction, we must resolutely leave behind 
 us the blinding passions and small quibblings of 
 the passing age, and challenge with a ruthless 
 sincerity the values that claim a right to be incor- 
 porated into the new and clean fabric which is be- 
 ing put upon the loom. 
 
 If the present work succeeds in attracting 
 minds that are capable of considering this prob- 
 lem in the light of international law, and further, 
 if it makes clear the dire necessity for a political 
 analysis of "honor" with the view of arriving at 
 a clearly articulated definition of its more essen- 
 tial imperatives, the object of the author will have 
 been attained. The greatest security of the 
 peace of the world will rest upon a definition and 
 a codification of the principles involved in the 
 evasive phrase which the two Hague Conferences 
 left in sentimental obscurity. 
 
 L. P. 
 New York City. 
 March 30, 1918.
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 I wish to thank sincerely the friends who have 
 helped me in this work. To Frederick P. Kep- 
 pel. Assistant Secretary of War, I owe a debt 
 which I wish to pay with warm gratitude and af- 
 fection. His personal interest and effort have 
 been a continued source of encouragement. For 
 Prof. Walter B. Pitkin of Columbia University 
 I feel the obligation which a young writer owes to 
 a recognized journalist for his initial stimulus. 
 I wish to thank Mr. Walter Lippmann for his 
 valuable suggestions to Part III and for his read- 
 ing of the manuscript. I am indebted to Prof. 
 John Dewey and Prof. Chas. A. Beard for sug- 
 gestions. Also I want to acknowledge my in- 
 debtedness to Mr. Malisoff of Columbia Univer- 
 sity for sober criticism and to Mr. Yarmolinsky 
 of the College of the City of New York, whose 
 patient criticism and revision of the proofs were 
 invaluable.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction by Norman Angell ix 
 
 Preface by the Author xxvii 
 
 Foreword xxxi 
 
 PART I 
 THE GREAT CONFUSION 
 
 I. Public Opinion and Honor 3 
 
 II. A New Technique 11 
 
 III. Questionnaire — A Symposium of One Hu'n- 
 
 DRED AND ThIRTY-FIVE PhASES OF NATIONAL 
 
 Honor 30 
 
 PART II 
 A PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF HONOR 
 
 IV. The Emotional Basis of Honor .... 83 
 V. Testing for Rationality 99 
 
 VI. Testing for an Emotion 112 
 
 VII. Dissecting the Honor Complex .... 133 
 VIII. The Tyranny of a Phrase 139
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PART III 
 
 THREE PROGRAMS FOR PERMANENT 
 PEACE 
 
 PAGE 
 IX. MORALIZATION OF NATIONAL HoNOR A PROB- 
 LEM IN Ethics 151 
 
 X. A Court of International Honor — A Prob- 
 lem IN Politics 165 
 
 XI. An Emotional Equivalent for National 
 
 Honor — A Problem in Psychology . .188
 
 PART I 
 THE GREAT CONFUSION
 
 WHAT IS NATIONAL HONOR '? 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PUBLIC OPINION AND HONOR 
 
 As a heritage from the days of dueHng the 
 feeling is still current that rational analysis of 
 matters of "honor" is incompatible with "cour- 
 age." It is undoubtedly a transference of this 
 instinctive belief to the realm of international 
 politics which is responsible for the failure of both 
 Hague Conferences to define the question of 
 "national honor," or even consider it as a proper 
 subject for definition. No better illustration of 
 this universally accepted political dogma can be 
 given than the following citation from Ex-Presi- 
 dent Roosevelt concerning a possible course of 
 calm deliberation in national disputes of honor. 
 
 "It is a preposterous absurdity for a League 
 of nations to attempt to restrain even for a lim- 
 ited time one of its members from declaring war 
 upon another when a question of honor is raised." 
 
 In other words it is generally accepted that the
 
 4 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 less time that is allowed to elapse between an in- 
 sult to honor and its vindication, the loftier is the 
 sense of honor. Even though the intervening 
 time may be employed in a sincere effort to ascer- 
 tain in fairness all possible phases of the dispute, 
 to the ardent champions of this doctrine of haste 
 the delay is nevertheless unjustified. 
 
 Added to this instinctive opposition to the use 
 of reason in matters of honor, there has undoubt- 
 edly been a conscious evasion of the problem on 
 the part of diplomats. "Diplomacy" has found 
 in the emotional obscurity of honor, political cap- 
 ital. Holls in his work on the "Peace Confer- 
 ence" writes, 
 
 "The phrase national honor or vital interests 
 was intentionally made broad and general, and 
 the Conference was well aware that in so doing 
 not only a proper degree of reserve but also pos- 
 sibly a great amount of guilty concealment was 
 being made possible and provided with diplo- 
 matic safe-guards." 
 
 Public opinion after the war will undoubtedly 
 demand a square and reasonable facing of this 
 apparently elusive problem. If at the time of 
 the Conference (1907) there had existed a public 
 mind alive to its right and obligation to under- 
 stand this delicate and vital problem, and seeking 
 to form an enlightened judgment as to what the
 
 PUBLIC OPINION AND HONOR 6 
 
 term "national honor" implied, such a complete 
 diplomatic evasion as the Conference was guilty 
 of, would never have been possible. 
 
 Were this public blindness to facts less fraught 
 with tragic consequences, one might find in it 
 almost a grim humor. The Hague decided to ar- 
 bitrate everything "except matters of honor and 
 vital interests." The world heaved a sigh of re- 
 lief, believing that the possibilities of war had to 
 this degree been removed. However no one 
 whispered to this naively credulous world that in 
 so doing the Hague had left still exposed to the 
 wrath of INIars the very things and the only things 
 for which nations have ever fought, and had rele- 
 gated to the realm of "safe" arbitration, those 
 things for which no nation ever fights. Did a 
 nation ever consciously go to war for something 
 which was incompatible with its "honor"? Do 
 men give their lives for the defense of national 
 dishonor? 
 
 The diplomatic manipulation of the term na- 
 tional honor, by which it has been made in di- 
 verse ways to cover almost am^ national policy, 
 has been possible only for the reason that na- 
 tional honor has been accepted by the people of 
 every nation alike as an article of faith. Al- 
 though its implications are left undefined, no 
 patriot is expected to question the validity of the
 
 6 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 claim when it is even semi-officially declared to be 
 at stake. The question "What is National 
 Honor?" is therefore a bold and dangerous one 
 to ask. It is true that honor, being an emotional 
 ideal rather than a rational one, is not an easy 
 subject for off-hand definition. As a man of 
 courage is not expected to analyze a point of per- 
 sonal honor, so a self-respecting nation is not 
 expected to descend to the "calculating" plane 
 when its honor is thought to have been wounded. 
 
 Fortunately the times seem to give some indi- 
 cation that this melodramatic and irrational atti- 
 tude is passing. The great war is stimulating a 
 new interest in foreign politics, and diplomatic 
 subtleties. But deeper than this it is purifying 
 and regenerating our sense of values. From the 
 suffering peoples who have been broken on this 
 merciless, gigantic wheel, there will come the 
 ringing question, "What is this national honor 
 which demands our possessions, our happiness, 
 our loves and our lives, and yet which shrinks 
 from arbitration?" 
 
 Secret diplomacy on the one hand and woeful 
 public indifference toward the problem on the 
 other, have been the checks upon the develop- 
 ment of an enlightened public opinion regarding 
 this most essential factor of international politics. 
 In every emergency, the nature and "constitu-
 
 PUBLIC OPINION AND HONOR 7 
 
 tion" of honor have been left for definition by 
 the people, to diplomats and other "custodians" 
 of the sacrosanct sentiment. The Man in the 
 Street through laziness of thinking and indiffer- 
 ence of purpose, shrinks from the responsibility 
 of a decision upon these ethical and political 
 problems. Because of this situation we have 
 developed in our democracies an aristocracy 
 which is the more despotic in its power because of 
 the exclusive quality of the dogmas with which 
 it holds its sway. On occasion of crises, no mat- 
 ter what may be the underlying difficulty in the 
 dispute, it is given to a few dominant personali- 
 ties to sway the great mass; to mold into a solid 
 body of sentiment, the fragmentary and kaleido- 
 scopic public opinion, by the clarion appeal that 
 the "nation's honor is at stake." Here mob psy- 
 chology with its geometric progression works 
 with the swiftness of magic. 
 
 The few at such critical times are not with- 
 out an offensive weapon with which to unify the 
 will of the nation. The lash of intolerance 
 forms the back-bone of the attack, followed 
 quickly by that weapon so easily used and so in- 
 sidious in its effects, the branding-stick which 
 marks the stigma "coward" upon its victim. It 
 is far less difficult for a man to accept the al- 
 ternative of floating on the tide of public opin-
 
 8 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 ion and playing safe, than to hold to a conviction 
 unpopular with a clamorous minority. For this 
 reason the rank and file can be depended upon to 
 fall into line. There is no experience fraught 
 with more expansive complacency than that which 
 comes from basking in the glory of a nation's 
 honor. 
 
 There are two possible positions which a man 
 may hold with regard to a dispute of honor in 
 which his nation is involved. He may evince a 
 willingness to die in order to defend what he 
 deems his country's honor to be or he may not 
 recognize that such honor is at stake. If he fol- 
 low the first course and prove his willingness to 
 die, though later the ideal may prove to be false, 
 he is respected for his sincerity and courage. 
 Should he take the second course he places him- 
 self in a position of moral weakness because, al- 
 though he may manifest a keener understanding 
 and a more sensitive appreciation of ethical sub- 
 tleties, he has not proved his readiness to die. 
 Although the actual strength and courage needed 
 to defend his position be far greater, it will not 
 save him from the suspicion of his fellows that he 
 is an idealist who believes in safety first "with 
 special reference to his own skin." 
 
 The opponent to a proposed war for honor, is 
 placed in the imcomfortable position of feeling
 
 PUBLIC OPINION AND HONOR 9 
 
 that he is a destructive influence, that he is taking 
 away a sentiment for which he substitutes no 
 equivalent, save a rational justification for the 
 repudiation of the sentiment. Even though a 
 majority hold this negative opinion their oppo- 
 sition lacks enthusiasm. If another ideal were 
 supplied in such a case, the crisis might be more 
 easily weathered for the reason that pugnacity 
 once aroused, must have some "ideal" to which to 
 fasten. If robbed of this, albeit by reason, it 
 presents the spectacle suggested in our homely 
 phrase, "a chicken with its head cut off"; a pas- 
 sion of undirected energy. 
 
 The remarkable thing has been that in all mat- 
 ters which potentially might be said to involve 
 the honor of nations, in their agreements and 
 foreign policies, men have taken little active inter- 
 est until friction actually arose and war was im- 
 minent. The citizen who allows his country to 
 drift into dishonorable or unjust agreements, or 
 to exercise an ungenerous policy with regard to 
 another country and does not protest in time of 
 peace, can not cancel his obligation as a citizen 
 by bearing arms in defense of his country's 
 "honor" when such a policy has provoked an un- 
 just war. 
 
 Since diplomats and statesmen have failed, 
 there devolves upon public opinion the obligation
 
 10 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 to become interested and enlightened, and the 
 responsibility of imposing order upon the moral 
 confusion into which "national honor" has fallen. 
 The men who defend this honor must learn 
 to define it.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 A NEW TECHNIQUE 
 
 The economic case against war has been empha- 
 sized so repeatedly in pacifist literature ever since 
 the publication of Mr. Norman Angell's epoch- 
 making work, "The Great Illusion," that one 
 would be justified in assuming that the supreme 
 cause of war has been its supposed promise of 
 economic gain, and that once this theory had been 
 permanently refuted, war will have lost its great- 
 est incentive. President Nicholas INIurray But- 
 ler of Columbia University puts this universally 
 accepted theory in very effective language. 
 
 "We have now reached a point," he says, 
 "where unparalleled enthusiasm having been 
 aroused for a rational and orderly develop- 
 ment of civilization through the coopera- 
 tion of the various nations of the earth, it 
 remains to clinch that enthusiasm and to trans- 
 form it into established policy by proving to 
 all men that militarism does not pay, and that 
 
 PEACE IS PROFITABLE. JUST SO LONG AS THE 
 
 GREAT MASS OF MANKIND BELIEVE THAT MILITARY 
 
 11
 
 12 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 AND NAVAL RIVALRY BETWEEN CIVILIZED NATIONS 
 CREATES AND PROTECTS TRADE, DEVELOPS AND AS- 
 SURES COMMERCE^ AND GIVES PRESTIGE AND POWER 
 TO PEOPLES OTHERWISE WEAK, JUST SO LONG WILL 
 THE MASS OF MANKIND BE UNWILLING TO COMPEL 
 THEIR GOVERNMENTS TO RECEDE FROM MILITARIS- 
 TIC POLICIES WHATEVER MAY BE THEIR VOCAL 
 PROFESSIONS AS TO PEACE AND ARBITRATION AND AS 
 TO GOOD-WILL AND FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN MEN OF 
 DIFFERENT TONGUES AND OF DIFFERENT BLOOD. . . . 
 "these fallacious BELIEFS ARE NOW THE 
 POINT IN THE WALL OF OPPOSITION TO THE ESTAB- 
 LISHMENT OF PEACE THROUGH JUSTICE AT WHICH 
 SHARP AND CONCENTRATED ATTACK SHOULD BE DI- 
 RECTED. 0\TERTHROW THESE AND THERE WILL 
 NOT BE MUCH OPPOSITION LEFT WHICH IS NOT 
 ESSENTIALLY EVIL IN INTENT."' 
 
 This insistence upon the economic incentive as 
 the cause of war carries with it an intimation of a 
 gross libel on human nature. While the econo- 
 mic illusion has undoubtedly held a place in the 
 minds of diplomats and jingoists, in the hearts 
 of the men who fight it has been an irrelevant cir- 
 cumstance. To stress this phase in the hope that 
 a universal acceptance of it will stop war is to 
 work without a recognition of a far more signifi- 
 cant factor in human nature, the patriotic imper- 
 ative. Until the ethical motor-spring in nations
 
 A NEW TECHNIQUE 13 
 
 has been readjusted, there will still be war. In 
 fact the more unprofitable war can be shown to 
 be, the more keenly will men feel the purity of 
 the ideal for which alone they have always been 
 ready to die. 
 
 Besides, even with diplomats and statesmen the 
 theory of war's economic stupidity is generally 
 accepted. Who to-day would still defend war 
 from the economic standpoint ? It would require 
 a juggling of figures for the militarist to make 
 out a case for war on economic grounds by com- 
 paring the staggering sums of money that are 
 being expended in the present world war by 
 either side with the possible cash value of terri- 
 tory or advantage that may come out of the con- 
 flict. It may be true that in England before the 
 war there were many who labored under the illu- 
 sion that if Germany could be eliminated as a 
 commercial rival, any expenditure incurred in 
 achieving it would be a good investment. But 
 three years of war have served a great purpose 
 and have changed public opinion vitally. 
 Whether or not Englishmen have come to accept 
 the truth that the commercial prosperity of Ger- 
 many or any other country bears no relation to 
 military or political power, no statesman in Eng- 
 land to-day would admit that he regarded it as 
 sound national business policy to have expended
 
 14 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 $75,000,000,000, the cost of the war to Eng- 
 land up-to-date, to cripple German prosperity. 
 If diplomats thought in economic terms 
 before the present war, they think in such 
 terms no longer. Wars to-day are waged on 
 such a tremendous scale and the cost involved 
 is so stupendous that the economic case for con- 
 quest and annexation has become absurd and 
 any one who advanced it would lack a sense of hu- 
 mor. War is outrageously unprofitable, even 
 when it results in the acquisition of vast posses- 
 sions, commercial advantages, concessions, and 
 spheres of influence. If this was true even a 
 hundred years ago how much more true is it to- 
 day when war has assumed such huge proportions 
 that it has become as Bloch prophesied it would 
 become, almost economically impossible to wage 
 it. And since the publication of "The Great 
 Illusion" the notion of the economy of conquest, 
 or the commercial advantage derived from suc- 
 cessful war has become obsolete. War is to-day 
 a formidable loss and a stupid business venture. 
 
 But though this is generally recognized and 
 accepted it is of no avail in the interests of peace 
 to dwell upon this economic loss and the burdens 
 of debt which the ordeal of battle rolls up. If 
 the recital of the tremendous cost of war has any 
 effect at all upon the common man it is to give
 
 A NEW TECHNIQUE 16 
 
 him a subtle psychological satisfaction at being 
 associated in the execution of so hugely expensive 
 an enterprise. The very fact that w^ar is uneco- 
 nomic and almost universally recognized as such, 
 added to the correlative circumstance that men 
 do fight nevertheless, seems to be the greatest and 
 most convincing proof of all that men do not fight 
 for material profit. Human nature would have 
 to have a queer streak in it indeed to per- 
 sist in an enterprise which it recognizes frankly 
 as unprofitable in the highest degree. The 
 endless array of figures that fill the debit col- 
 umn of the ledger of war are not convincing pac- 
 ifist argument. They stagger the imagination 
 it is true, but they do not serve as preventives 
 against the recurrence of international conflicts. 
 A man who will cheat his competitor out of a 
 dollar in business, will give up all his substance 
 willingly to serve his country and his convictions. 
 The case is very different from what our eco- 
 nomic determinists would have us believe. Men 
 do not fight because of the supposed profit to be 
 derived from war, from a nicely calculated eco- 
 nomic hedonism, but in spite of their recognition 
 of its tremendous unprofitableness. 
 
 But to say that economic considerations in any 
 phase are not the dynamic force behind war, 
 is not to deny that economic factors enter very
 
 16 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 seriously into the remoter origins of war. A 
 very important distinction suggests itself at this 
 point. While war undoubtedly has an economic 
 cause, it rarely has an economic motive. The 
 material of war may grow out of economic con- 
 flicts, and rivalries. That is very different, how- 
 ever, from saying that the motive which 
 prompts nations as nations to go to war 
 is a clearly perceived and appreciated de- 
 sire for economic gain. The difference can be 
 illustrated by an example from every day life. 
 A man might refuse to pay a second fare on a 
 street car and might be willing to argue for an 
 hour with the conductor though his time is worth 
 infinitely more than the maximum gain to be 
 derived from persuading his opponent that he has 
 paid his fare. The dispute unquestionably has 
 an economic cause in that it arose in connection 
 with the payment of fare, but it would be a gross 
 libel on the sense of duty of the conductor and the 
 self-respect of the passenger to accuse either 
 party to the dispute of having an economic motive 
 in continuing it. The analogy will not walk on 
 all fours but it suggests the attitude of nations in 
 going to war. Just as the man's time is worth 
 infinitely more than the possibility of saving his 
 second fare, so a nation's material welfare in 
 every way is much more wisely served by avoid-
 
 A NEW TECHNIQUE 17 
 
 ing war. France and Germany nearly came to 
 blows in Morocco over a definite economic mat- 
 ter, the establishment of banks; but if war had 
 not been averted by the Algeciras Conference 
 the motive of Germany would not have been that 
 by going to war she would have been able to con- 
 trol certain banking institutions in Morocco and 
 that such control would have had a greater eco- 
 nomic value than the cost incurred in gaining this 
 supposed advantage. Wars are more easily 
 waged when they have a tangible concrete 
 point of departure, but we must not forget 
 that the material consideration involved is the 
 point of departure which once it is left must, 
 by the nature of modern war, defeat itself en- 
 tirely in the carrying out of the spiritual issue 
 which arises from it and which submerges it com- 
 pletely. It is a libel on human nature the un- 
 fairness of which has been so repeatedly demon- 
 strated, to recognize material considerations 
 either as an actuating or restraining force toward 
 war. Yet writers to-day would still subscribe 
 to the following words of Lecky, 
 
 "Those who will look on the world without il- 
 lusion will be compelled to admit that the chief 
 guarantees for its peace are to be found much 
 less in moral than in purely selfish motives. The 
 financial embarrassments of the great nations,
 
 18 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 their profound distrust of one another, the vast 
 cost of modern wars, the gigantic commercial 
 disaster it inevitably entails, the extreme uncer- 
 tainty of its issue, the utter ruin that may follow 
 defeat, these are the real influences that restrain 
 the tiger passions and the avaricious cravings of 
 mankind." 
 
 The economic case for war may in fairness be 
 stated thus ; war may have an economic cause ; it 
 must have an ethical motive. The war is not 
 conducted however on the plane of the cause but 
 on the plane of the motive. This would be true 
 even if it were not for the fact that men do not 
 fight for material advantage solely. It would be 
 true because the motive and the cause are per- 
 ceived and adhered to by two clearly defined 
 classes of people within the nation; the motive 
 by those who do the fighting, the cause by those 
 whose interests are involved and appear to be 
 threatened. Consequently the thing which actu- 
 ates the men in the trenches is not the remoter 
 economic cause with which he has nothing to do, 
 but the immediate motive or occasion, and the 
 reason that he is ready to die, is that he sees in 
 this motive an ethical, spiritual value. 
 
 Therefore the pacifist who insists that war 
 can be stopped by removing the economic causes 
 overlooks this infinitely more essential motive.
 
 A NEW TECHNIQUE 19 
 
 Since, as we have seen, war can hardly be said to 
 have an economic cause in the sense of an eco- 
 nomic motive for gain, it is unjust to credit solely 
 the economic factor with the intrinsic power 
 to make war. A war for any other cause would 
 be equally just and popular provided only it had 
 an ethical motive, and who would say that nations 
 could find no other reason to disagree except on 
 a basis of economic advantage? Religion, na- 
 tionalism, aggressive ideals, though they have 
 often been used as pretexts for economic gain, 
 were oftener perhaps, the genuine spiritual con- 
 siderations precipitating conflict. 
 
 I believe that the elimination of economic 
 causes if that were possible, would not stop 
 war; it would merely shift the ground, be- 
 cause the root of war is not external considera- 
 tions or objective ends, but the moral nature 
 of men. Men will fight not so long as they feel 
 it is profitable, hut so long as they feel it is right. 
 This impulse to right, regardless of material con- 
 sequences, is the fundamental cause of war. Mr. 
 Bertrand Russell puts it thus — 
 
 "But war, like all other natural activities, is 
 not so much prompted by the ends which it has 
 in view as by an impulse to the activity itself. 
 Very often men desire an end not on its own ac- 
 count, but because their nature demands the ac-
 
 20 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 tions which will lead to the end. And so it is in 
 this case; the ends to be achieved by war appear 
 far more important in prospect than they will 
 appear when they are realized, because war itself 
 is a fulfiUment of one side of our nature, if 
 men's actions sprang indeed from desires for 
 what would bring happiness, the purely ra- 
 tional arguments against war would have 
 long ago put an end to it. what makes war 
 difficult to suppress is that it springs from 
 an impulse rather than from a calculation 
 of the advantages to be derived from war." 
 
 Even when a war is clearly a commercial one, 
 it is necessary to give it an ethical appearance if 
 it is to be waged effectively. JVIr. Veblen in his 
 recent book, "The Nature of Peace," says; 
 
 "These demands (economic) are put forward 
 with a color of demanding something in the way 
 of an equitable opportunity for the commonplace 
 peaceable citizen; but quite plainly they have 
 none but a fanciful bearing on the fortunes of 
 the common man in time of peace, and they have 
 a meaning to the nation only as a fighting unit; 
 apart from the prestige value these things are 
 worth fighting for only as prospective means of 
 fighting. The like appeal to the moral sensibili- 
 ties may again be made in a call to self-defense, 
 under the rule of live and let live, etc. But in
 
 A NEW TECHNIQUE 21 
 
 one way or another it is necessary to set up the 
 conviction that the promptings of patriotic am- 
 bition HAVE THE SANCTION OF MORAL NECES- 
 SITY." 
 
 Consequently if war is to cease it will he be- 
 cause the moral validity of this ethical impulse 
 has been eccploded rather than because its eco- 
 nomic futility has been universally accepted. It 
 will be objected here that everybody admits war 
 to be morally wrong. This is not so. If men 
 believed war to be morally wrong it would stop in 
 very short order. Men believe somewhat weakly 
 that it is wrong to kill, to take human life un- 
 der ORDINARY CONDITIONS. But the men in the 
 trenches to-day certainly believe that there are 
 times when it is morally right to take human life 
 and a good deal of it too. Peace-at-any-price is 
 not a doctrine that attracts very many enthusi- 
 asts, while it has a great many more staunch oppo- 
 nents who see in it the lowest depths of immoral- 
 ity. The opposition to peace-at-any-price needs 
 but to be stated to be accepted and yet pacifists 
 labor under the illusion that the moral stupidity 
 of war has been generally accepted. How fre- 
 quently we hear people lament that though war 
 is admittedly wasteful, horrible, immoral, na- 
 tions will go to war just the same. Such a feel- 
 ing is fraught with blindness to facts. Ju^t as
 
 22 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 nations will go to war in spite of its economic fu- 
 tility so they will go to war only because of its 
 moral validity. Nations admit that war is hor- 
 rible and wasteful but they do not admit that it is 
 wrong in the sense that when a nation goes to war 
 for its highest ideals that it is nevertheless im- 
 moral. A peace may, according to the majority 
 opinion of writers, be a great deal more immoral 
 than war. The following citation from Mr. 
 James Martineau's speech at the first Hague 
 Conference still voices the conviction of men to- 
 day. 
 
 "The reverence for human life is carried to an 
 immoral idolatry when it is held more sacred 
 than justice and right and when the spectacle of 
 blood becomes more horrible than the sight of 
 desolating tyrannies and triumphant hypocrisies. 
 We have therefore no more doubt that a war 
 may be right than a policeman may be a security 
 for justice, and we object to a fortress as little 
 as to a handcuff." 
 
 This identic attitude is expressed by Mr. 
 Roosevelt whose diatribes against an "unright- 
 eous peace" are almost classic. He says: 
 
 "Peace is not the end. Righteousness is the end. When 
 the Savior saw the money changers in the temple he broke 
 the peace by driving them out. At that moment peace could 
 have been maintained readily enough by the simple process
 
 A NEW TECHNIQUE 23 
 
 of keeping quiet in the presence of wrong. Righteousness 
 is the end and peace a means to the end, and sometimes it 
 is not peace but war which is the proper means to achieve 
 the end." ("Fear God and Take Your Own Part/' p. 26.) 
 
 And the fact that three quarters of the world 
 is at war to-day because of this preference 
 for a righteous war rather than an ignoble peace 
 indicates the weight of the moral argument for 
 war. 
 
 Now the generic term for the ethical motives 
 of nations is National Honor. Under this 
 comprehensive term are included all the moral 
 impulses, the spiritual purpose, the motive, 
 the reason, the occasion for war. National 
 Honor is the collective conscience that passes on 
 the justice of all wars, and it is inconceivable that 
 a nation would fight for anything which could 
 not receive the sanction of this moral imperative, 
 "This National Honor is in the nature of an in- 
 tangible immaterial asset, of course ; it is a matter 
 of prestige, a sportsman-like conception, but that 
 fact must not be taken to mean that it is of any 
 the less substantial effect for purposes of a casus 
 belli than the material assets of the community. 
 Quite the contrary, 'who steals my purse steals 
 trash,' etc. In point of fact it will commonly 
 happen that any national grievance must first be 
 converted into terms of this spiritual capital be-
 
 24 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 fore it is effectually turned to account as a stimu- 
 lus to warlike enterprise." (Veblen, p. 27.) 
 
 Civilized men would not suffer the hell of war 
 for something incompatible with national honor, 
 for something admittedly dishonorable. The 
 point of honor about which war was waged at 
 times may have been spurious, but that is not im- 
 portant or to the point. It is only necessary to 
 concede that patriotically biassed minds sincerely 
 regarded it as a matter of national honor in every 
 case when they went to war. If men sometimes 
 came to fight for points of honor which outsid- 
 ers did not regard as such, it was because they 
 beheved the point to be genuine. The process of 
 this reasoning, of course, is the illogical supposi- 
 tion that because fighting for honor required so 
 much sacrifice, the point of honor therefore is 
 worth fighting for. There is an axiom that 
 nothing which is worth while comes easy which 
 is often reversed to read that everything that 
 comes hard must be worth while. The tremen- 
 dous sacrifices lend but a glamor to the ideal for 
 which the sacrifices are made and make men fight 
 the harder In short, war without an honor mo- 
 tive as that motive is conceived by each nation is 
 regarded as unthinkable. 
 
 From the earliest times we find the ideal of 
 honor as a motive for war and as the irresistible
 
 A NEW TECHNIQUE 25 
 
 slogan that attracted patriots to give their lives 
 freely in its defense. The ideal of group solidar- 
 ity and the honor of the gi-oup was the pride of 
 primitive man. Even before the nation arose, we 
 had family Honor, then group Honor and so on. 
 In Frazer's "Golden Bough" we have mention of 
 Honor as the elevated ideal of primitive group 
 hfe. 
 
 "The superstitious fear of the magic that may 
 be wrought on a man through the leavings of his 
 food has had the beneficial effect of inducing 
 many savages to destroy refuse. . . . Nor is it 
 only the sanitary condition of the tribe which 
 has benefited by this superstition; curiously 
 enough the same baseless dread, the same false 
 notion of causation has indirectly strengthened 
 the moral bonds of hospitality, Honor, and good 
 faith among men who entertain it." {Vol. Ill, 
 p. 120.) 
 
 We have Honor mentioned again and again 
 a little later in the historical development of 
 man, in the Bible. The following from Revela- 
 tion is one of frequent references to it. 
 
 "And the nations shall walk amidst the light 
 thereof; and the kings of the earth bring their 
 glory into it (Holy City) ; and the gates thereof 
 shall in no wise be shut by day for there shall be 
 no night there; and they shall bring the glory
 
 26 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 and the Honor of the Nations into it ; and there 
 shall in no wise enter into it anything unclean or 
 he that maketh an abomination or a lie" (21-26) . 
 
 In Greece the ideal of Honor was sacred and 
 was regarded in much the same way as it is re- 
 garded to-day. National Honor was the noble 
 and elevated motive for entering a war and the 
 thing which consecrated it. In Demosthenes' 
 "Discourse on the Crown" we have the following 
 allusion to this immemorial slogan of war. 
 
 "Even though the overthrow may have been 
 a certainty it would be necessary to brave it. 
 There is a thing which Athens has always placed 
 above success and that is Honor, the elevated 
 feeling of what she owes to her traditions in the 
 past and to her good fame in the future. Form- 
 erly at the time of the Persian invasion, Athens 
 sacrificed all to this heroic sentiment of Honor." 
 
 Again and again in every age and period from 
 the dawn of civilized society down to the present 
 day we find continual reference to Honor as the 
 ideal in every relation of life, for which no sac- 
 rifices were too great or unreasonable. It has 
 consecrated wars of every period and as Treits- 
 chke has so well said of modern wars — 
 
 "Modern wars are not waged for the sake of 
 goods and chattels. What is at stake is the sub- 
 lime moral good of national Honor, which has
 
 A NEW TECHNIQUE 27 
 
 something in the nature of unconditional sanctity, 
 and compels the individual to sacrifice himself 
 for it." ("Politik," p. 128.) 
 
 Yet in spite of the fact that this persistent 
 moral impulse of human nature, to which we 
 choose to give the generic term of National 
 Honor, has been the inveterate motive for war, it 
 has nevertheless been given a place of secondary- 
 importance in the peace congresses of the past 
 and in pacifist propaganda generally. It has 
 been regarded as so incidental a cause of war that 
 in peace literature we find only casual references 
 to it. At both Hague Conferences the subject 
 of Honor was not discussed or considered aside 
 from the fact that it was excluded absolutely from 
 the jurisdiction of the proposed Court. When 
 the subject was brought up one diplomat dis- 
 missed the problem by saying that "any question 
 may affect the Honor and vital interests of a 
 nation." And with this vague generaUty the 
 whole matter was dismissed from even the field 
 of discussion. It is not therefore surprising that 
 in Holl's "Record of the Hague Conference," 
 which is a book of some 590 pages, we have but a 
 single reference to National Honor. 
 
 Even contemporary writers mention Honor as 
 a cause of war in what might be called a "non- 
 chalant" and casual way just as if its significance
 
 28 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 as the great fundamental "motive" of war were 
 not so absolutely conceded. The significance of 
 it is beginning to be admitted only by the in- 
 tellectual radicals. National honor as the great 
 irresistible war-slogan is slowly gaining recogni- 
 tion and men are coming to see that the success of 
 the peace movement rests with the enlightened 
 sense of Honor which will grow out of a bold and 
 fearless consideration of the question at future 
 peace congresses. The following citation from 
 an article on "Patriotism," by Prof. James Har- 
 vey Robinson of Columbia University, represents 
 in a beautiful way the beginnings of the new at- 
 titude which will be taken toward the question of 
 honor after the present war. It is the more in- 
 teresting because it contains in spite of its frank 
 recognition of the importance of honor, the cool 
 nonchalance which has so characterized the atti- 
 tude that is just passing. 
 
 "It is note-worthy that The Hague Confer- 
 ence did not have the nerve to make questions of 
 national honor matters subject to arbitration. 
 Yet it is just this particular kind of excuse for 
 war which should be most carefully considered 
 before mobilization." 
 
 What is this national Honor which has conse- 
 crated almost every war of man and yet which 
 shrinks from arbitration and analysis?
 
 A NEW TECHNIQUE g^ 
 
 The consideration of this perplexing problem 
 in the hope of arriving at some adequate answer 
 and solution will be the purpose of the following 
 pages.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 WHAT IS NATIONAL HONOR? A SYMPOSIUM 
 
 CONTAINING ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-FIA^E 
 CITATIONS ILLUSTRATING DIFFERENT ASPECTS 
 AND VIEWS OF NATIONAL HONOR 
 
 Article nine of the Report of the Second Hague 
 Conference (1907) provided that, — 
 
 "In disputes of an international nature involving neither 
 Honor nor vital interests and arising from a difference of 
 opinion on points of fact, the contracting powers deem it 
 expedient and desirable that the parties who have not been 
 able to come to an agreement by means of diplomacy should, 
 as far as circumstances allow, institute an international 
 commission of inquiry to facilitate a solution of these dis- 
 putes by elucidating the facts by means of an impartial 
 and conscientious investigation." 
 
 In view of the very serious limitation which 
 this clause imposes upon the jurisdiction of the 
 Hague it is very important to know more accu- 
 rately what an exemption of disputes of 
 "Honor" properly includes. The vital ques- 
 tions which suggest themselves in this connection 
 are: "What is national honor?" "Is there any 
 
 30
 
 A SYMPOSIUM SI 
 
 consensus of opinion as to what it implies?" It 
 is clear that at the end of the present war, the 
 statesmen and the people generally of the bellig- 
 erent countries will make a serious attempt to lift 
 the whole question of national honor out of its 
 emotional obscurity in an effort to define it upon 
 universal and generally accepted principles of 
 right and justice. It is therefore opportune for 
 us to attempt to clear our own minds on the ques- 
 tion of honor in order to attain to a thoroughly 
 rational and definite idea of its implications. 
 For the purpose of arousing discussion which 
 may serve as a basis for the consideration of the 
 question at the Peace Congress which will meet 
 at the close of the present war, this symposium 
 has been prepared. 
 
 DO THE QUESTIONS RAISED BY THE FOLLOWING 
 CITATIONS, IN YOUR OPINION, INVOLVE "NA- 
 TIONAL Honor"? 
 
 NATIONAL PRIDE 
 
 Punctilios of Honor, National Self-Assertion, 
 National Courage, and Expiation for of- 
 fenses to national honor. 
 
 1. Insult to the flag by an official representative 
 of a foreign power.
 
 32 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 "Any one who even superficially attacks the Honor of 
 a state, challenges by his action the very nature of the 
 state. — If the flag of the state is insulted it is the duty 
 of the state to demand satisfaction and if satisfaction is 
 not forthcoming to declare war however trivial the occa- 
 sion may appear." — Treitschke, "Politik," p. 125. 
 
 2. Disregard of the conventional punctilios gov- 
 
 erning diplomatic intercourse. 
 
 "This National Honor is subject to injury in divers 
 ways, and so may yield a fruitful grievance even apart from 
 offenses against the person or property of the nation's busi- 
 ness men; as for example through the neglect or disregard 
 of the conventional pimctilios governing diplomatic inter- 
 course, or by disrespect or contumelious speech touching 
 the flag, or the persons of national officials, or again by fail- 
 ure to observe the ritual prescribed for parading the na- 
 tional honor on stated occasions." — Thorstein Veblen, 
 "The Nature of Peace," p. 29. 
 
 3. Maintaining relative political prestige. 
 
 "National Honor for the nation which is considering it at 
 the time, consists for her that she should maintain herself 
 just as she is in her rank and place in the hierarchy of na- 
 tions." — Terraillon, "L'Honneur," p. 255. 
 
 4. Resisting the demands of another country to 
 
 be "consulted in any further exploitation of 
 
 the globe." 
 
 Typical case: England disallowed Ger- 
 many's claim in this connection at the time 
 of the Moroccan dispute.
 
 A SYMPOSIUM 33 
 
 "The claim that Germany made, that no treaty should 
 be made in any part of the world without the approval of 
 Germany, was not one which a self-respecting nation could 
 admit." — Professor Gilbert Murray, cited in Bertrand 
 Russell, "Justice in Wartime." 
 
 And at the same time — 
 
 5. Demanding this privilege "for one's own coun- 
 
 try" to be consulted in all treaties hence- 
 forth to be made. 
 
 Typical case: England demands to be 
 consulted in all treaties concerning Mo- 
 rocco. 
 
 "But if a situation "were forced upon us in which peace 
 could only be preserved by the surrender of the great and 
 beneficent position which Great Britain has won by cen- 
 turies of heroism and achievement, by allowing England to 
 be treated where her interests were concerned as if she 
 were of no account in the cabinet of nations, then I say 
 emphatically that peace at that price would be a humilia- 
 tion INTOLERABLE FOR A GREAT POWER LIKE OURS TO EN- 
 DURE." — Lloyd George, Mansion House Speech, July 21, 
 1911. 
 
 6, Demanding to be consulted in any "further 
 
 exploitation of the globe." 
 
 Typical case: Germany demands to be 
 consulted in the Moroccan treaty. 
 
 "Germany has risen to a world power and our Honor 
 demands that we be consulted in any further exploitation 
 of the globe. — When we fell out with France in the
 
 34 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 Moroccan dispute, we had our National Honor to de- 
 fend." — Von Bulow, "Imperial Germany/' p. 96. 
 
 7. Demanding to be consulted in any and all 
 
 treaties made by other powers. 
 
 Typical case: Germany in the Moroccan 
 dispute. 
 
 "Our Honor demands that no treaty should be made in 
 any part of the world henceforth without the approval of 
 Germany." — Kaiser's Speeches. 
 
 8. Resisting the command of another power to 
 
 settle an international question in a certain 
 
 way. 
 
 Typical case: President Cleveland com- 
 pelled England to submit the Venezuelan 
 Boundary dispute to arbitration. 
 
 "Was not the National Honor of Great Britain at 
 stake when Lord Salisbury as representative of the great 
 British Empire was told by President Cleveland that he 
 must arbitrate a controversy ? I do not believe the gov- 
 ernment of Great Britain had heard talk of that kind since 
 the Battle of Waterloo." — Fred. Coudert, before the 
 Washington Association of New Jersey, Feb. 22, 1912. 
 
 9. Being compelled by threat from another power 
 
 to modify a political ambition to extend a 
 country's influence by royal intrigues. 
 Typical case: Germany desired to place 
 a Hohenzollern on the Spanish throne
 
 A SYMPOSIUM 35 
 
 1867; France made Germany withdraw 
 the candidatm'e. 
 
 "This impression of a wound to our sense of National 
 Honor so dominated me that I had already decided to an- 
 nounce my retirement." — Bismarck, "Gedanken und Er- 
 rinerungen," p. 94. 
 
 10. To show national courage as a virtue in itself 
 
 regardless of the justice or right of the 
 provocation that may arouse it ; 
 
 "Nevertheless we have seen that when nations renowned 
 of old for their valor have been freed from all danger, 
 when they have been forbidden the use of arms, when they 
 have lost that standard of Honor which makes them brave 
 death, we have seen them lose the very strength which 
 sustains the domestic virtues." — Sismondi, quoted by Novi- 
 cow in "War and Its Alleged Benefits," p. 7. 
 
 11. To demand indemnity for violations suffered 
 
 at the hands of another power. 
 
 Typical case : An English freighter, the 
 Alabama manned in British waters, was 
 allowed to escape and prey upon Ameri- 
 can ships. We demanded indemnity 
 for the loss suffered. 
 
 "No case in modern times has afforded a better pretext 
 for the avoidance of submission to arbitration than the 
 Alabama case. Here if ever it might be maintained that 
 the Honor of the two nations was concerned. Great Brit- 
 ain was charged with evading the rules of just international
 
 36 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 intercourse by allowing the Alabama to escape and prey 
 upon our commerce. — This was an imputation which 
 might well throw the British Chauvinist into a delirium of 
 patriotic indignation. — The United States might well on 
 its side have regarded this as an insult to its National 
 Honor." — Coudert, "Anglo-American Treat}'/' p. 52. 
 
 12. To refuse the payment of indemnity claims. 
 
 Typical case: England in the Alabama 
 controversy. 
 
 "We will not lose sight of the fact that even in the pe- 
 cuniary claims, in almost every case a nation may refuse 
 arbitration on the pretense that the very advancement of 
 such claims is a reflection upon its Honor." — Hon. Jack-* 
 SON Ralston, "Disputes and Arbitration," p. 2. 
 
 13. To oppose arbitration for the payment of an 
 
 indemnity. 
 
 "That {Alabama claims) is a question of Honor which 
 we will never arbitrate for England's Honor can never 
 be made the subject for arbitration." — Lord John Russell. 
 
 14. Retreating from a position taken in a dis- 
 
 pute. 
 
 Typical case: President McKinley in 
 the Cuban Controversy. 
 
 "President McKinley said: 'In the name of humanity, 
 in the name of civilization, in behalf of endangered Amer- 
 ican interests which gives us the right to speak and to act, 
 the war in Cuba must stop.' The American people thus 
 stood committed to a most serious business — we had taken
 
 A SYMPOSIUM 37 
 
 a position (war), from which we cannot retreat in Honor, 
 to be maintained if through peace no less resolutely than 
 through war." — "Conscience of the Nation," Sermon on 
 the Liberation of Cuba by William Jewett Tucker, 1898, 
 College Church Opening. 
 
 15. Fighting to a finish after being reluctantly 
 
 drawn in. 
 
 "I assume that there is no one at the present time so 
 ignorant of the spirit of the American people that he would 
 not be willing to admit the truth of the following proposi- 
 tion — that if our country is drawn into any war although 
 against our will and against our desire we will neverthe- 
 less fight to the finish for our National Honor and in- 
 tegrity." — Pres. Hibben, "Higher Patriotism," p. 25. 
 
 16. To continue in a war although later evidence 
 
 shows cause of war to have been unjustly- 
 conceived. 
 
 "Whatever good reason there may have been for recog- 
 nizing that our (English) claims of sovereignty in the 
 Transvaal rested on a mistaken view of native sentiment, 
 and however fairly such recognition might have been al- 
 lowed to affect the ultimate settlement, the game of war 
 once entered upon ought to have been played out until it 
 was either lost or won. To this the Honor of the country 
 was fully pledged." — H. I. D. Ryder in Nineteenth Cen- 
 tury, referring to Boer War, 1899. 
 
 17. To recede from a position unjustly taken. 
 
 "Honor does not forbid a nation to acknowledge that it
 
 38 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 is wrong, or to recede from a step which it has taken 
 through wrong motives or mistaken reasons." — Admiral 
 Mahan, "Moral Aspect of War," p. 32. 
 
 18. Refusal to render apology for offense. 
 
 "There will never be a case in which National Honor 
 is more dangerously and vitally affected than it was in the 
 Dogger Bank incident. The danger lay in the fact that 
 the Honor of the Russian fleet was in question when Lord 
 Lansdowne demanded apology, compensation, and the 
 punishment of the offending officers." — L. S. Wolff, "In- 
 ternational Government," p. 49. 
 
 19. Do public lies or verbal threats wound 
 
 Honor? 
 
 "In your letter you say that your enemies by their lies 
 and calumnies are endeavoring to stain the Honor of Ger- 
 many in her hard struggle for existence." — S. W. Church, 
 to Doctor Shafer. Open Letter. 
 
 20. Do Honor wounds come from without, or 
 
 within? 
 
 "In what one of our ordinary differences with Great 
 Britain has our Honor become so delicately involved that 
 the delicacy of its constitution required a prompt and vig- 
 orous regime of blood and iron. And yet we have had hot 
 and long disputes when honor might have been called to 
 the front by either nation and made the pretense for a 
 refusal to arbitrate. A nation's honor I would venture to 
 say is never compromised by temperance nor injured by 
 forbearance. A nation's honor is not served by rash coun-
 
 A SYMPOSIUM 39 
 
 sels nor by violent impulses recklessly indulged in. It is 
 indeed a frail and delicate possession if it cannot live in an 
 atmosphere of peace; it is a dangerous one if it is tar- 
 nished by friendly discussion and a disposition to hearken 
 to the voice of justice. National honor may perhaps shine 
 all the brighter when a great nation is slow to admit that 
 her just dignity may be imperilled by the act of others. 
 The Honor of a nation is in her keeping not in that 
 OF HER neighbors: it cannot be lost save by her own 
 ACT." — CouDERT, ibid., p. 37. 
 
 21. Same as 20. 
 
 "Our country cannot be dishonored by any other country 
 or by all the powers combined. It is impossible. All 
 Honor wounds are self-inflicted. We alone can dis- 
 honor ourselves or our country." — Andrew Carnegie. 
 
 22. Must National Honor have "pecuniary vin- 
 
 dication"? 
 
 "It is true that where the point of grievance out of which 
 a question of the National Honor arises is a pecuniary 
 discrepancy, the national honor cannot be satisfied without 
 a pecuniary accounting." — Veblen, "Nature of Peace," p. 
 29. 
 
 23. Can Honor wounds be Healed by "words"? 
 
 "When duly violated the National Honor may be made 
 whole again by similarly immaterial instrumentalities ; as 
 e.g., by recital of an appropriate formula of words, by 
 formal consumption of a stated quantity of ammunition in 
 the way of a "salute"; by "dipping" an ensign and the like 
 procedure which can of course have none but a magical 
 efficacy." — Veblen, ibid., p. 29.
 
 40 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 INTERNATIONAL POLITICS 
 
 Imperialism, "Spheres of Influence," National 
 Aggrandizement, Boundaries, Protection of 
 Citizens, Sovereignty. 
 
 24. To build up a great Empire reluctantly. 
 
 "Britain like Rome before her built up her Empire piece- 
 meal; for the most part reluctantly, always reckoning up 
 the cost, labor and burden of it; hating the responsibility 
 of expansion, and shouldering it only when there seemed 
 to be no other course open to her in Honor and safety." — 
 F. S. Oliver, "Ordeal of Battle." 
 
 25. To keep in subjection people of a lower civ- 
 
 ilization. 
 
 "When you talk of conquest you mean England in Egypt, 
 yes, you do, and you refuse to see that we have to hold 
 high the Honor of our country and to protect our do- 
 minions in the East." — Hall Caine, "White Prophet," p. 
 62. 
 
 26. To conquer other people out of a recognition 
 
 of the law of "survival." 
 
 "Success in the struggle for survival is followed by the 
 second degree of militancy, that of conquest, in which mili- 
 tancy becomes a positive instead of a negative factor. It 
 is in this metamorphosis, out of the red chrysalis that the 
 race rises upward on the pinions of an eagle. — Commer- 
 cialism grows as militancy deteriorates since it is in itself 
 a form of strife but without Honor or heroism." — General 
 Homer Lea, U. S. A., "Valor of Ignorance," p. 45.
 
 A SYMPOSIUM 41 
 
 27. To seize and dominate alien country. 
 
 Typical case: Germany invades Belgium. 
 
 "We will remain in the Belgian Netherlands to which 
 we will add the narrow strips of coast as far as Calais. — 
 After having vindicated our Honor we will return to the 
 joys of work and only take up the sword again if you try 
 to force from our grasp what our blood has won for us." — 
 Maximilian Hardin, in a resume, London Daily Chronicle. 
 
 28. To expand at the expense of neighboring 
 
 country for the sake of power, or prestige. 
 Typical case: Frederick the Great de- 
 sired to expand into a great power. 
 
 "It has become essential to enlarge the territory of the 
 state and corriger la figure de la Prusse, if Prussia wished 
 to be independent and to bear with Honor the great name 
 of Kingdom." — Treitschke, "Deutsche Geshichte/' V. 1, 
 p. 51. 
 
 29. To maintain a sphere of influence in an un- 
 
 exploited territorj^ unhampered. 
 Typical case: France in Morocco. 
 
 "He (M. Delcasse) declared that France could not go to 
 the proposed international Conference (i.e., Algeciras that 
 was to be), without dishonoring herself." — Paris Corre- 
 spondent to the London Times, Oct. 9, 1905. 
 
 30. For another growing power to try to force 
 
 an entrance into such a "sphere of influ- 
 ence."
 
 42 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 Typical case: Germany in Morocco. 
 
 "When we fell out with France in the Moroccan ques- 
 tion, we had weighty interests of our own and our National 
 Honor to defend." — Von Bulow, "Imperial Germany," 
 p. 56. 
 
 31. To resist the cession of one country to an- 
 
 other of an adjoining strip of territory 
 which might destroy the "balance of 
 power." 
 
 Typical case: Prince of Orange in 1866 
 wished to cede Luxemburg to Napoleon. 
 
 "We must show our confidence in the energetic Prussian 
 policy by our unflincliing firmness. — We will not seek to 
 avoid war when we are in danger of being wronged. If 
 we allow this (cession of Luxemburg to France) to pass in 
 silence and without opposition — how indelible a blot will 
 stain the Honor of Germany."— Herr Von Bennigsen, 
 Leader of the National Liberals in the Reichstag, April 1, 
 1866. 
 
 32. To maintain supremacy in any part of the 
 
 globe. 
 
 Typical case: Japan in the East. 
 
 "An attempt to disallow the Japanese claim to predom- 
 inance in the Eastern part of Asia, and to the domination 
 of the Asiatic Seas, would violate their conception of Na- 
 tional Honor." — Von Bernhardi, "Britain as Germany's 
 Vassal," p. 124. 
 
 33. To insist upon a boundary line.
 
 A SYMPOSIUM 4S 
 
 Typical case: "54-40 or fight." 
 
 "Irritating questions have undoubtedly arisen and the 
 war-like element has sometimes asserted itself, as when it 
 declared it was a question between 54—40 or fight; but our 
 practical good sense overcame the ultra-patriotic men who 
 were burning to immolate themselves on the altar of the 
 country's Honor." — Fred. Coudert, "Anglo-American Ar- 
 bitration Treaty," p. 51. 
 
 34. To hold foreign territory the ownership of 
 
 which is in dispute. 
 
 Typical case: The boundary dispute be- 
 tween Italy and Switzerland over the 
 district of Peschiaro. 
 
 "For many years there had been a dispute between 
 Switzerland and Italy on a question of boundary respect- 
 ing the frontier near Peschiaro. It was just one of the 
 questions that formerly would have led to war for it has 
 been held among nations as a scrupulous point of Honor 
 not to surrender one inch of territory except at the edge 
 of the sword." — Mr. Henry Richard at the Peace Con- 
 ference at Cologne, 1881. 
 
 35. Forcible dispossession of other nations. 
 
 "With some gift for casuistry one may at least conceiv- 
 ably hold that the felt need of Imperial self-aggrandize- 
 ment may become so urgent as to justify or at least to 
 condone forcible dispossession of weaker nationalities. This 
 might, indeed it has, become a sufficiently perplexing ques- 
 tion of casuistry both as touches the punctilios of Na- 
 tional Honor and as regards an equitable division be-
 
 44 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 tween rival powers in respect of the material means of mas- 
 tery." — Veblen, "Nature of Peace," p. 80. 
 
 36. The question of citizenship. 
 
 "This tribunal would lay down the rule that the terri- 
 torial integrity of each nation was inviolate, that it was to 
 be guaranteed absolutely its sovereign rights in certain 
 particulars including for instance the right to decide the 
 terms on which immigrants should be admitted to its bor- 
 ders for purposes of residence, citizenship or business; in 
 short all its rights in matters affecting its Honor." — 
 Theodore Roosevelt, "America and the World War," p. 
 237. 
 
 37. The protection of citizens residing or so- 
 
 journing in foreign country. 
 
 "Solidarity is also in a uniform and permanent manner an 
 integral part of National Honor. No state permits an- 
 other to oppress her subjects, to outrage them, to treat them 
 in a fashion which would not conform to international con- 
 ventions, the rights of man or to human dignity. What 
 would be in truth a nation which would not be able or 
 above all would not wish any longer to protect her sub- 
 jects." — Terraillon, "L'Honneur," p. 262. 
 
 38. To oppose "Capitulations." 
 
 "It is an awakening of National Honor which has af- 
 fected in regenerated Turkey a public movement for the 
 suppression of "capitulations" which allows Christian gov- 
 ernments to exercise over their subjects in Turkey their 
 exclusive jurisdiction, through their middle men, their am- 
 bassadors and consuls." — Terraillon, "L'Honneur," p. 
 261.
 
 A SYMPOSIUM 45 
 
 39. The question of political independence or sov- 
 
 ereignty. 
 
 "There is a national Honor which is fixed and perma- 
 nent. — Every nation claims at first its political independ- 
 ence." — Tkrraillon, "L'Honneur," p. 260. 
 
 40. Discrimination against citizens residing in a 
 
 foreign country. 
 
 Typical case: In 1913 California passed 
 legislation prohibiting Japanese from 
 holding land in that state. 
 
 "How long are we to bear the disgrace and humiliation 
 which seems to grow worse every year. — How can we 
 expect our countrymen to be respected in America when 
 our foreign office does not even strive to uphold our Na- 
 tional Honor?" — Editorial in Osaki Mainichi, May 3, 
 1913. 
 
 41. The matter of National Culture and sover- 
 
 eignty. 
 
 "German majesty and Honor falls not with the Prince's 
 
 crown; 
 When amid the flames of war, German Empire crashes 
 
 down. 
 German greatness stands unscathed." — Schiller, 1797.
 
 46 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 INTERNATIONAL LAW 
 
 Treaties, Alliances, Neutral Rights, Interna- 
 tional Guarantees. 
 
 42. To hold a treaty when economically unprofit- 
 
 able. 
 
 Typical case: Congress revoked the dis- 
 criminating clause against British ship- 
 ping in the Panama Canal controversy. 
 
 "We certainly are not at liberty to discriminate against 
 British ships using the Panama Canal because it is a vio- 
 lation of the rule of equality which we have solemnly ac- 
 cepted and adopted, asserted and reasserted, and to which 
 we are bound by every consideration of Honor and good 
 faith." — Elihu Root, Independent, Feb. 6, 1913. 
 
 43. To break a treaty when economically unprof- 
 
 itable to keep it. 
 
 "A state recovers more easily from material losses than 
 from attacks upon its Honor. . . . When a state realizes 
 that existing treaties no longer express the actual relations 
 between the powers, then if it cannot bring the other state 
 to acquiesce by friendly negotiations, the only other course 
 is to declare war." — Trkitschke, "Politik," p. 546. 
 
 44. To keep and break the same treaty. 
 
 "They (pacifists) have advocated the silly and wicked 
 peace commission treaties which have actually been adopted 
 by our government during recent years ; treaties which in 
 any serious crisis this nation would certainly break; treaties
 
 A SYMPOSIUM 47 
 
 which it would be dishonorable to break, and far more 
 DISHONORABLE in aiiv crisis to keep." — Theo. Roosevelt, 
 Metropolitan, February, 1917. 
 
 45. To respect treaties of alliance. 
 
 Typical case : Japan's alliance with Eng- 
 land in the present war. 
 
 "Every sense of loyalty and Honor oblige Japan to co- 
 operate with Great Britain to clear from these waters the 
 enemies who in the past, present and future menace her 
 best interests and her people's lives." — Japanese Premier 
 on Japan's entrance into the war. 
 
 46. To break treaties of alliance. 
 
 Typical case: Italy and the Central 
 powers in the present war. 
 
 "Blessed are the young men who hunger and thirst after 
 Honor for their desire shall be fulfilled." — D'Annunzio 
 writing about Italy's entrance into present war. 
 
 47. To respect international guarantees. 
 
 Typical case : England entering the war 
 in defense of Belgium because she was a 
 signatory to the treaty which guaran- 
 teed Belgian neutrality. 
 
 "If I am asked what we are fighting for I reply in two 
 sentences. In the first place to fulfill a solemn interna- 
 tional obligation which if it had been entered into between 
 private persons in the ordinary concerns of life would 
 have been regarded not only as an obligation of law, but 
 of Honor which no self-respecting man could have re-
 
 48 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 pudiated." — Hon, H. H. Asquith in House of Commons, 
 Aug. 6, 1914. 
 
 48. To break any provisions of international law. 
 
 "The Honor of no country can be concerned in breaking 
 the terms of a treaty or recognized principles of interna- 
 tional law." — Lowes Dickenson, "Foundations of a League 
 of Peace," p. 10. 
 
 49. To oppose privateering. 
 
 "When the Alabama, fitted in a British port, swept our 
 commerce from the ocean, was not our National Honor 
 at stake.''" — Coudert, ibid. 
 
 50. To seize ships because of a difference of opin- 
 
 ion as to the rights of those ships to fish in 
 certain waters. 
 
 Typical case : British ships were seized in 
 
 Bering Sea. 
 
 "We seized British ships in the Bering Sea and con- 
 demned them in our ports, a most grievous insult according 
 to the sensitive and self-constituted custodians of British 
 Honor; but Great Britain adopted peaceful counsels and a 
 wise court heard, examined and decided the case without 
 any apparent injury to British Honor." — Coudert, ibid., 
 p. 40. 
 
 51. The swaying of a nation from neutral posi- 
 
 tion. 
 
 "Even among a people with so single an eye to the main 
 chance as the American community it will be found true on 
 experiment or on review of the historical evidence, that an
 
 A SYMPOSIUM 49 
 
 offense against the National Honor commands a pro- 
 founder and more unreserved resentment than any infrac- 
 tion of the rights of persons or property simply. This has 
 latterly been well shown in connection with the maneuvers 
 of the several European belligerents designed to bend 
 American neutrality to the service of one side or another. 
 Both parties have aimed to intimidate or cajole." — Veblen, 
 "Nature of Peace," p. 28. 
 
 52. To maintain neutrality according to inter- 
 
 national convention. 
 
 "Nations like Switzerland or Belgium would make it a 
 point of Honor to guard inviolate the neutrality granted 
 them by treaties." — Terraillon, "L'Honneur," p. 256. 
 
 53. Rights of neutral ships in time of war. 
 
 "But surely the Dogger Bank's Fisheries case was a 
 question of Honor. — The action of Admiral Rozhdes- 
 tiensky in firing on the trawlers, sinking the Crane, wound- 
 ing six fishermen and killing two, was described as an un- 
 speakable and unparalleled and cruel outrage." — Gold- 
 smith, "League to Enforce Peace," p. 100. 
 
 54. To insist on an exclusive right to fish in cer- 
 
 tain seas. 
 
 "When in 1891 Canadian vessels engaged in seal hunt- 
 ing were seized in Bering Sea by our revenue cutters there 
 was talk of National Honor on both sides of the ocean. — 
 COUDERT, ibid. 
 
 55. To reject judicial investigation for the de- 
 
 termination of points of fact. 
 
 Typical case: There was question as to
 
 50 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 whether the assassins of the late Arch- 
 duke of Austria were Serbs or not, but 
 Austria refused to accept judicial pro- 
 cedure. 
 
 "The question for example of the alleged duplicity of 
 the Servian government in the Serajevo assassination af- 
 fecting as it undoubtedly did both Honor and vital inter- 
 ests was eminently suitable for arbitral decision." — J. Hob- 
 house, "Toward International Government," p. 37. 
 
 56. The interpretation of contracts or treaties. 
 
 "The board (International Insurance) according to the 
 scheme proposed a minimum of judicial powers. These 
 judicial powers would never refer to questions which could 
 be called questions of national Honor. The judicial prob- 
 lems of the board would be limited to questions referring 
 to the actual interpretation of certain contracts." — Josiah 
 RoYCE, "War and International Insurance." 
 
 57. The breaking of pledges. 
 
 "It is admitted by all honest men that the German gov- 
 ernment has from the violation of the neutrality of Belgium 
 all through the war repeatedly broken her solemn pledges, 
 resorted to every trick, device, falsehood and dishonest 
 method to gain her ends, sacrificing the last remaining 
 shreds of National Honor and culminating her national 
 shame by deliberately breaking her promise to this coun- 
 try." — Frederick Boyd Stevenson, "Showing Up the 
 Shame of Socialism," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 10, 1917. 
 
 58. Carrying out obligations with revolutionary 
 
 government that were concluded with pre- 
 revolutionary government.
 
 A SYMPOSIUM 51 
 
 Typical case: England's treaties with 
 Czar and the Revolution in Russia. 
 
 "Treaties concluded with Russia before the Revolution 
 were still binding," Lord Robert Cecil explained in the 
 House. "Until the new Russian government released the 
 allies Great Britain was bound in Honor to carry out her 
 engagements." — Lord Robert Cecil, in Commons, May 
 16, 1917. New York Tribune report. 
 
 INTERNAL POLICY 
 
 Revolution, Sedition, Strengthening Political 
 Faction, Carrying out domestic policy. 
 
 59. To resist any interference from without with 
 
 a domestic policy. 
 
 Typical case: British authorities in 1841 
 permitted the Creole to go free though 
 it carried a slave cargo. 
 
 "Bitter indeed was the feeling and loud the clamor of 
 those who look upon force as the vindicator of Honor when 
 the British authorities at Nassau in 1841 permitted the 
 slave cargo of the famous ship Creole to go free. — The 
 case was submitted to arbitration, a judgment rendering 
 adequate compensation to the owners of the vessels was 
 obtained and the United States without cost or treasure 
 found its contention vindicated and its National Honor 
 satisfied." — Coudert before Washington Association of 
 New Jersey, Feb. 22, 1912. 
 
 60. To keep out emigrants.
 
 62 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 "The two treaties submitted remove the exceptions made 
 in their predecessors as to questions affecting National 
 Honor and substitute a statement of the scope of arbitra- 
 tion which is designed by its terms to exclude all questions 
 not properly arbitrable. — One of the first of sovereign 
 rights is the power to determine who shall come into the 
 country and under what conditions." — Report of Com. on 
 Foreign Affairs, U. S. Senate, Aug. 15, 1911. 
 
 61. To carry out or strengthen a domestic policy. 
 
 Typical case : Bismarck desired the uni- 
 fication of Germany and felt that a war 
 with France would consummate it. 
 
 "Our national sense of Honor compelled us in my opin- 
 ion to go to war and if we did not act in accordance with 
 the demands of that feeling we should lose when on the 
 way to its completion the entire impetus toward our na- 
 tional development won in 1866." — Bismarck, "Gedanken 
 und Errinerungen," p. 140. 
 
 62. For a section of a country to demand inde- 
 
 pendence. 
 
 Typical case : The South asked for inde- 
 pendence in 1860. 
 
 "In our judgment the Republicans are resolute in their 
 purpose to grant nothing that will or ought to satisfy the 
 South; we are satisfied the Honor, safety and independ- 
 ence of the Southern people require the organization of a 
 Southern Confederacy." — "Southern Manifesto," Dec. 14, 
 1860.
 
 A SYMPOSIUM 63 
 
 63. For a country about to be disintegrated to 
 
 resist such demands. 
 
 Typical case: The North in the Civil 
 War. 
 
 "That to the Union of the States this nation owes its un- 
 precedented increase in population, its Honor abroad and 
 the "Platform of National Honor" by Nicolay and Hay: 
 union as denying the vital principles of a free government 
 and as an avowal of contemptible treason which it is the 
 imperative duty of an indignant people to rebuke and for- 
 ever to silence, etc." — From the Platform of the Republi- 
 can National Convention, May 16, 1860, characterized as 
 the "Platform of National Honor" by Nicolay and Hay: 
 "Lincoln." Complete Works. 
 
 64. Cases 62 and 63 together. 
 
 Typical case: Norway and Sweden sep- 
 arate in 1905. 
 
 "Who does not remember the waves of nationalism that 
 swept the country in 1905. . . . One spoke in Sweden then 
 just as one speaks in the warring countries now of Na- 
 tional Honor, national safety and national existence." — 
 Ellen Key, "War, Peace and the Future," p. 11. 
 
 65. To disregard the wills of subjects in the mat- 
 
 ter of governing them after they have been 
 torn away from their mother country as 
 a result of a victorious war. 
 
 Typical case : Germany seized Alsace in 
 1870 and governed them against their 
 will.
 
 54 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 "The world will recognize that in disregarding the will 
 of the Alsatians of to-day we are only fulfilling an injunc- 
 tion imposed by our National Honor." — Treitschkk, 
 "Politik," p. 56. 
 
 66. Removing an undesirable official. 
 
 "If the great inert mass of German descent has any 
 conscience will it accept the barbarous doctrines of Mr. 
 Morgan's partner without uniting in a protest to the Presi- 
 dent and declare its refusal to contribute to the Red Cross 
 until this person has been removed from the dominant posi- 
 tion he holds in its Councils.'* Or will it silently acquiesce 
 and suffer this stain on American Humanity to defile our 
 National Honor?" — Editorial, "Issues and Events," June 
 SO, 1917. 
 
 67. Pacifist agitation within a country not yet at 
 
 war. 
 
 "The agitation of the League to Enforce Peace at this 
 time" (after Belgium was invaded but before we declared 
 war) "is therefore a move against international morality, 
 against our own National Honor and vital interests and in 
 the interests of international immorality." — Theo. Roose- 
 velt, Metropolitan, February, 1917- 
 
 68. To show united front in time of war to for- 
 
 eign country. 
 
 "It is to be hoped that President Wilson in his Confer- 
 ences with Mr. Dent and the other recalcitrant members of 
 the committee has not spared the rod. For the President 
 must appreciate more keenly than any other American that 
 the United States cannot afford to create the appearance
 
 A SYMPOSIUM 55 
 
 even of a desire to mark time till the allies win the war. 
 To leave an opening for such a charge against this country 
 would be to deal American prestige a blow from wliich it 
 could never recover. The dark influences in Congress which 
 have BESMIRCHED OUR GOOD NAME amoug the nations al- 
 ready must not be permitted to add this crowning shame." 
 — Editorial, Evening Sun, April 10, 1917. 
 
 69. To subscribe to war loans. 
 
 "We urge upon every reader of the New York Times the 
 necessity of immediate investment in the Liberty Loan. 
 The subscriptions must close next Friday. — It would be 
 a DISHONOR in which the whole nation would share if the 
 total amount were not subscribed for by June 15." — New 
 York Times, June 11, 1917. 
 
 70. As a cause of sedition. 
 
 "It is equally easy to discover the effect of Honor and 
 the sense in which it is a cause of sedition. Sedition is 
 produced by the sense of dishonor done to ourselves and 
 by the sight of the Honor enjoyed by others. But the 
 case is one of injustice when neither the Honor or dishonor 
 is disproportionate, and of justice when it is proportionate 
 to the merit of the persons concerned." — Aristotle, "Poli- 
 tics," p. 345. 
 
 71. Universal military service. 
 
 "In many long years of bitter servitude God taught our 
 people to look to itself, and under the pressure of the foot 
 of a proud conqueror our people engendered in itself that 
 most sublime thought that it is the highest Honor to dedi- 
 cate one's blood and purse to the Fatherland in her armed
 
 56 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 service." — Kaiser Wilhelm, addressing the Army, Jan. 1, 
 1900j "Kaiser's Speeches/' p. 48. 
 
 'IDEAL SELF PRESERVATION" 
 
 Vengeance, Retaliation, Protection, Defense, 
 Regaining Lost Provinces. 
 
 72. To retaliate in a subsequent war for defeat 
 
 suffered at the hands of an enemy. 
 
 "If we beat Germany and then humiliate her, she will 
 never rest until she has redeemed her Honor by humiliat- 
 ing us more cruelly in turn." — Arnold Toynbee, "Na- 
 tionality and the War," p. 4. 
 
 73. Vengeance. 
 
 "Among the tribes, the cities or the hostile states as 
 among hostile families, vengeance was always an obliga- 
 tion of Honor; in the same way each member was, as for- 
 merly in the family, responsible for the actions of another 
 member or of those of the social groups in its entirety." — 
 Terraillon, "L'Honneur," p. 254. 
 
 74s. To try to regain territory lost through an un- 
 successful war. 
 
 Typical case: Alsace and Lorraine lost 
 by France in 1870. 
 
 "The return of Alsace and Lorraine to France is the first 
 demand of our National Honor." — Viviani on his Amer- 
 ican Mission.
 
 A SYMPOSIUM 67 
 
 75. Same as 74. 
 
 Typical case: Italy and Trentino. 
 
 "Blessed are the young men who hunger and thirst after 
 Honor for their desires shall be fulfilled." — D'Annunzio 
 writing about the nationalist spirit in Italy (Irredenta 
 movement) . 
 
 76. Same as 74. As applied to territory never 
 
 owned but merely conquered. 
 Typical case: England and the recon- 
 quest of the Sudan. 
 
 "In fact there was never a moment that the thought of 
 the eventual reconquest of the Sudan and of the retrieving 
 of the Honor of British arms was not before them" (Brit- 
 ish). — H. A. Gibbons^ "New Map of Africa," p. 2. 
 
 77. Revenge. 
 
 "What now is National Honor? It is not Honor to be 
 hunting for imaginary insults. It is not Honor to look on 
 one's neighbors with suspicion. Revenge is not Honor." — 
 Rev. Chas. Dole, "Democracy." 
 
 78. Readiness to fight. 
 
 "It is not Honor worthy of civilized men to be quick to 
 take up arms and to fight." — Rev. Dole, ibid. 
 
 79. Immediate resentment and unwillingness to 
 
 delay. 
 
 "It is a preposterous absurdity for a league of nations
 
 58 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 to attempt to restrain even for a limited time one of its 
 members from declaring war upon another when a question 
 of Honor is raised." — Theodore Roosevelt, Letter, New 
 York Times, Jan. 21, 1917. 
 
 80. Protection and defense against attack. 
 
 "The vital interests of Austria-Hungary were at stake 
 and she had to protect herself. . . . Threatened in her vital 
 interests Austria-Hungary chose the way which Honor and 
 duty prescribed." — From the Austrian Red Book. 
 
 81. To wage defensive but never offensive war. 
 
 "If this struggle was forced upon Germany then indeed 
 she stands in a position of mighty dignity and Honor and 
 the whole world should acclaim her and succor her. — But 
 if this outrageous war was not forced upon her would it 
 not follow in the course of reason that her position is with- 
 out dignity or Honor." — S. Warden Church, President 
 Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh, in an open letter Nov. 9, 
 1914. 
 
 82. To strike back when attacked or rights are 
 
 invaded. 
 
 Typical case: Germany invaded Ameri- 
 can rights on the Seas by her submarine 
 warfare. 
 
 "I have said nothing of the governments allied with the 
 Imperial government of Germany because they have not 
 made war upon us and challenged us to defend our rights 
 and our Honor." — Pres. Wilson, Declaration of War, 
 April 2, 1917.
 
 A SYMPOSIUM 59 
 
 83. Maintenance of territorial integrity against 
 
 invasion. 
 
 "The only effective way to free Germany from such fear 
 (aggression from without) is to have outside nations like 
 the United States in good faith undertake the obligation 
 to defend Germany's Honor and territorial integrity if at- 
 tacked, exactly as they would defend the Honor and ter- 
 ritorial integrity of Belgium or of France if attacked." — 
 Theo. Roosevelt, "America and the World War," p. 234. 
 
 84. Defense. 
 
 "What has war ever done to settle great questions ? — I 
 speak not of defensive wars — but of war as a conflict be- 
 tween two independent nations striving to obtain satisfac- 
 tion for wounded Honor, or to settle a boundary question, 
 or to collect a financial claim." — -Fred. Coudert, "Interna- 
 tional Arbitration," p. 27. 
 
 85. Defense. 
 
 "We entered the war, at least that is my understanding, 
 to protect our own rights, to defend and make secure the 
 lives of our people, and to maintain our own dignity and 
 Honor and prestige among the nations of the earth. Why 
 not say so? It is not only the truth, but it is infinitely 
 more important that it be said than that we undertake to 
 carry on the war upon the strength of vague and ever re- 
 ceding generalities." — Senator Borah, New York Times, 
 Sunday, June 3, 1917. 
 
 86. Defense and protection.
 
 60 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 Typical case: Germany declares war on 
 Russia. 
 
 "In pursuance of her historic traditions Russia, sister in 
 blood and creed of the Slav nations, has never remained 
 indifferent to their fate." (The document then points out 
 that Austria's bombardment of Belgrade led the Russian 
 government to issue orders that the army and the navy 
 should be mobilized, that Germany demanded the revocation 
 of these measures and, upon the refusal, suddenly declared 
 war upon Russia.) The manifesto then continues: "It is 
 no longer a question of taking the part of a sister nation 
 unjustly wronged, but of defending the Honor, dignity 
 and integrity of Russia and her position among the great 
 powers." — From War Manifesto issued by the Czar on July 
 20, 1914. 
 
 MORAL PRINCIPLES 
 
 Spreading Civilizations, Missions, Humanity, 
 Justice, Democracy, Honesty 
 
 87. To lend material and moral aid to nations 
 
 fighting for "principle." 
 
 Typical case : France helped America in 
 Revolution. 
 
 "France's National, Honor has always consisted in 
 lending material and moral aid to those who fight for a 
 principle or an ideal and to awaken in the consciences of 
 those outside of her frontiers ideas of justice and liberty." 
 — Terraillon, "L'Honneur," p. 260. 
 
 88. To protect helpless nations against massacre.
 
 A SYMPOSIUM 61 
 
 England aided Armenia against Turk- 
 ish oppression repeatedly. 
 
 "It is in the name of National Honor that England has 
 alwaj's protested against the inhuman acts or the useless 
 cruelties — against the Armenian massacres." — Terraillon, 
 "L'Honneur/' p. 259. 
 
 89. To oppose slavery. 
 
 "It is in the name of national Honor that England has 
 placed her diplomatic and naval forces in the service of 
 anti-slavery." — Terraillon, "L'Honneur/' p. 257. 
 
 90. To propagate ideas of civilization. 
 
 "England has always considered as an integral part of 
 her national Honor to propagate over the whole Avorld 
 ideas of civilization and progress." — Terraillon^ "L'Hon- 
 neur," p. 257. 
 
 91. "Missions" of civilization. 
 
 "National Honor according to the nation which is con- 
 sidering it at the time consists for her in conserving with 
 her traditional qualities her particular institutions and the 
 MISSION which she has or believes she must fulfill." — Ter- 
 RAiLLON, "L'Honneur," p. 256. 
 
 92. "Progress toward human freedom." 
 
 "Any man who touches our Honor is our enemy. Any 
 man who stands in the way of that kind of progress which 
 makes for human freedom cannot call himself our friend." — 
 Wilson, May 16, 1917.
 
 62 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 93. To establish democracy in a foreign country. 
 
 "Let us without one hour's delay put the American flag on 
 the battle-front in this great war for democracy and civ- 
 ilization. — We owe this to humanity — most of all we 
 owe it to ourselves, to our National Honor and self-re- 
 spect." — Theo. Roosevelt, asking Congress for Volunteer 
 Army, April, 1917. 
 
 94. To spread a type of civilization by force of 
 
 arms. 
 
 "We must grow into a world power and stamp a great 
 part of humanity with the impress of the German spirit. 
 If we persist — in the dissipation of energy — there is im- 
 minent fear that in the great contest of the nations we 
 shall be dishonorably beaten." — Bernhardi, "Germany 
 and the Next War," p. 114. 
 
 95. To liberate a neighboring people which is be- 
 
 ing oppressed by a foreign power. 
 
 Typical case: Cuba unjustly governed 
 by Spain aroused America to go to war 
 for its liberation in 1899. 
 
 "We both felt very strongly that such a war (against 
 Spain) would be as righteous as it would be advantageous 
 to the Honor and interests of the nation." — Roosevelt, re- 
 ferring to himself and Gen. Wood, "Roughriders," p. 5. 
 
 96. To help the "weak." 
 
 "Our flag for Honor ever stands 
 To lift the weak, to lead the free.
 
 A SYMPOSIUM 63 
 
 America our blessed land is calling, calling thee." 
 — Mrs. Halsted, in a poem presented to War Department, 
 
 97. Honesty. 
 
 "The phrase Honor and vital interests embodied the 
 conscience of states. Honor or its cognate honesty 
 speaks for itself; neither man nor nation should consent to 
 that which is before God a shame to do or to allow." — 
 Admiral Mahan, "Armaments and Arbitration," p. xvii. 
 
 98. Case 97. 
 
 "What attitude should politics take toward falsehood.'' 
 We reply that political activity is connected with a pub- 
 lic office, obtained by inheritance or appointment, but no 
 office or relation of service can authorize or compel the 
 commission of dishonorable and morally unlawful acts." 
 — Rumelin, "Relation of Politics to Moral Law," p. 69. 
 
 99. To espouse the cause of small nationalities. 
 
 Typical case : Uruguay breaks with Ger- 
 many for the defense of Belgium. 
 
 "President Viera in his message to the Parliament de- 
 clared that the Uruguayan government had not received 
 any direct offense from Germany but that it was necessary 
 to espouse the cause of the defenders of justice, democracy, 
 and small nationalities." — Lead to this article in New York 
 Times, Oct. 7, 1917, was "Uruguay breaks with Germany 
 on ground of Honor." 
 
 100. Internationalism. 
 
 "We are anti-patriot internationalists and have in no de-
 
 64 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 gree a love for the mother country. Hence we do not know 
 what National Honor is. . . . It is a matter of indiffer- 
 ence to us whether we are French or German. As for the 
 defense of our mother country we will give neither one drop 
 of blood nor one square centimeter of skin." — M. Gustave 
 Herve, quoted by Sir Arthur Conway in "Crowds in War 
 and Peace/' p. 279. 
 
 101. A question of morality. 
 
 "What is called National Honor is at present alto- 
 gether too much a matter of capricious, private, and often 
 merely personal judgment simply because the nations are 
 not as yet self-conscious moral beings." — Josiah Royce, 
 "War and Insurance/' p. xxiv. 
 
 102. The double standard. 
 
 "Thus we may meet the old assertion that the laws of 
 private honor do not apply to national affairs. They apply 
 whenever men care to apply them." — Stratton, "Double 
 Standard." 
 
 PERSONAL AS RELATED TO 
 NATIONAL HONOR 
 
 103. Transferring personal into national honor. 
 
 "It was so at Syracuse in the olden days when a political 
 revolution was the consequence of a quarrel between two 
 youths of official rank about a love affair. In the absence 
 of one of them one of his companions seduced the object 
 of his affections, and the aggrieved person in his indigna- 
 tion against the offender retaliated by inducing his wife to 
 commit adultery. The result was that they gradually col-
 
 A SYMPOSIUM 66 
 
 lected adherence among the members of the governing class 
 until they had arrayed the whole body in two opposing 
 factions." — Aristotle, "Politics," p. 351. 
 
 104. Insults by "Representative Men." 
 
 "Must we then consider the possibility of war with Eng- 
 land over some fancied insult or question of National 
 Honor? It is certain that representative men of both na- 
 tions have no slightest disposition to insult or prejudice or 
 injure the people of the other nation." — Rev. Charles 
 Dole, "Spirit of Democracy." 
 
 105. Personal Wrongs. 
 
 "At Mitylene it was a feud arising about heiresses that 
 proved to be the beginning of a world of troubles and more 
 especially of the war with the Athenians in which their 
 city was captured by Paches. The circumstances were as 
 follows: A rich citizen named Timpphanes died, leaving 
 two daughters. Dexandros, who had been a rejected 
 suitor for them on behalf of his sons, became the prime 
 mover in the feud and as he was Athenian counsel at Mity- 
 lene incited the Athenians to declare war. Again in Phocis 
 it was a quarrel of which an heiress was the subject be- 
 tween Mnasias, the father of Mneson, and Euthycrates, 
 the father of Onomanchus, that proved to be the beginning 
 of the Phocian sacred war. And lastly the polity of Epi- 
 damaus was revolutionized in consequence of a marriage 
 engagement. A person who had secretly betrothed his 
 daughter to a young citizen being fined by the father of his 
 future son-in-law in his official capacity felt the indignity 
 so acutely that he formed an alliance with the unenfran- 
 chised classes in the state to effect a revolution." — Aris- 
 totle, "Politics," p. 352.
 
 66 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 100. Personal Insult to National Prestige. 
 
 Typical case: Senator Kellogg accuses 
 Senator LaFollette of making false 
 statements with regard to America's 
 entrance into the war. 
 
 "I am as jealous of the right of free speech as any mem- 
 ber of this body, but this is a question of erroneous state- 
 ment of facts ratlier tlian of free speech. I have no right 
 to wish to criticise any man who voted against this nation 
 going to war although I may disagree with him; but we 
 are at war, and I believe men of this body, men of influ- 
 ence, should not make statements tending to aid and en- 
 courage the enemy, and to cast dishonor and discredit upon 
 this nation." — Senator Kellogg in the Senate, Oct. 7, 
 1917. 
 
 107. Individual pledging the honor of the coun- 
 
 try without the consent of the legislative 
 body. 
 
 "The Foreign Secretary pledged our Honor to defend 
 France in certain contingencies behind the back of Parlia- 
 ment and the Nation." — G. Lowes Dickinson, referring to 
 Entente Cordiale in "The League of Peace," p. 12. 
 
 108. Similarity between personal and national 
 
 honor. 
 
 "And the lesson which the shock of being taken by sur- 
 prise in a matter so deeply vital to all tlie nations in the 
 world, has made poignantly clear is, that the peace of the 
 world must henceforth depend upon a new and more whole- 
 some diplomacy. ... It is clear that nations in the future
 
 A SYMPOSIUM 67 
 
 must be governed by the same high code of Honor that we 
 demand of individuals." — Pres. Wilson in "The League to 
 Enforce Peace," May 26, 1916. 
 
 109. A "dead sailor" and National Honor. 
 
 "Even a dead sailor or a live artist may affect a nation's 
 Honor or conceivably even its vital interests." — L. S. 
 Wolff, "International Government," p. 52. 
 
 ECONOMIC MATTERS 
 
 110. To collect the debt owing by citizens of one 
 
 country to citizens of another. 
 
 "It can scarcely be alleged that anything like an inter- 
 national consensus now obtains as to the ethical propriety 
 of forcing a nation to pay its creditors. The principle at 
 stake though novel and important can hardly be said to 
 touch vital interests or National Honor." — Admiral Ma- 
 HAN, "Practical Aspects of War," p. 61. 
 
 111. To force a nation to open its ports to com- 
 
 merce. 
 
 Typical case : England forces China to 
 open its ports in 1861 to British com- 
 merce. 
 
 "It is in the name of Honor that England once believed 
 it possible to force China to open her doors to the com- 
 merce and the ideas of the West." — Terraillon, "L'Hon- 
 neur," p. 260. 
 
 112. Difference of opinion with regard to the use 
 
 of national insurance funds.
 
 68 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 "Differences of opinion concerning the use of the insur- 
 ance fund would frequently involve what is usually called 
 National Honor. They would tlierefore be hopeless dif- 
 ferences." — JosiAH RoYCE, "\A'ar and Insurance," p. xix. 
 
 113. Foreigners and the ownership of land. 
 
 Typical case : Japanese land-holding in 
 California. 
 
 "It seems then that there is a sort of honor which does 
 not allow a stranger to establish himself in a region as a 
 landed proprietor." — Terraillon, "L'Honneur," p. 252. 
 
 114. The question of the loss or depreciation of 
 
 business interests. 
 
 "In case it should happen that these business interests 
 of the nation's businessmen interested in trade or invest- 
 ment abroad are jeopardized by a disturbance of any kind 
 in these foreign parts in which their business interests lie, 
 then it immediately becomes the urgent concern of the na- 
 tional authorities to use all means at hand for maintaining 
 the gainful traffic of these businessmen undiminished, and 
 the common man pays the cause. Should such an untoward 
 situation go such sinister lengths as to involve actual loss 
 to these business interests or otherwise give rise to a tan- 
 gible grievance it becomes an affair of the National 
 Honor, whereupon no sense of proportion as between the 
 material gains at stake and the cost of remedy or retalia- 
 tion need longer be observed, since the National Honor 
 is beyond price." — Thorstein Veblen, "The Nature of 
 Peace," p. 27. 
 
 115. The definiteness of Honor as a moral ideal.
 
 A SYMPOSIUM 69 
 
 "A large proportion of the questions embraced under 
 Honor and vital interests are precisely in that inchoate 
 condition of non-decision and even of dispute which cannot 
 be brought under the head of law. . . . All efforts fail be- 
 cause we are dealing with men's consciences, their honor 
 and vital interests." — Admiral IMahan, ibid. 
 
 116. Interests and Honor as synonyms. 
 
 "Within fifteen years Japan has twice found it essential 
 to go to war on account of interests in Korea; interests by 
 her esteemed so vital to her people and their future that 
 she could not with Honor submit the decision of them 
 to any judgment but their own." — Admiral Mahan, "Neg- 
 lected Aspects of War," p. xvi. 
 
 UTILITY OF HONOR 
 
 117. As an aid to the creation of a nation: 
 
 "The Italian national Honor existed before modern 
 Italy; it is the idea of national Honor which made her." — 
 Terraillon, "L'Honneur," p. 252. 
 
 118. Its use for a material purpose. 
 
 "National Honor is a highly valued asset or at least a 
 valued possession ; but it is of a metaphysical, not of a phys- 
 ical nature, and it is not known to serve any material or 
 otherwise useful end apart from affording a practicable 
 grievance consequent upon its infraction." — Veblen, ibid., 
 p. 29. 
 
 119. Its economic value. 
 
 "This national Honor, which so is rated a necessary of
 
 70 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 life is an immaterial substance in a peculiarly high-wrought 
 degree, being not only not physically tangible, but also not 
 even capable of adequate statement in pecuniary terms, 
 as would be the case with ordinary material assets." — 
 Veblen, ibid., p. 29. 
 
 DEFINITION 
 
 120. Honor as an evolution. 
 
 "But Honor, as the term is applied, is a mental concept 
 varying with the mood of the times." — Ralston, ibid., p. 5. 
 
 121. Distinction between disputes of Honor and 
 
 other disputes. 
 
 "One must repeat that to make arbitration obligatory is 
 impossible if you try to distinguish questions which do and 
 do not affect Honor and vital interests. The distinction 
 is based neither upon reason or fact." — L. S. Wolff, "In- 
 ternational Government," p. 52. 
 
 122. Any question as a possible Honor dispute. 
 
 "It is amusing to read after days and days of discussion 
 that one diplomatist at length remarked that any question 
 may affect the Honor and vital interests of a nation." — L. 
 S. Wolff, ibid., p. 51. 
 
 123. Honor as a peculiar possession of each na- 
 
 tion. 
 
 "And one may even show that each nation has a par- 
 ticular concept and a more or less clear idea of what 
 Honor means to it." — Terraillon, "L'Honneur," p. 215.
 
 A SYMPOSIUM 71 
 
 124. Same as 123. 
 
 "I know but one thing; it is that we again have a German 
 Empire, a German Emperor and a German Honor." — Su- 
 derman; "Le Conjure Socrate." 
 
 TRADITION; PAST AND FUTURE OF 
 A NATION 
 
 125. The perpetuation of a national culture. 
 
 "It is a nice question whether in practical effect the aspi- 
 ration to perpetuate the national culture is consistently to 
 be distinguished from the vindication of the national 
 Honor." — Veblen, "The Nature of Peace/* p. 23. 
 
 126. Loyalty to hatred and friendships. 
 
 "Honor to a nation is then the claiming of loyalty to 
 herself, to her friendships, to her justified hatreds and her 
 legitimate aspirations." — Terraillon, "L'Honneur," p. 
 261. 
 
 127. The obligation a nation owes to her past and 
 
 to her future. 
 
 "Even though the overthrow may have been a certainty 
 it would be necessary to brave it. There is a thing which 
 Athens has always placed above success, and that is Honor, 
 the elevated feeling of what she owes to her traditions in 
 the past, and to her good fame in the future. Formerly, 
 at the time of the Persian invasion, Athens sacrificed all 
 to this heroic sentiment of Honor." — Demosthenes, "Dis- 
 course on the Crown."
 
 72 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 128. The respect for tradition. 
 
 "The Government of the living by the dead which we 
 have shown as an essential part of family Honor, we find it 
 again at the foundation of National Honor. Not only in 
 ancient cities, but even in modern states." — Terraillon, 
 "L'Honneur," p. 251. 
 
 MILITARY HONOR 
 
 129. Divisions of military Honor. 
 
 "No. 1. Escape of interned prisoners. 
 
 "2. Sponsions. 
 
 "3. Tacit agreements. 
 
 "4. The abuse of the White Flag. 
 
 "5. Ruses or stratagems. 
 
 "6. Spies. 
 
 "7. Treachery and criminal warfare." — Stowell 
 and MuNRo, "International Cases," Vol. 2, Table of Con- 
 tents. 
 
 130. Balance of militaiy force. 
 
 "And so, in presenting them to you, who at this tragic 
 hour judge the destinies of the belligerent nation, we in- 
 dulge a gratifying hope that they (suggested peace terms) 
 will be accepted, and that we shall thus see an early termi- 
 nation of the terrible struggle which has more and more 
 the appearance of a useless massacre. 
 
 "Everybody acknowledges, on the other hand, that on 
 both sides, the Honor of arms is safe. Do not then turn a 
 deaf ear to our prayer, accept the international invitation 
 which we extend to you in the name of the Divine Re-
 
 A SYMPOSIUM 73 
 
 deemer, the Prince of Peace." — The Pope's Appeal to the 
 Rulers of the Belligerent Peoples, given at the Vatican, 
 Aug. 1, 1917. 
 
 POSITIVE OR CONSTRUCTIVE SIDE 
 OF HONOR 
 
 131. The relative importance of the debit side of 
 
 Honor. 
 
 "To preserv^e her Honor should be the nation's main 
 purpose and object, but she should not readily believe those 
 who tell her that by hard blows alone may its integrity be 
 protected. A nation's Honor consists in her fidelity to 
 her engagements, in carrying out her contract in spirit as 
 well as in letter, in paying her just debts, in respecting the 
 rights of others, in promoting the welfare of her people, 
 in the encouragement of truth, in teaching obedience to the 
 law, in cultivating honorable peace with the world." — 
 Frederic Coudert, ibid. 
 
 132. Honor at stake in time of peace. 
 
 "Is a nation's Honor at stake only in times of imminent 
 peril? I crave for every one of you a like spirit of conse- 
 cration for the tasks of peace."— Pres. Grier Hibben, Ser- 
 mon at Princeton University, June 13, 1915, "Martial 
 Valor in Time of Peace." 
 
 133. Constructive aspect. 
 
 "Must we then consider the possibility of war with Eng- 
 land over some fancied insult or question of National 
 Honor? It is certain that the representative men of both 
 have not the slightest disposition to insult, to prejudice, or
 
 74. WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 injure the people of 'the other nation. There has been 
 immense gain in this respect on both sides in fifty years. 
 What now is national Honor? It is not Honor to be 
 hunting for imaginary insults, it is not Honor to look on 
 one's neighbors with suspicions, it is not Honor worthy 
 of civilized men to be quick to take up arms and to fight. 
 Revenge is not Honor. Is it not national Honor to be 
 humane and friendly?" — Rev. Charles Dole, "Spirit of 
 Democracy." 
 
 HONOR AND PEACE 
 
 134. To give up plans of conquest and the main- 
 
 tenance of honorable peace. 
 
 Typical case : Germany gradually gives 
 up her plans of conquest without feel- 
 ing a depreciation of her national 
 Honor. 
 
 "It is interesting to note that Bethmann-Hollweg did not 
 feel himself strong enough at this time to declare himself 
 openly a partisan of the Annexationist plan. We may 
 gather from this that there is a strong demand in Germany 
 for peace with Honor, but not with conquest. This is a 
 hopeful sign." — Editorial, New York Tribune, May 17, 
 1917. 
 
 135. Honorable peace and the emancipation of 
 
 enthralled population 
 
 "If the war is to end in an honorable peace there must be 
 annexation, continuing the emancipation of the enthralled 
 population who are laboring under despotism, and the re- 
 tention of strategic positions as safeguards against future
 
 A SYMPOSIUM 76 
 
 attack." — Ex-Premier Asquith, in House of Commons, 
 May 17, 1917. 
 
 HONOR AND PUBLIC OPINION 
 
 136. Honor and public opinion. 
 
 "I hear much about the Honor of our country, and I be- 
 lieve the Honor of this country should be maintained, but I 
 want to see the term Honor defined by the men who have 
 to maintain it. I would not like to have some fat fellow 
 define my Honor, tell me when it had been assailed, and 
 shove me into a fight." — Hon. Denver S. Church, in a 
 speech in the House of Representatives, April 26, 1916. 
 
 NATIONAL HONOR AND ARBITRA- 
 TION 
 
 "Might it not be felt that the Honor and vital interests 
 of a nation are better conserved by accepting a reward im- 
 partially decided by the merits of the case than by insist- 
 ing on the ordeal of battle .f"" — J. Hobhouse, "Towards In- 
 ternational Government," p. 40. 
 
 "Great Britain and the United States pledged them- 
 selves to abide by that tribunal (Geneva) whatever it might 
 be. That decision in due time was rendered ; and the two 
 nations do abide by it. Did it ever enter the thought of the 
 British nation to refuse obedience to that decision because 
 it was in some sense adverse to her? To her eternal 
 Honor be it said no." — At the Hague, "An International 
 Tribunal," Dr. James P. Miles, 1875, 
 
 "In no case that I can recall has a great nation dishon- 
 ored her hand and seal by refusing to carry out the decrees
 
 76 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 of the tribunal to which she has submitted her claims and 
 her arguments." — Frederic Coudert, "Annual American 
 Arbitration Treaty," p. 53. 
 
 WILLINGNESS TO ARBITRATE 
 
 PRESIDENT NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER 
 
 "To argue that a nation's Honor must be defended by 
 the blood of its citizens, if need be, is quite meaningless, for 
 any nation, though profoundly right in its contention, might 
 be defeated at the hands of a superior force exerted on 
 behalf of an unjust and unrighteous cause. What becomes 
 of national Honor then.^" 
 
 EX-PRESIDENT WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT 
 
 "If now we can negotiate and put through a positive 
 agreement with some great nation to abide the judication 
 of an international arbitral court in every issue which can- 
 not be settled by negotiation, no matter what it involves, 
 whether Honor, territory or money, we shall have made 
 a long step forward by demonstrating that it is possible 
 for two nations at least to establish as between them the 
 same system of due process of law that exists between in- 
 dividuals under a government." — Before American Society 
 for Judicial Settlement of International Disputes, Decem- 
 ber, 1910. 
 
 EX-PRESIDENT WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT 
 "Personally I do not see any more reason why matters 
 of National Honor should not be referred to a Court of 
 Arbitration than matters of property or matters of national 
 proprietorship. I know that it is going further than most 
 men are willing to go; but I do not see why questions of 
 Honor may not be submitted to a tribunal, supposed to be 
 composed of men of Honor, who understand questions of
 
 A SYMPOSIUM 77 
 
 national Honor, and then abide by their decisions as well 
 as any other question of difFerence arising between na- 
 tions." — March, 1910. Address, Amer. Peace and Arb. 
 League. 
 
 ALFRED H. FRIED 
 "Moreover people are apparently ignorant of the fact 
 that new and powerful factors have appeared with an in- 
 terest in the prevention of war, and that in many cases, 
 conflicts, even those involving Honor and vital matters, 
 can at the present time, be settled in a manner consonant 
 with reason and worthy of humanity." — "German Emperor 
 and Peace of World," p. 185. 
 
 COSMOS 
 
 "For example, if the international commissions of in- 
 quiry are to be really valuable, the limitations imposed 
 upon it as to disputes of an international nature, that in- 
 volve either Honor or essential interests must be removed. 
 It is a poor sort of international dispute in which some one 
 cannot find a point involving either Honor or an essen- 
 tial interest. "The Basis of Durable Peace." 
 
 FRED. COUDERT 
 
 "If our National Honor were concerned, it is gravely 
 alleged, no aspersion on that delicate organ could be treated 
 otherwise than with bombs and guns. A great nation can- 
 not talk when her Honor is assailed; action must then be 
 prompt and energetic." — Ibid., p. 50. 
 
 FRED. COUDERT 
 
 "National Honor is a sonorous phrase under which the 
 civilized man cloaks those feelings of the primitive man 
 only partially submerged within him. The emptier and 
 vainer a nation's intellect, the greater becomes the clamor for 
 national Honor. We talk of national Honor. How
 
 78 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 many questions of national Honor have we not submitted 
 to a court? Has not almost every arbitration that the 
 United States has had with Great Britain been based upon 
 a controversy which might have been tortured into a ques- 
 tion of National Honor and which a lot of jingoes said 
 were questions of national Honor and hence opposed it?" — 
 Washington Ass. of N. J., Feb. 12, 1912. 
 
 HERE DERNBERG 
 " 'Questions of Honor and national self-preservation can 
 never be submitted to Courts of Arbitration.' I take the 
 liberty of differing with him. Every officer whose Honor 
 is insulted is not permitted to take up arms without fur- 
 ther ado; he must submit to a court of Honor composed 
 of his friends, and these are in duty bound to try every 
 means in their power to bring about an honorable com- 
 promise. Nations too must do that." — In New York Times. 
 
 CARL SCHURZ 
 "Does not this magnificent achievement (Alabama claims) 
 form one of the most glorious pages of the common history 
 of England and America. Truly the two great nations 
 that accomplished this need not be afraid of unadjustable 
 questions of Honor in the future." 
 
 MRS. MEAD 
 "Justice and Honor are larger words than peace, and 
 if fighting would enable us to get justice and maintain 
 Honor, I would fight, but it is not that way." 
 
 L. S. WOLFF 
 "The past has shown that nations can and will accept 
 judicial decisions in questions affecting Honor and vital 
 interests provided that (1) a rational and suitable judicial 
 procedure exists, and (2) the question can be put to the 
 Tribunal in a logical form." — "International Government," 
 p. 48.
 
 A SYMPOSIUM 79 
 
 FRED. COUDERT 
 "Above all let us not be misled by high sounding phrase 
 about national Honor. The only danger which our Honor 
 may run is an exaggerated tendency to make readiness to 
 strike the test of its delicacy and the proof of its exist- 
 ence." — Ibid., p. 59. 
 
 FRED. COUDERT 
 "Tradition has ordained that a nation's Honor had to 
 be lubricated with blood in order to be kept in good working 
 condition. Both of the conflicting nations usually assured 
 the other nations that were looking on of the imperative 
 necessity under which the honor of the other was placed to 
 do some fighting to make it fresh and bright. When a 
 sufficient number of men had been slaughtered, and a proper 
 number of towns had been burnt and plundered, and when 
 the treasury of either or both was empty, Honor smiled 
 once more with restored cheerfulness, made her graceful 
 obeisance and retired from the scene leaving the victor to 
 have his way. Honor, National Honor, has been a 
 priceless possession but a very expensive one to keep, the 
 more expensive because of its uncertain character, its vague 
 definition and its unreasonable demands. . . . The salutary 
 process of a blood baptism can alone renovate and preserve 
 this delicate and susceptible quality of a nation's Constitu- 
 tion." — Ibid., p. 46. 
 
 UNWILLINGNESS TO ARBITRATE 
 
 VON BERNHARDI 
 "Even if a comprehensive international code were drawn 
 up no nation would sacrifice its own conception of right to 
 it. By so doing it would renounce its highest ideals; it 
 would allow its own sense of justice to be violated by an 
 injustice and so dishonor itself." — "Germany and the 
 Next War," p. 32.
 
 80 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 Do Arbitration Treaties compromise the Na- 
 tion's Honor by their very nature? 
 
 VON BERNHARDI 
 
 "Arbitration treaties must be peculiarly detrimental to 
 an aspiring people which has not yet reached its political 
 and national zenith and is bent on expanding its power in 
 order to play its part honorably in the civilized world." — 
 "Germany and the Next War."
 
 PART II 
 
 A PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF 
 HONOR
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE EMOTIONAL BASIS OF HONOR 
 
 The foregoing pages if they do not prove that 
 national honor as an ethical ideal is an empty 
 phrase, at least suggest its elastic quality. 
 When a phrase can be used to condone so many 
 varied and even contradictory aspects of national 
 conduct, so many cases of questionable sincerity, 
 and so many obvious injustices, it is not unfair to 
 question its rational character. It is clear from 
 an analysis of the symposium that national 
 honor as it is conceived by representative states- 
 men, is a chaotic notion, that far from being 
 a definite ideal it is an all-embracing moral cap- 
 tion, and that in acquiring the wealth of its im- 
 plications, it has lost its moral significance. 
 
 Those who delight in reducing all human action 
 to a nicely calculated economic hedonism will 
 explain this confusion into which the ideal of 
 honor has fallen, by the fact that diplomats have 
 persistently misapplied the term with conscious 
 hypocrisy. Such an accusation is unfair and un- 
 
 psychologic. Whatever the evils of secret di- 
 ss
 
 84 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 plomacy it could never have gone the extreme of 
 unscrupulous deception in the name of national 
 honor. While there may be instances in history 
 of Machiavelhanism where a diplomat consciously 
 misused and misapplied the slogan of national 
 honor in order to rouse a patriotic fervor among 
 his compatriots for an unjust war, it is hardly 
 possible to account for this confusion by the 
 wholesale indictment that diplomats have dese- 
 crated the ideal of honor by malicious intent. If 
 the average man, as it is said, is a good deal below 
 the average in other respects, he is a good deal 
 above the average when his country's honor is in 
 any way involved and when he uses the word in 
 justification for certain actions. National honor 
 is a collective, social ideal, and it is well-known 
 that in the face of collective aims or ideals even 
 the meanest men rise above the petty motives 
 which might influence them in ordinary^ life. On 
 the level of the herd instinct men are as equally 
 capable of the most altruistic conduct as they are 
 incapable of calculated unscrupulousness. 
 
 The charge of hypocrisy besides being unfair 
 is inadequate as an explanation for the confused 
 state in which we find the notion of honor. 
 Psychologists repeatedly warn us against the "in- 
 tellectualist" fallacy, the notion that human con- 
 duct is the result of an intellectual process in
 
 THE EMOTIONAL BASIS OF HONOR 85 
 
 which the end, and the means to the end, are coolly 
 and deliberately calculated before hand. The 
 charge of hypocrisy is an undeserved tribute to 
 the rational character of human nature, while it 
 does not do justice to the great emotional well- 
 springs and impulses that account for our actions 
 in nine out of ten cases. The fair explanation for 
 the mental gymnastics which the ideal has been 
 made to perform is that without taint of insin- 
 cerity and without any conscious encouragement, 
 it has become a beautiful delusion — beautiful be- 
 cause the adherence to it even as a delusion affords 
 a very positive joy and calls forth some of the 
 most beautiful qualities of human nature. 
 
 That it is unfair and foolish to attempt re- 
 form by inviting antagonism and ill feeling, 
 needs no lengthy exposition in these days of 
 reform penology. Criminals are no longer re- 
 formed by being continually reminded that they 
 are the most wicked and hopeless that have ever 
 been. Even if there were not a shadow of a 
 doubt that diplomacy has been as corrupt as the 
 above hypothesis would suggest, it would be bad 
 psychology to approach the subject of political 
 reform in the spirit of such a recognition. 
 
 We can analyze out without difficulty the ele- 
 ments that account for the delusion. Honor 
 like all moral ideals is a growth, and in the
 
 86 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 process of its evolution four variable factors 
 were concerned. The abstraction of honors 
 never having been defined in an even approxi- 
 mate way or clearly conceived, could not accu- 
 rately have been handed down from one genera- 
 tion to the next. Each generation received a set 
 of traditional notions about honor and uncon- 
 sciously modified them so that the succeeding 
 generation inherited somewhat different tradi- 
 tions. While the new accretions to the ideal may 
 have been dimly perceived by the generation 
 contributing them, the inherited accretions were 
 much more dimly conceived, if at all, in the 
 shadowy region of emotional association. And 
 so if the generation contributing the new varia- 
 tions of national honor apprehended them in 
 only the most general way, it is easy to un- 
 derstand why a great confusion presents itself 
 now after dozens of generations have lived and 
 died and fastened their emotional and intel- 
 lectual associations to the ideal. We might 
 call this the subjective variable in the com- 
 plex. Then there is an objective variable that 
 is equally complex. National institutions, war, 
 and political machinery in connection with which 
 national honor arises, have also been chang- 
 ing, and consequently modifications and influ- 
 ences were at work on the ideal from the outside.
 
 THE EMOTIONAL BASIS OF HONOR 87 
 
 Between the two, national honor has lost most of 
 its rational quahty, but has retained in a cumula- 
 tive way, emotional power and manifold associa- 
 tions. 
 
 There are two other variable factors which have 
 entered into the mental processes by which the 
 term has lost its specific quality. Not only has 
 the ideal of national honor changed from genera- 
 tion to generation in the natural course of evolu- 
 tion, but it has at no time even in the same gen- 
 eration had anything like a universal interpre- 
 tation. Just as each nation feels it has a pe- 
 cuhar mission in the world, a mission that is 
 necessarily colored and determined by its his- 
 tory, its traditions, its poHtical institutions, its 
 culture and its aspirations, so every nation has its 
 own peculiar ideal of honor which is a direct 
 development and outgrowth of these distinctly 
 national peculiarities. Each nation believes sin- 
 cerely that its honor is a peculiar possession of its 
 poHtical constitution and must necessarily be 
 different from the honor of its neighbors. Uni- 
 versality is the last thing in the world to expect 
 of the ideal of honor. The reason for this is not 
 hard to find. For example we can readily see 
 that the Monroe Doctrine is a peculiar policy of 
 honor which has grown out of the historical de- 
 velopment of the United States, and that it would
 
 88 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 be illogical for Japan or Russia, let us say, to 
 claim the Monroe Doctrine as a matter which its 
 honor includes and which it must defend at all 
 costs. 
 
 The vigorous opposition to the arbitration 
 of honor disputes arises from a frank recog- 
 nition of the peculiarly national character of it, 
 and the impossibility of universalizing it as a 
 guiding principle for arbitration. That no for- 
 eigner can render a "just decision" in matters 
 affecting "the vital interests of honor" of an- 
 other country, is an opinion which we have 
 heard only too often from opponents of all- 
 inclusive arbitration agreements. Mr. Roose- 
 velt recognizes the local quality of honor when he 
 says — 
 
 "This proposal (Mr. Roosevelt's) therefore 
 meets the well-founded objections against the 
 foolish and mischievous all-inclusive arbitration 
 treaties recently negotiated by Mr. Bryan, under 
 the direction of Pres. Wilson. These treaties — 
 explicitly include as arbitrable — questions of 
 honor and vital national interest." 
 
 We have this same silent recognition of the pe- 
 culiar quality of honor by Von Bernhardi. He 
 says in this connection — 
 
 "Even if a comprehensive international code 
 were drawn up no nation would sacrifice its own
 
 THE EMOTIONAL BASIS OF HONOR 89 
 
 conception of right to it. By so doing it would 
 renounce its highest ideals ; it would allow its own 
 sense of justice to be violated by an injustice and 
 so dishonor itself." 
 
 If each nation has its own peculiar sense of 
 honor therefore, it is not hard to see why any 
 universal abstraction from such conflicting and 
 variable data would be difficult, and this condition 
 is indeed to be held responsible in great measure 
 for the confusion in which the concept is steeped. 
 
 Still another variable element that has compli- 
 cated the confusion is that nearly every man 
 within the nation differs quantitatively and quali- 
 tatively with every other man in respect to his 
 sensitiveness and understanding of honor. Just 
 as there is variation as between nations, so 
 there is variation within each nation as to 
 what each member of it regards as matters 
 aff'ecting honor. If a questionnaire were sent 
 out to representative men in the United States 
 it would undoubtedly reveal a startling confusion 
 and difference of opinion as to what subjects of 
 our own foreign policy for example were prop- 
 erly to be classed as questions involving our honor. 
 Some men believe that the subject of immigra- 
 tion bears directly upon it and that it should 
 therefore at all costs be withheld from arbitra- 
 tion ; others would refuse to admit disputes of this
 
 90 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 character to the precincts of non-arbitrable ques- 
 tions. If there are as many varieties of honor 
 as there are nations to conceive it, it may be said 
 with some exaggeration that there are likewise as 
 many individual conceptions of each national 
 honor as there are individuals to conceive it. No 
 wonder that we must refrain from any attempt 
 to define or universalize this confused and non- 
 descript ideal if we wish to retain its sweeping 
 emotional momentum. 
 
 The fact that rationality seems nevertheless to 
 be attributed to honor in the apparently logical 
 justifications which the ideal is so repeatedly 
 given in every case in which national honor 
 arises, does not alter the fact that strictly 
 speaking honor has become an impulse, an emo- 
 tion. Human nature takes what it wants 
 emotionally, instinctively and without any pre- 
 viously deliberated recognition of the justice 
 of its desire. Reason enters only as an "ex- 
 post-facto justification." Frederick the Great 
 used to say — "I begin by taking; later I shall 
 find pedants to show that I was quite within my 
 rights." So himian nature might be said to feel 
 a similar assurance instinctively, i.e., that ra- 
 tional justification will automatically follow 
 upon the expression of the most purely emo- 
 tional impulses,
 
 THE EMOTIONAL BASIS OF HONOR 91 
 
 This attempted rational justification in the 
 case of national honor is the more surprising 
 in view of the fact that it is generally recog- 
 nized as an emotion by the very men who 
 so try to defend it. The pre-rational character 
 of the emotion of honor is, when it is regarded as 
 a detached psychological problem, almost uni- 
 versally admitted; yet in spite of this admission 
 men go on to explain the rationality of it just 
 the same. The position is illustrated by Mr. 
 Gilbert Murray who, starting from the premise 
 that honor is a "sentiment not to be justified 
 in reason" proceeds nevertheless to eulogize it as 
 a rational ideal on the very same page on which 
 he admits its essentially emotional character. If 
 the purpose of this quotation were to point out 
 merely an accidental contradiction, it would have 
 been omitted, but this stand, impossible as it is, 
 is almost generally assumed by men who talk of 
 honor. When frankly put to them they usually 
 admit that it is an emotion, but this does not seem 
 to vitiate the ethical and rational defense which 
 they go on to present in the same breath. By a 
 mental somersault the ex-post- facto justification 
 is taken out of its chronological order and as- 
 sumed to be the preconceived rational incentive 
 and stimulus of the emotional activity. 
 
 Mr. Gilbert Murray says —
 
 92 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 "A deal of nonsense no doubt is talked about 
 honor and dishonor. They are feelings based on 
 sentiment not on reason. The standards by 
 which they are judged are often conventional or 
 shallow and sometimes utterly false. Yet honor 
 and dishonor are real things. 7 will not try to 
 define them, but will only notice that like religion 
 their characteristic is that they admit of no bar- 
 gaining. Indeed we can almost think of honor 
 as being that which a free man values more than 
 life, and dishonor as that which he avoids more 
 than suffering or death. And the important 
 point for us is that there are such things. 
 
 "There are some people, followers of Tolstoi 
 who accept this position so far as dying is con- 
 cerned, but will have nothing to do with killing. 
 Passive resistance they say is right; martyrdom 
 is right; but to resist violence by violence is sin. 
 
 "I was once walking with a friend and dis- 
 ciple of Tolstoi's in a country lane; and a little 
 girl was running in front of us. I put to him the 
 well-known question — 'Suppose you saw a man 
 wicked or drunk or mad, run out and attack that 
 child. You are a big man and carry a big stick; 
 would you not stop him and if necessary knock 
 him down?' 
 
 "'No,' he said; 'why should I commit a sin? 
 I would try to persuade him, I would stand in
 
 THE EMOTIONAL BASIS OF HONOR 93 
 
 his way, I would let him kill me, but I would not 
 strike him.' 
 
 "Some few people will always be found, less 
 than one in a thousand to take this view. They 
 will say, 'Let the little girl be killed or carried 
 off; let the wicked man commit another wicked- 
 ness; I at any rate will not add to the mass of 
 useless violence that I see all around me.' 
 
 "With such persons one cannot reason though 
 one can often respect them. Nearly every nor- 
 mal man will feel that the real sin, the real dis- 
 honor lies in allowing an abominable act to be 
 committed under your eyes while you have the 
 strength to prevent it." ("Faith, War and 
 Policy," p. 26.) 
 
 Here we have the frank admission that honor 
 impulses are "feelings based on sentiment not on 
 reason." In the next breath Mr. Murray as- 
 sumes these imj^ulses can and ought to be ra- 
 tionally defended. 
 
 When the fallacy is not the common one of 
 separating the recognition of the emotional qual- 
 ity of honor from an independent rational justifi- 
 cation, it is often the equally untenable fallacy of 
 attributing an ethical "tone" to what is conceded 
 to be impulsive conduct. The admittedly unra- 
 tionalized emotion is by some strange logic never- 
 theless erected into an apotheosis of pure reason
 
 94. WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 and eulogized as such. When the discrepancy is 
 pointed out between the admission of honor as an 
 emotion, and the justification of it as a rational 
 ideal, men shrink from the inevitable inference 
 that suggests itself and usually will go on to show 
 the "holiness of instinct." Mr. Rumelin in his 
 suggestive little work on "Politics and the Moral 
 Law" says for example, 
 
 "It is well-known and perhaps a fortunate fact 
 that we are not dependent upon the keenness and 
 clearness of our reasoning faculty alone to teach 
 us what we ought and ought not to do. We 
 have an inner guide in those natural impulses 
 which spontaneously cause us to turn in one di- 
 rection or another. Though not infallible these 
 impulses are seldom entirely wrong, and we find 
 that not infrequently blind tact gives answer to 
 the most difficult and complicated questions long 
 before the wisdom of the wise has found a solu- 
 tion. On the other hand when we attempt to 
 analyze these impulses we seem to be in a position 
 similar to that of a somnambulist who having 
 walked with a sure step upon dark and dangerous 
 ways is suddenly awakened, and stops confused 
 and helpless, not knowing how and whence he 
 came. ... Is politics, i.e., the untrammeled 
 practice, of public affairs, subject to the moral
 
 THE EMOTIONAL BASIS OF HONOR 95 
 
 law, or does it follow laws of its own?" (p. 24). 
 
 The admission of honor as an emotion or senti- 
 ment runs side by side in political literature with 
 elaborate ethical and rational defenses of it. 
 Herman Merivale in the second edition of his 
 work "Colonization," (p. 675), stresses the im- 
 portance of honor which "statesmen cannot dis- 
 regard" and calls it an "impulse." 
 
 "To retain or abandon a dominion is not an 
 issue which will ever be determined on the mere 
 balance of profit or loss, not on the more refined 
 but even less powerful motives supplied by ab- 
 stract pohtical philosophy. The sense of Na- 
 tional Honor; the pride of blood, the tenacious 
 spirt of self-defense, the sympathies of kindred 
 conmiunities, the instincts of a dominant race, 
 the vague but generous desire to spread one's 
 civilization and our religion over the world ; these 
 are impulses which the student in his closet may 
 disregard, but the statesman does not." (1861) 
 
 At the risk of appearing over-rational and of 
 apparently ignoring the aesthetic appeal which 
 honor makes to every normally constituted man, 
 my object in this work is to show that by all tests 
 which can be applied, honor as it is popularly con- 
 ceived, is strictly speaking, an emotion, with only 
 irrelevant rational accretions — which do not es-
 
 96 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 sentially belong to the ideal but which in the 
 course of development have grown to be a part 
 of it. 
 
 Though I believe that honor is an emotion, I do 
 not mean to contend that that in itself is sufficient 
 reason for deprecating it or for ignoring its com- 
 mands. Emotions are the creative forces of life 
 and are at the base of every humanitarian 
 activity, every work of art, all invention, science 
 and literature. But when we admit this we are 
 using the word emotion in a very unscientific way 
 to mean the most general constructive forces 
 of hmiian nature. For the purpose of this 
 work it is necessary to distinguish between 
 emotions that accompany constructive instincts 
 such as the parental instinct, and those that 
 accompany destructive instincts such as pugnac- 
 ity and fear, at the same time keeping distinct 
 such a midway instinct as self-assertion which is 
 both. If honor were a distillation of the con- 
 structive instincts and manifested itself only in 
 such legitimate expressions as defense of hearth 
 and home, justice, himianity and other elevated 
 aspirations, the assertion and proof that it is 
 essentially an emotion would be nothing in its 
 disfavor. It is true that a political concept is 
 in bad taste when it is purely an emotion, but if
 
 THE EMOTIONAL BASIS OF HONOR 97 
 
 that were the only objection here, honor might 
 well afford to remain in all its sacred emotional 
 glamor; for the end, ie., righteousness and hu- 
 manity, would more than justify the means that 
 attained them. 
 
 If, on the other hand, it has, as I maintain, 
 grown, through misuse, to be largely the accom- 
 panying emotion of the destructive instincts and 
 impulses of human nature, such as hatred, pug- 
 nacity, fear, suspicion, greed, and the small- 
 boy-chip-on-the-shoulder attitude; then this 
 honor is not a beautiful thing to be left in 
 emotional obscurity and allowed to work havoc 
 with our civilization. The honor which made 
 America go to war in defense of Cuba was a re- 
 sult of the constructive parental instinct (INIc- 
 Dougall's classification) working on a national 
 scale and therefore hardly to be deprecated. But 
 a war of conquest which is the outgi'owth of the 
 instinct of acquisitiveness is the much more fre- 
 quent expression of honor, and this cannot be 
 said to be beautiful or holy simply because it is 
 an emotion. 
 
 When that which is regarded as an ethical 
 ideal loses its essentially reasonable charac- 
 ter, and the blind residual feeling becomes 
 the motive force for the inception and per-
 
 98 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 petiiation of the greatest crime of civilization, it 
 is no longer a beautiful thing to be respected, but 
 a criminal taint to be wiped out by all the re- 
 lentless forces of logic.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 TESTING FOR RATIONALITY 
 
 Honor can not be rational unless it can be shown 
 that it has been conceived at least largely by 
 reason and unless its modus operandi and expres- 
 sions can be justified in reason. All action be- 
 comes rational only when the end is clearly ap- 
 prehended and the means to attain that end 
 calmly calculated before hand. These are so 
 clearly conceived that the recognition of them in- 
 duces action and actuates the will. That is to 
 say, the action of emotion may more accurately 
 be described as a yielding ; rational conduct usu- 
 ally requires an effort which is sustained by a 
 recognition of the objective goal. If honor is to 
 be admitted into the domain of reason, its activity 
 must embrace a deliberate consideration of the 
 means and the consequences of what is to be 
 brought about; and in this process it cannot vio- 
 late any of the logical requirements demanded of 
 other reasonable conceptions and activities. 
 
 At the outset, we are forced to concede that at 
 best the "end" of honor is very vaguely conceived. 
 
 99
 
 100 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 Before a thing can be said to be conceived it must 
 admit of at least approximate definition. Defini- 
 tion is only another way of labeling the end. 
 The impossibility of defining honor even in the 
 most unsatisfactory way is evident from the fact 
 that the Second Hague Conference deliberately 
 avoided this embarrassing task. A review of 
 the conflicting and confused utterances con- 
 tained in the Symposium attest the nebulous 
 and elusive character of it. It is elastic, vague 
 and all-embracing and consequently even the 
 most general definition would do violence to com- 
 mon usage. Insistence upon definition or enun- 
 ciation of an ideal supposedly rational is not a 
 rigorous test; it is the most legitimate test that 
 can be applied to determine rationality. No one 
 would think of admitting that the duty a husband 
 owes to his wife, or a father to his son, or our 
 ideal of honesty, or justice, or in fact any of our 
 moral ideals, can not be satisfactorily defined. 
 Ideals can be fully justified in reason and to ask 
 this for honor is not to be exacting. Yet na- 
 tional honor begs to be excused from the difficult 
 task of defending itself in the Court of Reason 
 and through its speechless embarrassment stands 
 self-convicted. The mass of contradictory ex- 
 pressions which are gathered together elsewhere, 
 and which would be the legitimate material for
 
 TESTING FOR RATIONALITY 101 
 
 definition, only emphasizes its irrational char- 
 acter. 
 
 This difficulty with regard to definition makes 
 men naturally avoid asking pointed questions 
 about it. In fact there has been so consistent a 
 recognition of this evasiveness on the part of 
 statesmen that few have dared to do so, perhaps 
 out of compliance with a sort of "gentleman's 
 agreement." In the case of personal honor we 
 have passed the stage where people are timid 
 about asking for a reasonable defense of it in each 
 peculiar case, but we have not yet arrived at the 
 point when a man is able to answer the question 
 without feeling a slight suggestion of having com- 
 promised himself thereby. The following illus- 
 tration taken from a popular magazine story is 
 typical of this delicate evasiveness. 
 
 "I am a gentleman." 
 
 "Oh, are you? How amusing. How very 
 amusing to be a gentleman and not a man. I 
 suppose that is what it means to be a gentleman ; 
 to have no thought outside your career." 
 
 "Outside my honor none." 
 
 "And might I ask what is your honor?" She 
 spoke in extreme irony. 
 
 "Yes, you may ask," he replied coolly. "But 
 if you don't know without being told, I am afraid 
 that I cannot explain it."
 
 102 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 In the case of nations it is clear that opposi- 
 tion to all inclusive arbitration treaties arises 
 from the fact that honor cannot be defined, and 
 that therefore there are no standards or criteria 
 by which it can be fairly judged and arbitrated. 
 So long as honor comprises such a multiplicity of 
 confused ends, it cannot be classified as a rational 
 ideal. Not only is the end of honor as an ab- 
 straction, vague, but the end of honor in any 
 specific dispute is equally obscure. The fact that 
 a nation is unanimous in such cases, is no indi- 
 cation of its obvious rationality, or of the fact 
 that every individual who so stoutly wishes to 
 defend his country's honor, knows just what that 
 honor happens to consist in at the time. In fact 
 it makes little difference to him, for the patriotic 
 attitude is, "My country right or wrong." One 
 of our most prominent publicists states this 
 position in unequivocal terms. 
 
 "In the place of the old motto, 'my country 
 right or wrong,' we are told that we should adopt 
 that other motto, *My country when right and 
 when wrong to be put right.' But who is to be 
 judge as between you and your country? Is it 
 the full measure of patriotic citizenship to be for 
 your country when it agrees with you and against 
 it when it does not? I cannot so estimate the 
 impulses of loyalty. In the great tribunal of
 
 TESTING FOR RATIONALITY 103 
 
 public opinion I shall strive always to bring my 
 countrymen to the adoption of my views, but if 
 their judgment differing from mine becomes the 
 basis for national action and the cause of na- 
 tional conflict, I can find no satisfaction in the 
 triumph of my country's foe; neither logic nor 
 pride of opinion will soften the pain with which 
 I greet the death of its defenders; with all my 
 heart and soul and hopes and prayers, I am al- 
 ways for my country and its victory; and in no 
 other spirit do I see aught but discord, the disso- 
 lution of allegiance and the death of loyalty." 
 
 Since patriotism demands that a country's 
 honor must be defended regardless or whether 
 the honor be based upon right or wrong, it is not 
 surprising that men should be unwilling to in- 
 quire into the validity of the specific case. A 
 rational recognition of his country in the wi'ong 
 would perhaps take a little of his zest away, and 
 this must not be allowed in any event, for it is 
 my country's honor, right or wrong. This is not 
 a case of reductio ad absurdum but a simple case 
 of accepting the most obvious inference follow- 
 ing upon this position. When men go to war, 
 though they know their country to be wrong ra- 
 tionally, it is not human nature for them to really 
 believe so. Their country is right even when it 
 is wrong and honorable even in its dishonor.
 
 104. WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 Tennysou's paradox gives us this moral confu- 
 sion. 
 
 "His honor rooted in dishonor stood, 
 And faith unfaitliful kept him falsely true." 
 
 It is no wonder that in all this moral confusion 
 an attempt at definition is a delicate task and has 
 been consistently avoided. 
 
 If honor cannot and need not be defined, there 
 is obviously no need of universalizing it. But 
 universality is a prerequisite of rationality. 
 Given the assumption that it is wrong for France 
 to violate Belgian neutrality, then it is equally 
 wrong for England to do so. Or if it is wrong 
 for Germany to impose its form of government 
 on England then it is wrong for England to com- 
 mit the same offense upon Germany. Rational 
 ideals are universal and if they do not work in 
 every situation they at least must work both 
 ways. 
 
 The test of universality shows honor to be 
 irrational. For example England demanded to 
 be consulted in the Morocco treaty but unreason- 
 ably refused to allow Germany this privilege; 
 and the interesting thing is that she defended 
 these contradictory positions by insisting that 
 they were both obhgations of her national honor. 
 (See Symposium.) Germany to-day would
 
 TESTING FOR RATIONALITY 105 
 
 be perfectly willing to dominate other races, 
 but she would rather be wiped off the map 
 than submit to domination. In fact the whole 
 principle of this aspect of honor consists in a 
 recognition that another nation will submit to 
 what we would never submit. In fact be- 
 cause honor lacks the quality of universality, 
 it is nothing more than a dignified expression 
 of the simple rule of right which a Moham- 
 medan once enunciated. When asked what was 
 right, he replied, "It is right for me to take 
 my neighbor's wife." "And wrong?" "For 
 my neighbor to take my wife," he returned 
 sharply. 
 
 The application of our rational ideals can not 
 stop at rivers and mountains. And likewise the 
 mere difference in the particular object of a na- 
 tional mission does not alter the universal fact 
 that spreading such missions by force is either 
 wrong in every case or wrong in no case. 
 
 Another fallacy is committed in what might be 
 called the granted premise. The error of "beg- 
 ging the question" is perhaps the most frequent 
 and persistent in the discussion of honor disputes. 
 The men who would suppress all opposition to 
 a proposed war even going so far as physical 
 violence, defend their extreme measures on the 
 theory that a man who will not uphold the honor
 
 106 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 of his country is a traitor, and that no punish- 
 ment is adequate for him. This may be true, 
 but the premise which is taken for granted in 
 condemning such men, is the very thing which 
 the alleged traitor refuses to admit, namely, that 
 in the war proposed, genuine honor is at stake. 
 The whole justification for his stand is that the 
 point at issue does not involve rational honor; 
 but militarists and patriots refuse to meet such 
 pacifists on the plane of this premise, and rail 
 against them on the unfair assumption that they 
 will not fight for honor. Voltaire has well said 
 that much discussion could be obviated if men 
 only defined their positions. 
 
 The following quotation from Lord Russell 
 represents this fallacy, in a slightly different 
 way. 
 
 "That (Alabama claims) is a question of 
 honor which we will not arbitrate, for England's 
 honor can never be made the subject of arbitra- 
 tion." 
 
 Now the premise which was taken for 
 granted here and not argued out on its own 
 merits, is that the Alabama claims was a ques- 
 tion of honor. Nobody thought of asking the 
 question at the time— "Are the Alabama claims 
 something which offends British honor?" That 
 was taken for granted just as all such statements
 
 TESTING FOR RATIONALITY 107 
 
 made by the "custodians of the national honor" 
 are taken on faith. The argument and interest 
 never revolve about the genuineness or falseness 
 of the point of honor, but about the question 
 whether it ought to be resented or arbitrated. 
 The very ring of the sentence — "That is a 
 question of honor which we will never arbi- 
 trate for England's honor can never he made 
 the subject of arhitrationf' suggests where the 
 psychological stress really lies. If there is any 
 debate it may possibly be in connection with the 
 wisdom of arbitrating the honor ; but the peremp- 
 tory tone of the first part of the sentence — "that 
 is a question of honor which we will not arbi- 
 trate" — precludes all rational questioning on that 
 score. 
 
 This granted premise creeps in so quietly, 
 especially when men are being swayed by Chau- 
 vinism, that it is not noticed, and if some very 
 skeptical individual does observe it, he wisely 
 keeps his mouth shut. 
 
 An exact parallel of this fallacy is given by 
 James who draws this illustration of an irrational 
 process containing a granted premise. 
 
 "Suppose I say when offered a piece of cloth, 
 — 'I won't buy that; it looks as if it would fade'; 
 — meaning merely that something about it sug- 
 gests the idea of fading to my mind. My judg-
 
 108 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 merit though possibly correct is not reasoned but 
 purely empirical; but if I can say that into the 
 color there enters a certain dye which I know to 
 be chemically unstable, and that therefore the 
 color will fade, my judgment is reasoned." 
 
 In excluding from its jurisdiction disputes in- 
 volving honor the Hague in a somewhat similar 
 way took for granted, as needing no justification, 
 the very thing which, above all other material of 
 international discord, needed to be defined. 
 
 The definition of honor was taken for granted, 
 and no one at the Conference dared to ask for 
 enlightenment on this very interesting point. 
 The same timidity which is shown by ordinary 
 citizens toward the question — "Does this dispute 
 involve our honor?" — was shown by the delegates 
 at the Hague toward the question — "What is 
 national honor?" Both these questions show a 
 spii'it of cold calculation toward a sentiment that 
 is woven into the emotional and assthetic nature 
 of men. The only way in which one may show 
 a proper appreciation of the sentiments, there- 
 fore, is not to question the validity of any of the 
 premises upon which it rests. The sentiment 
 makes a very strong dramatic appeal and to look 
 beneath this brings upon the earnest thinker the 
 stigma of cowardice and disloyalty. Men re- 
 spond only to the dramatic quality of honor and
 
 TESTING FOR RATIONALITY 109 
 
 since this quality reaches its highest expression 
 on an emotional foundation, it is no wonder that 
 men should care little about rational justifica- 
 tion. Honor may be rooted in dishonor, yet it 
 has the same beauty as if it were planted in the 
 Garden of Eden. It is like a castle in the air; 
 we see its beauty entirely disconnected from a 
 substantial foundation. A foundation is taken 
 for gi'anted ; if it is not there, an improvised one 
 can be erected; if that is impossible the castle 
 appears to have sufficient buoyancy to hang in 
 the air just the same. Honor appears to be its 
 own justification; it is the end which in true 
 Jesuit fashion sanctifies the means. . . . When 
 the false premises are pointed out the structure 
 does not fall but becomes stronger and firmer. 
 The miracle which the Irishman expected to per- 
 form is attained here. Having piled a number 
 of boxes on top of each other he found that he 
 needed one more to reach the first story and so 
 he suggested to his friend that they take the 
 bottom box out and place it on the top. 
 
 Another difficulty is the readiness with which 
 men draw inferences by automatic association. 
 Honor and war have for centuries been insepara- 
 bly associated, so that try as we may to associate 
 peace and honor we have the neurone associa- 
 tions against us. Just as honor and war form
 
 110 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 one distinct associative process, so peace and 
 cowardice form another, and reason though we 
 may, the power of these automatic processes can 
 not be decreased, and its influence on our think- 
 ing nuHified. The recognition of this, therefore, 
 gives the mihtarist a certain advantage in a dis- 
 pute. The mechanical associations which spring 
 up around honor are many and beautiful — cour- 
 age, strength, sacrifice, national emblems, music, 
 poetry, and all the aesthetic and emotional rami- 
 fications of these. But the thought of an honor- 
 able peace makes no such automatic connections. 
 
 I will have more to say on this point of the 
 attractiveness of honor through mental and emo- 
 tional associations elsewhere, but for the present 
 it is only necessary to admit the demoralizing in- 
 fluence of these automatic associations upon the 
 rational quality of the ideal. When a subject 
 must be judged on the merits and logic of each 
 case, it is necessary if we wish our inference to 
 be genuine, to approach the case without bias 
 or prejudice. In so far as we approach it with, 
 such bias our judgment must necessarily be col- 
 ored. We must strip our minds of these accre- 
 tions of automatic associations if we wish to at- 
 tain to a really reasoned judgment. 
 
 The foolishness of this inveterate association of 
 honor and war becomes obvious when we con-
 
 TESTING FOR RATIONALITY 111 
 
 sider that in almost every war either one or both 
 sides were, according to the judgment of his- 
 tory, wrong. The axiomatic truth which we 
 must draw from this, is that a nation stands an 
 equal chance of being wrong and of its true 
 honor lying more rationally with the alterna- 
 tive of peace. But in spite of the equal lia- 
 bility to error which every nation should feel in 
 every dispute that may arise, the automatic 
 processes are altogether on the side of the war 
 alternative, with the absoluteness of infallibility. 
 With such a psychological handicap it is no won- 
 der that men cannot approach each case in a 
 scientific spirit and accept the impersonal con- 
 clusion which a free and unfettered intellect 
 might be compelled to draw. 
 
 Having assured ourselves that honor has none 
 of the distinguishing ear-marks of a rational ideal, 
 we will consider the only alternative which is 
 left — whether it has any or all of the distinctive 
 traits of an emotion.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 TESTING FOR AN EMOTION 
 
 The tests applied in the last chapter prove with 
 a fair amount of conclusiveness that honor is not 
 a rational concept by any psychological test that 
 can be applied; that it lacks the most essential 
 characteristics of rationality both in the way it is 
 conceived, and in the mode of its expression. 
 And in determining its irrational quality we have 
 laid the foundations for determining what it 
 must as the only alternative be, that is, an emo- 
 tion; for the first requisite of emotion is irration- 
 ality. It will appear that just as honor lacks 
 every characteristic of a rational concept, it con- 
 tains every quality of an emotion. 
 
 Next to irrationality, the most characteristic 
 thing about emotion is uniformity, or unanimity 
 of reaction to a given situation among any large 
 group of people. When millions of people con- 
 fined within one set of geographical boundaries, 
 can agree among themselves and at the same time 
 disagree diametrically with millions of people 
 within another set of boundaries, it is difficult to 
 
 112
 
 TESTING FOR AN EMOTION 113 
 
 explain the uniformity within the two opposing 
 camps in any other way than as being due to the 
 contagion of emotion. The fervor with which 
 every Enghshman but Russell is convinced that 
 Germany ought to be crushed; the accord with 
 which every German but Liebknecht cries, "Gott 
 Strafe England;" the certainty with which every 
 Frenchman but Holland regards Germany as the 
 aggressor; these instances of unanimous convic- 
 tion emphasize the extreme mental vigor that 
 is required to detach oneself from the influence 
 of national consciousness, and prove that na- 
 tional assurance in a war of national honor is not 
 based upon reason which is peculiar to the indi- 
 vidual, but inspired by emotion which is common 
 to all. On questions of science, religion, moral- 
 ity, law, men following their rational impulses 
 are divided; on matters of honor there is always 
 within any country a unanimous bias. This is 
 not an accident of rational uniformity, but the in- 
 evitable result of emotional infection. If such 
 unanimity happened within the confines of a 
 country once or twice it would even then be 
 stretching a point to regard it as the mere coin- 
 cidence arising from independent judgments. 
 But when a country is known to be one and to 
 present a united front in every war of honor; 
 when differences of opinion on resenting honor
 
 114 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 offenses are almost non-existent; when Con- 
 gresses and Reichstags vote to defend honor by 
 unanimous assent, we can no longer depend upon 
 the law of chance to explain the alignment of 
 independent rational judgments into such solid 
 geographical phalanxes. Thought is not conta- 
 gious ; if it were some of our most serious educa- 
 tional problems would be solved. 
 
 What is wanted in a nation in time of crisis is 
 action, and action cannot be secured as a result 
 of critical conflicting thought. The prerequisite 
 to effective action is unanimity and unanimit}^ 
 can only be achieved through the medium of the 
 emotions and feelings. And though we may 
 agree that national efliciency in the sense of ac- 
 complishing an object independently of its jus- 
 tice or injustice, wisdom, or foolishness, requires 
 unanimity, the explanation of this unanimity of 
 thought on the basis of accident, is nevertheless 
 inadequate. 
 
 How much more easily this uniformity is ex- 
 plained when we think of honor as an emotion. 
 Given an emotional situation and it can be safely 
 predicted that every normal man and child will 
 react in exactly the same way with only slight dif- 
 ference in the degree of reaction due to individ- 
 ual peculiarity. The contact with a slimy wrig-
 
 TESTING FOR AN EMOTION 115 
 
 gly thing will almost universally inspire an emo- 
 tion of disgust. Equally, every normal person 
 will feel the tender emotion of protection toward 
 a child that is being mistreated. The basic ap- 
 peal of literature, drama, music, in fact, all art, 
 is its emotional quality which calls forth a uni- 
 versal and inevitable response. Even when we 
 have decided that rationally it is better not to 
 yield to certain impulses, such as helping an un- 
 worthy beggar, we still react uniformly and re- 
 sist with an effort, if we do resist, the impulse 
 which we cannot help feeling nevertheless. 
 
 The instinct which explains this uniformity of 
 emotional response to what is admittedly an in- 
 tellectual problem, is the gregarious instinct, 
 "the consciousness of kind." The gregarious 
 instinct kills more independent thinking than all 
 the bad intellectual processes of our school sys- 
 tems. Under the influence of this powerful 
 instinct men either unconsciously fall into line 
 with the general attitude without reasoning on 
 their own part, gravitating toward the current 
 attitude emotionally; or they fall into line con- 
 sciously though they disapprove of the popular 
 trend, preferring to violate promptings of their 
 own reason, rather than to ignore the incessant 
 tugging at the heart to follow the crowd. In the
 
 116 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 one case reason does not enter at all, and in the 
 other it is forcibly expelled when it does enter. 
 In both cases the result is unanimity. 
 
 Professor Giddings regards the "consciousness 
 of kind" as the basic principle of social organiza- 
 tion. He says — 
 
 "In its widest extension the consciousness of 
 kind marks off the animate from the inanimate. 
 Within the wide class of the animal it marks off 
 species from races. Within racial lines the con- 
 sciousness of kind underlies the more definite 
 ethical and political groupings, it is the basis of 
 class distinctions, of innumerable forms of alli- 
 ances, of rules of intercourse and of peculiarities 
 of policy. Our conduct toward those whom we 
 feel to be most like ourselves is instinctively and 
 rationally different from our conduct towards 
 others, whom we believe to be less like ourselves. 
 Again it is the consciousness of kind and nothing 
 else, which distinguishes social conduct as such 
 from purely economic, and purely political or 
 purely religious conduct, for in actual life it con- 
 stantly interferes with the theoretically perfect 
 operation of the economic, political, or religious 
 motive. The workingman joins a strike of which 
 he does not approve rather than cut himself off 
 from his fellows. For a similar reason the man-
 
 TESTING FOR AN EMOTION 117 
 
 ufacturer who questions the value of protection 
 to his own industry yet pays his contribution to 
 the protectionist campaign fund. The southern 
 gentleman who believed in the cause of the union, 
 none the less threw in his fortunes with the con- 
 federacy, if he felt himself to be one of the South- 
 ern people and a stranger to the people of the 
 North. The liberalizing of creeds is accom- 
 plished by the efforts of men who are no longer 
 able to accept the traditional dogma, but who de- 
 sire to maintain associations which it would be 
 painful to sever. In a word it is about the con- 
 sciousness of kind that all other motives organize 
 themselves, in the evolution of social choice, social 
 volition, or social 'policy" 
 
 The salient thing about this "consciousness of 
 kind" is that it is emotional; that it operates in 
 the dim and shadowy orbs of emotional associa- 
 tions, carrying as satellites to it, rational accre- 
 tions and philosophic speculations. We need 
 but to take an extreme case to see that the ra- 
 tional explanations follow in the wake of this 
 emotional consciousness of kind with its deaden- 
 ing influence on thought. Mr. Stewart Cham- 
 berlain's book which sets out to prove that every- 
 thing worth while that was ever accomplished in 
 the world, had a Teutonic origin, is a position
 
 118 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 which has many emotional adherents in Ger- 
 many, and is changing the geographical origin of 
 j^erfection in many other countries. 
 
 The conclusion therefore is that the unanimity 
 which we invariably see within countries when 
 "honor is at stake," is not due to any uniform 
 recognition of justice either through the instru- 
 ment of reason or divine revelation, but that it is 
 due to the deadening influence of the gregarious 
 instinct upon independent thinking. This una- 
 nimity must have an emotional cause, for una- 
 nimity is one of the most important character- 
 istics of an emotion. 
 
 Directness of response to stimuli, which is an- 
 other characteristic of honor, is also a quality of 
 emotion, not of reason. Rationally we stop to 
 think before acting, no matter for how short an 
 intei*val. But in the case of honor we resent 
 directly. Honor insults are not resented after 
 careful thought and deliberation. It is not the 
 thought of the offense which makes us resent, but 
 it is the apprehension of the offense itself which 
 directly arouses our resentment without the in- 
 terposition of any thought or conscious process 
 at all. Some reasonable activity may follow di- 
 rectly after the resentment is spontaneously 
 aroused, but this is not to say that reason in any 
 way enters in the apprehension of the offense.
 
 TESTING FOR AN EMOTION 119 
 
 In other words we do not want to strike because 
 we think of the abstraction of honor, but we think 
 of the abstraction of honor because we feel the 
 impulse to strike. 
 
 In fact the more directly, that is to say the 
 more immediately, an offense to honor is resented 
 and the less the consideration or thought intro- 
 duced between the time the offense is received 
 and the time that it is resented, the more virile and 
 honorable a nation is felt to be. In other words 
 the quality of the honor deteriorates in direct 
 proportion to the amount of time which is allowed 
 for the purpose of thoughtful consideration to 
 elapse, between the time of offense and the time 
 of vindication. Consequently a nation which 
 pauses to examine the offense, to determine 
 whether it is real or fancied, must, according to 
 the ideal be fundamentally deficient in the quality 
 of its national honor. 
 
 This melodramatic quality of immediate re- 
 sentment to offenses of honor, of spontaneous 
 and instantaneous yielding to impulse, is, except 
 for the point of unanimity above mentioned, the 
 most fundamental and characteristic thing about 
 all emotions. Emotion seeks its expression in- 
 stinctively and without thought. Men do not 
 fall in love, strike when offended, or protect a 
 helpless child out of an intellectual choice in the
 
 120 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 matter; nor is it to satisfy their desire for a pre- 
 conceived end. They do these things in direct 
 response to certain pre-rational pushes which are 
 woven into the fabric of their natures. One 
 may be thrown into a paroxysm of fear by the ap- 
 pearance of a white sheet in the night though 
 he know positively that no harm can come to him 
 from it. And so the fact that an honor activity 
 is an immediate expression in response to a stim- 
 ulus, places it automatically in the category of 
 emotion. 
 
 In this connection it is common knowledge 
 that the less rational a man becomes, the more 
 sensitive does his honor become, and the quicker 
 does he react to a real or imaginary insult. If 
 we could apply an anaesthetic to the rational 
 faculty of a man we would find that he would be 
 governed by his "honor" impulses in direct pro- 
 portion to the amount of anaesthetic administered. 
 While such an experiment would be difficult, 
 we can see that this is true by examining the case 
 of a drunkard which is as nearly a case of 
 numbed rationality as we can reasonably find. 
 There is no one more sensitive and melodramatic 
 about his honor than a drunkard. The least 
 slight, the most casual aspersion upon his ambi- 
 tion or his character, the most guarded intima-
 
 TESTING FOR AN EMOTION 121 
 
 tion that he is drunk — all these things send the 
 flush to his cheek, and wound his honor. And, 
 yet psychologists tell us that drunkenness is the 
 let-down of all the rational and intellectual 
 checks, and a complete yielding to impulse. The 
 sensitiveness of honor therefore can have no rela- 
 tion to the clarity of reason, but obviously de- 
 pends upon emotionalism. We associate the fol- 
 lowing expression of melodramatic honor for 
 example, more commonly with a bar-room than 
 with a co-educational college, let us say — 
 "If you touch that woman, I'll kill you." 
 In the same way the idiot who is totally un- 
 able to interpose any reasoning between the re- 
 ception of an offense to his honor and his vindi- 
 cation of it, for the obvious reason that he has 
 none to interpose, is nevertheless very sensitive 
 about his honor. He responds and responds di- 
 rectly because his idiocy does not weaken the 
 emotional springs from which honor draws its 
 sustenance. The story is told of an idiot in the 
 N. Y. State Insane Asylum who was insulted by 
 a warden and as a result has refused to have 
 anything to do with any one who comes to visit 
 him. From the day he was insulted, which was 
 about fifteen years ago, until to-day, he has per- 
 sistently refused to talk to any one, so that he has
 
 122 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 by this time probably lost all power of speech. 
 Such was the delicacy and sensitiveness of his 
 sense of honor. 
 
 Another important quality of emotional ac- 
 tivity and one which follows as a corollary to 
 "direct response," is intolerance. A Supreme 
 Court judge who may differ very vitally from his 
 associates in a matter of justice will not throw 
 himself into a panic of fury or intolerance if he 
 is careful to preserve his judicial calm. Open- 
 mindedness, unlike "closed-heartedness," is never 
 intolerant of a difference of opinion. Guided by 
 reason solely a nation could not in justice take 
 the position that all who disagreed with it were 
 wrong. A rational man grants his liability to 
 error in every dispute. Reason is admittedly 
 fallible, but emotion, to judge from the positive 
 expressions which it assumes, is the apotheosis of 
 infallibility. There is no one more impatient or 
 intolerant than a man or a nation whose honor 
 has been wounded. Then it is not the time to ar- 
 gue, to compromise, to hesitate or to reason ; it is 
 time to strike. Not only do nations refuse to 
 listen to explanations from without, but they 
 show an unreasonable intolerance toward opposi- 
 tion from within. The suppression of such op- 
 position is not justly explained by the fact that 
 men coolly recognize the inefficiency of a country
 
 TESTING FOR AN EMOTION 123 
 
 divided against itself. They may build up this 
 justification later, but at the moment they are 
 intolerant because the emotion which has been 
 roused is intolerant. It is this intolerance which 
 leads not only to war, but which manifests itself 
 as well in riots and in forcible suppression of 
 views contrary to popular opinion. It is not 
 surprising that the jingo should use upon his 
 compatriots as well as his enemies, the logic of 
 force as his instrument of persuasion. The same 
 emotions which make him intolerant to heed the 
 justice of the enemy country, makes him intoler- 
 ant to see the other side of the controversy in his 
 own country. His emotions are reasonable 
 enough to be consistently irrational. The rea- 
 son that those who are not influenced by the emo- 
 tional "honor" stimulus, are comparatively toler- 
 ant, is because their sustaining force is calm 
 reason. The "honor" champion is buoyed along 
 by the emotional forces of hatred, fear, self- 
 assertion; and it is no wonder that having this 
 backing he is so sure of himself and of his 
 strength; so intolerant of his antagonist. 
 
 The James-Lange test of an emotion can not 
 be applied to national honor for the simple rea- 
 son that the nation can not be said to have the 
 physical manifestation of the individual. But 
 if we regard military power as the collateral
 
 124 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 physical manifestation of the national emotion, 
 just as the increased heart beat and blood pres- 
 sure are the physical manifestations of individ- 
 ual emotions, we can draw an interesting parallel. 
 The James-Lange theory maintains that the in- 
 tensity of an emotional state depends directly 
 upon its physical expressions, in fact that the 
 emotion is the sum total of these expressions ; and 
 that if it were possible to subtract the physical 
 ear-marks, the emotion would be lost entirely. 
 For example, if we could stop the increased 
 blood-pressure, the tenseness of the muscles, and 
 the strained eyes in the case of anger, we would 
 find that in spite of the existence of an adequate 
 stimulus, we would no longer feel the emotion. 
 
 In just this way if we subtracted the single 
 tangible manifestation of a nation that accom- 
 panies great national emotions, that is to say, its 
 military power, we would find that the emotion 
 of national honor would no longer exist in the 
 same sense in which it exists to-day. And it 
 would not disappear because of a co7iscious rec- 
 ognition of military incapacity to sustain it. It 
 would disappear automatically. Honor will 
 keep, and has kept direct pace with national 
 "visceral" change of military power, and in- 
 versely. In fact the application of the James- 
 Lange test suggests the following generalization
 
 TESTING FOR AN EMOTION 125 
 
 which might be termed the Law for National 
 Honor. 
 
 The sensitiveness and intensity of a nations 
 ho?ior increases directly with a recognition of its 
 relative military strength, and inversely with the 
 consciousness of the strength of an opposing mili- 
 tary power. 
 
 A country which is decidedly weaker than an- 
 other, by the instinct of self-preservation, be- 
 comes more reflective about the type of honor of- 
 fenses which ought to be resented by war. In the 
 preHminaries of the Franco-Prussian War, Bis- 
 mark never felt for a moment that Germany's 
 honor was at stake in the wrangle over the Span- 
 ish candidature, until his War Minister Von 
 Roon assured him that Geraiany was in a position 
 to overcome Napoleon's forces. It is a historical 
 fact that for a time Germany was not so sure 
 of its relatively stronger army. But when the 
 time came, though the dispute was not changed, 
 and was still the candidacy to the Spanish throne, 
 Bismarck changed the Ems dispatch and created 
 a point of honor for the occasion by making it 
 appear that the French minister had insulted 
 the Kaiser. In his "Errinerungen und Ge- 
 danken" he admits having artificially created a 
 point of honor when the army was ready. 
 
 But in most cases the process is not so calmly
 
 126 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 intellectualized, but works instinctively. A 
 country like Holland will naturally have less of 
 an exacting sense of honor than Germany, that 
 is when the latter is involved in some dispute with 
 Germany; but toward Siam, Holland might be- 
 come extremely exacting about punctihos of 
 honor. It is true that even a comparatively 
 small nation hke Belgium felt its honor to be 
 uncompromising and inviolable even as against 
 such a mighty nation as Germany. But here the 
 point was clear and fundamental — the inviola- 
 bility of her territory ; a thing which she had de- 
 clared to the world she would regard as an ob- 
 ligation of honor. And in order to live up to 
 her honor, Belgium disregarded the most pri- 
 mary instincts of self-preservation, and invited 
 annihilation. This is certainly an exceptional 
 case and can be regarded as the exception to 
 prove the rule, that honor varies with the rec- 
 ognition of relative military strength or weak- 
 ness. Luxemburg, which was bound by a simi- 
 lar convention, did not resist Germany's invasion 
 but allowed the armies to pass through her terri- 
 tory. 
 
 In its foreign relations, there is a tendency 
 on the part of the nation who has the giant's 
 power, to use it like a giant; and to do this not
 
 TESTING FOR AN EMOTION 127 
 
 out of a recognition of the discrepancy in mili- 
 tary power between it and its opponent, but 
 instinctively and unconsciously. We find Ger- 
 many's sense of honor increasing in delicacy with 
 her growing sense of power until in 1907 the 
 Kaiser declared that it was a "matter of honor" 
 now that Germany had "become a world power," 
 to be consulted "in any future exploitation of 
 the globe" and in the "making of any and all 
 treaties." In the days of Napoleon it is not 
 speculation to say that Prussia would honestly 
 not have felt so ambitious a sense of national 
 honor. 
 
 In fact psychology helps us in this theory 
 which I maintain, namely, that in the face of peril 
 nations do not feel the emotion of honor. In a 
 situation of genuine peril there is an instinctive 
 tendency to think more clearly and dismiss emo- 
 tion. Here the law of self-preservation comes 
 in, for it is clear that those people who in the face 
 of danger had given way to emotion would by 
 the law of survival have been eliminated. A 
 man in a burning building will very often calcu- 
 late calmly the best way to escape instead of 
 throwing himself into a paroxysm of fear. The 
 complete instinct of self-presei'\^ation overcomes 
 mere fragments of itself, of which all the other in-
 
 128 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 stincts and emotions may properly be considered, 
 for the whole is bigger and stronger than any of 
 its parts. 
 
 The JMcDougall test for an emotion — hyper- 
 trophy, or pathological abnormalities, bears out 
 the point that honor is an emotion. Hypertro- 
 l^hy of the honor sentiment is quite common. 
 
 His other test; namely, that the rudimentary 
 beginnings of a fundamental emotion may be 
 found in lower animals, is illustrated by the fact 
 that a dog for example can be insulted, and will 
 snarl around with his tail between his legs until 
 he has either vindicated what might be analo- 
 gously termed canine honor, or until he has been 
 reconciled. 
 
 In the case of nations, the honor emotion has 
 often become hypertrophied and grotesquely ex- 
 aggerated. The meglomania and passion for 
 world dominion which Napoleon felt was a path- 
 ological expression of honor. Everything was 
 done for "Ij'honneur et la gloire de la patrie." 
 And to-day "Deutchtum" with its pathological 
 craving for world domination is, too, a grotesque, 
 dramatic perversion of "Deutsche Ehre," for 
 there is no country in the world which has used 
 the slogan of honor in so many bizarre connec- 
 tions. 
 
 The above illustrations of pathological exag-
 
 TESTING FOR AN EMOTION 129 
 
 geration are really abnormal to the second de- 
 gree for the reason that normally a man or a 
 nation is not conscious of honor at all. The man 
 in the streets, except in times of war or crisis, 
 never feels or talks about his country's honor. 
 It is only when an abnormal situation arises, and 
 when he becomes abnormally stimulated and 
 fired with a war-like patriotism, that he begins 
 to feel it. So the McDougall test for an emo- 
 tion is really doubly satisfied here. 
 
 There is only one way to account for the ob- 
 viously false position which nations have under 
 the cloak of honor assumed, positions which 
 they themselves admitted later to have been false 
 and unwarranted; namely, that when we feel 
 emotion, we become blind to the most obvious 
 facts, and our minds work in such a way as to 
 preclude everything which might conflict with, or 
 weaken the emotion that we feel. The fact that 
 this is exactly what happens invariably in the 
 case of honor, puts another emotional ear-mark 
 upon it. The following obsei'vation made by the 
 British psychologist Bain is pertinent at this 
 point : 
 
 "In a state of strong excitement no thoughts 
 are allowed to present themselves except such 
 as concur in the present moods; the links of as- 
 sociation are paralyzed as regards everything
 
 130 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 which conflicts with the ascendant influence; and 
 it is through this stoppage of the intellectual 
 trains that we come into the predicament of re- 
 nouncing or as it is called disbelieving, for the 
 moment what we have felt and acted on. Our 
 feelings convert our convictions by smiting us 
 with intellectual blindness. It depends upon 
 many circumstances what intensity of emotion 
 shall be required to produce this higher effect of 
 keeping utterly back the faintest recollection of 
 whatever discords with the reigning fury. The 
 natural energy of the emotional temper on the 
 one hand, and feebleness of the forces of effective 
 resuscitation on the other, conspire to falsify the 
 views entertained at the moment." (P. 21, 
 "Emotion and Will.") 
 
 The fact that in honor disputes nations have 
 really given up the obvious axiom of equal liabil- 
 ity to error, can only be explained in the way that 
 Bain asserts. The fact that England could have 
 regarded the Opium War as a matter of honor, 
 is a case in point. The power of "emotion to bar 
 out the impression of reality," is one of the most 
 fundamental truths in psychology. 
 
 "Intense emotions, while inspiring the actions, 
 and influencing the intellectual acquisitions, like- 
 wise affect the judgment of true and false. The 
 emotion of terror proves the greatness of its
 
 TESTING FOR AN EMOTION 131 
 
 power by inducing the most irrational beliefs. 
 In the extreme manifestations of anger, a man 
 will be suddenly struck blind to his most familiar 
 experiences of fact, and will for the moment deny 
 what at other times he would most resolutely 
 maintain. Take also self-complacency. The 
 habitual dreamer is not instructed by a thou- 
 sand failures of pet projects; he enters upon each 
 new attempt as full of confidence as if all the 
 rest had succeeded. We note with surprise that 
 in every day life an individual goes on promis- 
 ing to himself and to others with sincere convic- 
 tion what he has never once been known to exe- 
 cute; the feeling of self-confidence lords it over 
 the experiences of life. He has not stated to 
 himself in a proposition the conflicting experi- 
 ence. He does not know that he never fulfilled 
 his purposes. — Also love's blindness is the 
 world's oldest proverb." (Ibid., p. 21.) 
 
 Emotions are sometimes objectless; that is, 
 they exist without any reasonable cause. We 
 sometimes feel fear and do not know to what to 
 refer it. Men suffering from acute indigestion 
 often become frightened in a very serious way 
 for no reason. Wand says in this connection : 
 
 "The moods of emotion to which we are at 
 times subject are caused by bodily states; and it 
 is in these cases that the cause to which they are
 
 132 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 due is so different from the object to which they 
 come to be referred. For while the cause is some 
 state of the body, the object is something we 
 invent to complete and justify the emotion. For 
 it does not satisfy us to feel an emotion and not 
 to be able to refer it to anything in particular; 
 and when a man is in an angry mood there is 
 scarcely anything however unreasonable to which 
 he may not attribute it." ("Foundations of 
 Character," p. 199.) 
 
 Honor in just this way is known to float 
 in the atmosphere as it were, with no anchor- 
 age, no particular resting place. A man often 
 goes around with a chip on his shoulder for no 
 reason but just "contrariness," and woe to the 
 one who wounds his honor which at such times 
 is exceedingly delicate. And so, a nation drunk 
 with power, will carry a similar chip, and look 
 for some convenient object to submerge with a 
 torrent of honorable rage. 
 
 Putting all these tests together we must infer 
 that expressions of honor require no effort of the 
 will, as is the case with all purely rational judg- 
 ments, but might be described as a "yielding." 
 And it is only when we act thus emotionally that 
 we ever speak of yielding. 
 
 The tests applied above prove that honor an- 
 swers every prerequisite of an emotion.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 DISSECTING THE HONOR COMPLEX 
 
 In the preceding chapters I asserted somewhat 
 dogmatically that the motive force of the senti- 
 ment of honor radiated from the emotion purely, 
 and not from the intellectual element of the com- 
 plex. By divorcing the two elements, and imag- 
 ining each of them in various situations alone, it 
 will be easier to determine experimentally just 
 how much there is of truth in this theory. So 
 long as the complex is considered as a unit, it is 
 impossible to determine what proportion of 
 directivity arises from the emotional and what 
 from the pseudo-intellectual ingredients. 
 
 Now, if a man whose honor has been roused 
 by these two inseparable elements, should sud- 
 denly for some reason lose the justification, that 
 is the rational element from his consciousness, 
 the emotional momentum will carry him on. 
 The emotion is remembered long after the justi- 
 fication is forgotten, and just as it is born long 
 before reason has had a chance to introduce it, 
 so it remains long after reason has died away 
 from it. 
 
 133
 
 134 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 Suppose a situation in which a man's honor 
 has been wounded, and in which he later dis- 
 covers that rationally he had no right to take 
 offense. Does that loss of justification effect the 
 emotional momentum which he feels nevertheless 
 toward vindicating himself? Does the mere rec- 
 ognition that he had "no business being hurt" 
 suffice and appease his anger? It is possible to 
 reason with reason, but with emotion the task is 
 much more difficult because emotion must be con- 
 sistent even at the cost of being irrational. Once 
 an emotion is roused, it will seek its expression, 
 and will be swept along by its own momentum 
 over any rational obstacles that suggest a turn- 
 ing back. Once it turns its hand to the plow 
 emotion turns not backward to retrace its steps. 
 We have so often heard the story of the father 
 who decided to give his youngster a good licking 
 for getting into a fight, and although he later 
 found that the boy did not commit the offense, he 
 licked him just the same because he had made up 
 his mind to do so and wished to be consistent. 
 On a national scale the Boer War furnishes us 
 another illustration of this interesting point; 
 namely that the loss of justification offers no 
 embarrassment to emotion. England after hav- 
 ing entered the Boer War found that the jus- 
 tification for her entrance had been built on mis-
 
 DISSECTING THE HONOR COMPLEX 136 
 
 information. But she could not turn back. 
 "Whatever good reason there may have been for 
 recognizing that our (English) claims of sov- 
 ereignty in the Transvaal rested on a mistaken 
 view of native sentiment, and however fairly such 
 recognition might have been allowed to affect the 
 ultimate settlement, the game of war once en- 
 tered upon ought to have been played out until 
 it was either lost or won. To this the Honor of 
 the country was fully pledged." (H. I. D. Ry- 
 der in Nineteenth Century — referring to Boer 
 War— 1899.) 
 
 The emotion of honor carried England along 
 "consistently," and in the face of this sweeping 
 undercurrent, the mere recognition that she was 
 persisting in a false and mistaken ideal, was pow- 
 erless. At such times the intellect may in fact 
 be so little affected as "to play the cold-blooded 
 spectator" and note the absence of justification 
 for the emotion. 
 
 We have frequent illustrations of the distinct- 
 ness of the two elements, and of the fact that ra- 
 tionality does not affect the emotional aspect 
 except in the case of the most strong-minded 
 people. How often we hear an offended person 
 say, even after a rational and adequate explana- 
 tion has been given him by the offender; "But I 
 can't help it if I feel hurt." The hui't has regis-
 
 136 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 tered, and all the assurance in the world cannot 
 remove the hurt nor the consequent irrational 
 resentment of it. The mere circumstance of 
 wiping away the intellectual side of the hurt, 
 does not alter the emotional currents, because the 
 two work independently, and it is only because 
 the former takes its cue from the emotion, that 
 there are so many happy coincidences. 
 
 That the emotion is the vital and sole force 
 behind honor impulses we can see from the ves- 
 tiges that remain of duel honor. A man who has 
 been insulted, though he may think as most men 
 do, that a "gentleman" is not supposed to fight, 
 will nevertheless feel a very strong impulse to 
 strike. He admits the good sense of giving up 
 private vengeance in the interest of social order, 
 but he cannot make himself feel the justice of it. 
 The duel is still common in France and in Ger- 
 many, especially among military students. 
 These are merely illustrations of the difficulty 
 which logic has in overcoming the emotional im- 
 pulses upon which our conduct is so largely de- 
 termined. 
 
 Honor, like art, becomes its own justification. 
 To turn back, is never regarded as a recognition 
 of the injustice which a country would commit 
 by continuing, but as a confession of cowardice. 
 This attitude is almost a tacit acceptance of the
 
 DISSECTING THE HONOR COMPLEX 137 
 
 saying of Nietzsche, "a good war will sanctify a 
 bad cause." 
 
 To take an instance from personal honor, let 
 us suppose the case of a man who feels his 
 sense of civic honor to be violated. Intellec- 
 tually such an expose as the Tweed affair some 
 years ago in New York City, may have of- 
 fended the civic honor of thousands of good 
 citizens. So far as value to society and to the 
 advancement of vital ideals is concerned, an 
 offense to a man's civic honor might sen- 
 sibly call forth a willingness to undergo almost 
 any sacrifice. Yet the cold abstract recogni- 
 tion of the rottenness of the political corrup- 
 tion did not lead the outraged citizens to do more 
 than cast their vote against the corrupt official at 
 the next election, while less vigilant citizens may 
 not even have done that. But an insult to the 
 wife of any one of these men might have 
 prompted him to any measure in her defense. In 
 reason, it is not hard to see that that insult is not 
 nearly so vital an offense to social ideals as public 
 plunder. A man might conceivably give his life, 
 as men so often did in the age of chivalry, to 
 vindicate one honor impidse, and be unwilling 
 to give one dollar to the Honest Ballot Associa- 
 tion. The one offense arouses his emotion, which 
 carries honor to any length in vindication, while
 
 138 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 the other arouses intellect, which is dead and 
 lifeless for the purposes of stimulating action. 
 Few feel an emotional vigor and intensity for 
 the latter except in the rare cases where men have 
 a "passion" for public service. 
 
 It is impossible to work upon an emotional 
 correlative artificially, as William James says. 
 "Just as an artificially imitated sneeze lacks some- 
 thing of the reality, so the attempt Xo imitate an 
 emotion in the absence of the normal instigating 
 cause is apt to be rather hollow." 
 
 Often when we have associated the rational jus- 
 tification with the emotion, we ourselves admit the 
 stupidity of the justification when the emotion 
 has cooled. I heard a great professor admit 
 that he was ashamed of the imperialistic honor 
 which he felt during McKinley's administration. 
 When the emotion dies away the embarrassed 
 pseudo-rational fragment is left out in the cold in 
 all its naked unreasonableness and injustice.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE TYKANNY OF A PHRASE 
 
 "There never were creatures of prey so mischievous, 
 never diplomats so cunning, never poisons so deadly, as these 
 masked words. They are the unjust stewards of all men's 
 ideas. Whatever fancy or favorite instinct a man most 
 cherishes he gives to his favorite masked words to take care 
 of for him. The zcord at last comes to have an infinite 
 power over him, and you can not get at him but by its 
 ministry." 
 
 — John Ruskin. 
 
 It would seem that thought must precede lan- 
 guage, determining our choice of words, and 
 that the latter are merely symbols predeter- 
 mined by the nature of the thought itself. But 
 only too often the relationship is reversed and 
 a word which has acquired a deep significance 
 through various associations, will determine 
 our thought regardless of the specific connec- 
 tion in which it is used. For example when 
 the term honor is spoken, the specific associations 
 of the moment disappear and are virtually sub- 
 merged in a deluge of emotional respect for 
 honor as an abstract principle. We approve the 
 
 139
 
 140 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 principle and by the strange logic of a trans- 
 ferred epithet we approve the point in the par- 
 ticular case, overlooking the necessity of deciding 
 whether the particular issue raised really involves 
 honor or not. We do not judge each case on its 
 own merits but on the merits of the great national 
 imperative which has come down to us as a beauti- 
 ful tradition. All our thought and feeling seem 
 to go not to an analysis of the dispute but to a 
 worship of the ethical dogma. 
 
 Thus it has come about that the logical 
 process whereby our thought fixes the labels, 
 has been reversed. Our reason no longer 
 works untrammeled and free from bias, be- 
 cause we are working as it were, inductively. 
 Emotion shot through with subconscious experi- 
 ences and associations bearing upon the general 
 principle, fonnulate a justification for us in every 
 case which our reason is later compelled to sup- 
 port. With a sort of a priori vengeance, emotion 
 and bias cast the die into which we pour a ra- 
 tional justification. 
 
 This has come to be true of the phrase "na- 
 tional honor" which, by filling us with an emo- 
 tional thrill, calls forth not only a spontaneous 
 intellectual approval, no matter in what connec- 
 tion it arises, but also a deliberate moral justifica- 
 tion, even though conventional morality must be
 
 THE TYRANNY OF A PHRASE IM 
 
 torn to shreds in the process. It makes little dif- 
 ference whether a nation invokes the term honor 
 in defense of a crime or an ideal ; the essential sa- 
 credness of the term remains. When a country 
 connects honor with aggression, the unthinking 
 patriot feels only the honor and is blind to the ag- 
 gression. The term has become hallowed and 
 consecrated by the centuries of blood and suffer- 
 ing which it has called forth since men first began 
 to fight for honor. The vehemence of hatred 
 caused by repeated wars, the sacrifice in life and 
 money, the intensity of pain and suffering, the 
 glories, and the progress of civilization which is 
 attributed to war, have been transferred to the 
 term honor and have filled the phrase itself with 
 an intense fervor and a sacred glamor. In the 
 face of these emotional ramifications reason is 
 paralyzed. We have transferred the cumulative 
 emotion of a series of intense experiences to the 
 term national honor, so that it has become a tyran- 
 nous phrase invested with the magic power to 
 shape our moral thinking. Instead of attempt- 
 ing to strip the term of its unwarranted sugges- 
 tiveness at this late stage of its involution, we 
 have long since made a fetish of it at which we 
 kneel blindly in worship. 
 
 When the psychological tyranny of the phrase 
 is brought into question, it is easy to escape the
 
 142 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 necessity for rational analysis by taking refuge in 
 the ideal of national honor as an abstract prin- 
 ciple. From a psychological tyrant it then be- 
 comes an intellectual despot, a sort of categorical 
 imperative to which reason and good sense must 
 submit. Loyalty to an abstract principle, re- 
 gardless of specific applications is doubtful mor- 
 ality, especially when, as is often the case with 
 an adherence to the abstraction of honor, such 
 loyalty defeats the very purposes for which the 
 ideal is supposed to exist. 
 
 There is yet another factor which lends 
 strength to this tyranny, and that is the very 
 indefiniteness of the honor abstraction. An ab- 
 straction is tyrannical even when its power 
 can be limited by definition. A principle is 
 always absolute, while incidents are relative; 
 so that adherence to the principle usually does 
 violence to the experiences which it governs. 
 But when a definition of an abstraction and its 
 implications is impossible as is the case with honor, 
 its power necessarily becomes unlimited, in di- 
 rect proportion to its vagueness. It would seem 
 that a principle must, by its very function as a 
 guide to conduct, be a definite criterion by which 
 particular incidents can be judged. It does not 
 appear unreasonable then to expect that this cri- 
 terion by which the right or wrong of specific in-
 
 THE TYRANNY OF A PHRASE 143 
 
 cidents are defined should itself admit of defini- 
 tion. But national honor defies analysis in di- 
 rect proportion to the absoluteness with which 
 it tyrannizes over a situation. 
 
 The attitude of men toward honor therefore, 
 becomes a matter of "loyalty to loyalty," or loy- 
 alty for loyalty's sake, rather than loyalty to an 
 ideal involved in a specific case. The loyalty has 
 become so intense as to overlook completely the 
 necessity for rational ideals. It has become an 
 absolute devotion to the principle of "dying for 
 an ideal/' The average man who is willing to 
 die for the ideal of national honor is only con- 
 cerned with the element of loyalty, which he feels 
 to be the only element in true patriotism. He is 
 wholly indifferent to the character of the ideal for 
 it is "my country right or wi'ong." He seldom 
 stops to consider that ideal living might better 
 serve his purpose than ideal dying. 
 
 The ethical justification of dying for an ideal 
 is three-fold. First, the ideal for which we are 
 willing to lay down our lives must be genuine, 
 that is to say, it must be strong enough to 
 bear the analysis of reason; secondly, there 
 must be unflinching and uncompromising loy- 
 alty; lastly we must determine with deliber- 
 ation whether the ideal can be advanced bet- 
 ter by dying than by sensible living. It is in
 
 144 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 the second of these elements alone that the great 
 bulk of well-meaning men are strong, in most 
 cases ignoring entirely the third, and giving very 
 little thought indeed to the first, if we can judge 
 by the unanimity of patriots in any country. 
 By being so over enthusiastic in the element of 
 loyalty as to ignore the importance of assuring 
 ourselves of the validity of the ideal itself, to- 
 gether in each case, with the best means of serv- 
 ing it, we have unconsciously fallen into the sen- 
 timentalism of regarding death as a virtue. 
 We have stressed out of all proportion the ele- 
 ment of loyalty in the ethical complex of honor. 
 As much as we may admire the courage of a man 
 who dies for honor, we nevertheless deplore his 
 indifference toward his obligation to analyze the 
 validity of the honor claims. Everything from 
 brutal aggression to spoliation and injustice have 
 been regarded by peoples at one time or another 
 as obligations of honor, a fact which, if it does not 
 prove that very little thought has been employed 
 by those who died in its defense, must at least 
 impute their judgment. 
 
 The foolishness of an irrational devotion to 
 the principle of dying for "an ideal" becomes 
 clear when we take something other than national 
 honor. Let us suppose a man who believes in 
 polygamy. Suppose that such a man arrived at
 
 THE TYRANNY OF A PHRASE 145 
 
 this social ideal by as little thinking as the aver- 
 age man does, in assuring himself that liis 
 country's honor is at stake. Then let us suppose 
 further that on such a weak intellectual convic- 
 tion he added some inexplicable emotional assur- 
 ance which when questioned he would persist- 
 ently evade to answer. Suppose then that he 
 struck out to do all in his power to spread the 
 ideal of polygamy even at the cost of his own 
 life. He would be criminal we would say, even 
 though he were dying for "an ideal." Unless 
 he spent a good many years thinking the whole 
 marriage question out, and arrived at a definite, 
 sincere philosophy of the marital relation, be- 
 lieving honestly that polygamy was the best so- 
 cial institution the world could adopt with regard 
 to marriage, we would feel that he was unjusti- 
 fied in "acting" upon his conviction. In other 
 words, if the ideal of polygamy just struck him 
 as an emotional fancy, and he laid down his life 
 for it, we could admire his courage, but hardly 
 his ideal. Furthermore even if we granted his 
 sincerity and maturity of conviction, we would 
 even then in his case have to regard his dying as 
 sheer folly, because the best thing that such a 
 man could do for his eccentric ideal would be to 
 live for it and spread it by every means in his 
 power. With him would die the most ardent
 
 146 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 champion of the ideal, and it is sentiment to 
 believe that his ideal would be advanced by 
 martyrdom. There are many cases where death 
 is an efficient means of advancing ideals, but the 
 example at least shows the necessity for cool de- 
 liberation with respect to this efficiency aspect 
 of the question of dying for an ideal. 
 
 Men hold an attitude of contempt toward com- 
 patriots who question the validity of the honor 
 ideal, while they respect such an idealist if 
 he happens to be a member of an enemy country. 
 Any one in a country at war who stands out 
 against the national honor, and questions its 
 sacredness when men are willing to die for it on 
 all sides, is immediately branded by his com- 
 patriots, as a coward. He is never regarded as 
 a martyr except in rare cases, posthumously. 
 But when a man stands out in an enemy country 
 against the enemy national honor, he becomes 
 straightway a martyr. To the Allies, Lieb- 
 knecht is a hero and a moral giant ; in Germany 
 he is a traitor and a coward serving his sentence 
 in jail. In Germany Bertrand Russell is a 
 martyr ; in England he is spurned and ostracized. 
 Martyrdom assuredly is in the point of view. 
 
 By accepting a philosophy of honor which re- 
 gards those who question its moral validity in any 
 particular application, as traitors and cowards
 
 THE TYRANNY OF A PHRASE 147 
 
 equally with those who feel that dying for a par- 
 ticular ideal might not help to advance it, and by 
 insisting upon loyalty for loyalty's sake, we have 
 come to the point of regarding death as a virtue. 
 In theii' intense sincerity and earnestness, men 
 have become blind to the obvious fact that an 
 ideal must be reasonable, a product of the mind. 
 A complete rationalization of honor is neces- 
 sary. We must turn a deaf ear to the majestic 
 ring of the word as it reverberates through the 
 emotional recesses of the mind, and attempt 
 bravely an analysis of the bell itself as we find it 
 in the political belfry of the twentieth century.
 
 PART III 
 
 THREE PROGRAMS FOR 
 PERMANENT PEACE
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 MORALIZATION OF NATIONAL HONOR. 
 A PROBLEM IN ETHICS 
 
 There is little doubt that the Peace Congress 
 which will meet at the close of the present war, 
 will be more ready than have been the former 
 Conferences at the Hague, to face squarely the 
 perplexing and delicate question of national 
 honor. It will, we hope, make a genuine at- 
 tempt to come to a more definite understand- 
 standing of the political principles which it prop- 
 erly embraces in its scope, and if it is retained at 
 all in international usage, it will be put through 
 a thorough and exacting process of morahzation. 
 The deliberate evasion of the Second Hague 
 Conference with regard to "vital interest and na- 
 tional honor" will not be repeated by a war- 
 chastened world. 
 
 The crimes and injustices that have been com- 
 mitted in its name and under its sanction, are so 
 numerous, that it is not unfair to deny to the cur- 
 rent meaning of the term any moral significance 
 at all. In acquiring the quality of an irresistible 
 
 151
 
 152 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 slogan for all wars, just and unjust alike, it is no 
 wonder that it has lost its essential moral impli- 
 cation and become an empty shell ; or even worse, 
 a mockery of the very thing it professes to be. 
 
 If the nations do not agree to the arbitration 
 of honor disputes, they will at least make a very 
 serious effort to define it in such a way as to af- 
 ford some clearly enunciated criteria by which 
 individual cases of honor may be judged in 
 the future. Without "some common sentiment 
 to which the individual can make appeal," ^ 
 personal honor would be impossible; and in 
 the same way a morally consistent national 
 honor is impossible without a similar com- 
 mon international sentiment, not hidden in the 
 shadowy region of emotional obscurity, but con- 
 ceived in the light of reason and justice. A ra- 
 tionalization of honor would require a sifting of 
 all possible honor disputes with the ultimate codi- 
 fication of the approved casus belli into an Inter- 
 national Code of Honor accepted by the world 
 of nations. 
 
 For this code to be of any value in preventing 
 unrighteous wars, it would have to be based upon 
 universal principles of justice, i.e., the ideal of 
 honor would have to be shorn of its "impossible" 
 accretions, and be put through a very deliberate 
 
 1 "Dewey and Tuft"— "Ethics," p. 86.
 
 MORALIZATION OF NATIONAL HONOR 153 
 
 process of moralization. None of the political 
 philosophies by which the conduct of nations is 
 governed to-day, could serve as a basis for this 
 moralization. A political philosophy which 
 might obviate conflicts of honor and still preserve 
 justice, is not impossible. The influences which 
 have been responsible for the degeneration and 
 perversion of the political ideal, would, to secure 
 moralization, have to be frankly recognized and 
 checked; new and wholesome standards would 
 have to be introduced into our political thinking. 
 
 If the Peace Congress attempts this task of 
 moralization, it will not be easy. It will require 
 more than a mere vague "uncoordinated desire 
 for peace." Somebody will have to be entrusted 
 to work out the implications and ramifications of 
 such a moralization. It will necessitate the aban- 
 donment of much of our diplomatic terminology 
 that suggest the out-worn moral confusion from 
 which national honor must emerge. It will mean 
 that "instinctive political morality" ^ will have to 
 yield to law. 
 
 Let us consider briefly what such a moraliza- 
 tion of national honor would imply; and what 
 would be the technique as it were, by which it 
 could be attained. It is one thing to recognize 
 the perversions into which it has fallen ; it is quite 
 
 1 Rumelin — "Relation of Politics to Moral Law."
 
 154 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 another to appreciate the colossal task of its re- 
 moralization. 
 
 To erect a political morality we can not build 
 in the sands of emotion. Our first task then in 
 the moralization process would be to assure our- 
 selves that the new sense of honor is a rational 
 ideal stripped of emotional accretions. 
 
 The material of morality is rational ideals, not 
 vague aesthetic emotions; and in erecting new 
 standards for honor we must at the outset dispel 
 the film of emotionahsm that has hitherto en- 
 veloped it. 
 
 This means first that honor will have to ad- 
 mit of universal application. In order to claim 
 moral validity it will have to abandon its climatic 
 character. The theory of an honor peculiar to 
 each nation in the way that language or custom 
 may be said to be peculiar, must give way to uni- 
 versal law. "Always act as if you would wish 
 that action to become universal law," was Kant's 
 admonition, and we cannot afford to overlook 
 this in formulating an international morality. 
 Moral law admits of no peculiar interpretations. 
 The theory that each nation must have its own. 
 peculiar code of honor which depends upon its 
 traditions and its "legitimate aspirations," is com- 
 monly accepted to-day. "Any one may even
 
 MORALIZATION OF NATIONAL HONOR 155 
 
 show," says Terraillon, "that each nation has a 
 particular concept and a more or less clear idea 
 of what honor means to it." This doctrine, pop- 
 ular as it is, could not bear moral analysis. 
 
 So long as honor is not regarded as a universal 
 ideal but merely as the peculiar expression of 
 each people, it is no wonder that strange incon- 
 sistencies and moral confusion arise. For ex- 
 ample England demanded to be consulted in the 
 drawing of the Treaty of IMorocco but refused to 
 extend this identic privilege to Germany who had 
 the same right to it, and she defended both these 
 positions as obligations imposed by her honor. 
 The two citations given below illustrate this point. 
 
 "The claim that Germany made, that no treaty 
 should be made in any part of the world without 
 the approval of Germany was not one which a 
 SELF-RESPECTING nation could admit." Gilbert 
 Murray. 
 
 "If peace can only be preserved by the sur- 
 render of the great and beneficent position which 
 Great Britain has won by centuries of heroism 
 and achievement, by allowing England to be 
 treated where 'her interests were concerned as if 
 she were of no account in the cabinet of nations 
 (i.e., not to be consulted in the Morocco treaty), 
 then I say emphatically that peace at that price
 
 156 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 would be a humiliation intolerable for a great 
 nation like ours to endure." Lloyd George — 
 Mansion House Speech. 
 
 It is utter foolishness to claim ethical sanction 
 for an ideal that works only one way. 
 
 Very important it is indeed if we wish to main- 
 tain a minimum of moral content, to provide ade- 
 quate correctives for honor. If national honor 
 is to be kept generous, we must see to it that all 
 the influences that could keep it from demoraliz- 
 ing are allowed to work upon it. In the case of 
 personal and professional honor, the correctives 
 that insure their moralization continually, are 
 provided for, first in the class character of it, and 
 secondly in the freedom with which points of 
 honor may be discussed, within the class. No 
 deviation from the class code is tolerated until it 
 has fought its way in against conservatism and 
 prejudice, when it becomes generally sanctioned 
 and assumes the same inviolable character as the 
 other principles in the code. This has been the 
 history of honor as it has been the history of all 
 moral ideals. Class honor has retained its high 
 standards through the corrective influence of 
 associates who are quick to detect any practice 
 which is selfish and inimical to the welfare of the 
 group. The class character of honor has always
 
 MORALIZATION OF NATIONAL HONOR 157 
 
 maintained a minimum moral level, first by de- 
 fining the principles to be embodied in the code, 
 and secondly by demanding rigorous observance 
 of them. 
 
 Rigorous observance of the code insured mor- 
 alization and an unselfish minimum. That is to 
 say, a member was always free to improve the 
 code, to make it even more unselfish and exacting 
 so far as his personal conduct was concerned; 
 but improvement could not be a peculiar interpre- 
 tation which he might give to the term himself. 
 The class determines whether the variations are 
 indeed unselfish. It is quite conceivable, for ex- 
 ample, that the medical profession would not con- 
 demn the practice of free service to the poor, 
 though the ethics of the profession does not in- 
 clude this in the "irreducible minimum." But 
 self-advertising would never receive anything 
 but rigid condemnation. Physicians could erect 
 a specious justification for advertising them- 
 selves. They might regard themselves as such 
 skilled practitioners that it was performing a 
 service to get themselves before the public. But 
 the profession as a whole passes upon these mat- 
 ters and no individual interpretations of honor 
 such as this would be likely to receive approval. 
 It is to keep alive the spark of altruism that
 
 158 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 sputters in the winds of all our selfish instincts 
 and passions, that we reserve the sacred term 
 "honor." 
 
 Now the great difficulty with our conception of 
 national honor is that we have transferred an 
 ideal from the individual to the nation without 
 providing for the corrective influences that would 
 insure its moralization. First of all we have 
 failed to admit in international politics that if 
 national honor means anything at all, it must he 
 a class ideal, and it is the family of nations which 
 comprises that class as it is the whole community 
 of physicians which makes it possible to talk of 
 the honor of the medical profession, for example. 
 So long as we renounce the class character of na- 
 tional honor and accept instead the theory that 
 each nation must have its own code, it is stupid to 
 call it "honor" We might call it " self-preserva- 
 tion," or the "law of national life." But if we 
 take a term that has a very specific moral impli- 
 cation, remove it from its context, and then apply 
 it to something to which it does not belong by a 
 stretch of the most liberal interpretation, we con- 
 demn ourselves not only of stupidity but of hy- 
 pocrisy. 
 
 An equivalent corrective, of course, would be 
 some sort of a recognition by the family of na- 
 tions of certain ideals of international polity with
 
 MORALIZATION OF NATIONAL HONOR 159 
 
 respect to questions of honor. International 
 law, however, covers only the approved practices 
 of war, and does not provide checks against the 
 abuse of the honor justification. By renouncing 
 the class character of honor among states which 
 we accept in the case of persons, we have lost the 
 best opportunity for the moralization of national 
 honor, and have in our moral dilemna come to 
 confuse the whole matter in a maze of emotional 
 obscurity in which the unconscious forces of self- 
 seeking and natiofial ambition not only determine 
 our action but color our whole tJwiking. 
 
 There is another possible corrective influence 
 which we have just as deliberately denied to na- 
 tional honor; namely the free and unrestrained 
 discussion of points of honor within a nation as 
 disputes arise. When the "custodians of the na- 
 tional honor" declare that "honor is at stake," 
 
 "Theirs not to reason why, 
 Theirs but to do and die." 
 
 Any rational discussion of it is an indication to 
 the angry Junker, not of a desire to be fair or 
 sensible, but of cowardice and treason. Such 
 discussion is vigorously suppressed and in this 
 way the other possible corrective check for honor 
 is also lost. 
 
 Consequently if we wish to restore to honor the
 
 160 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 ethical sanction which it has lost through persist- 
 ent abuse and perversion, we will have to take 
 an entirely different attitude toward criticism 
 from without as well as to that from within. In- 
 ternal suppression of views on honor when these 
 views happen to be unpopular, will have to be 
 abandoned, and external criticism will have to 
 be embraced. In this way alone can we hope to 
 approach that ideal which must ultimately lead to 
 
 an INTERNATIONAL HONOR. 
 
 Unless we consciously introduce these correc- 
 tives and encourage criticism, we must sooner or 
 later fall into the untenable position of the mili- 
 tarist who respects force more than justice. All 
 the nations rigorously adhere to the principle that 
 a national desire if it is a matter of national honor 
 (and it is hard to discover a dispute that could 
 not be changed into a dispute of honor) must be 
 enforced even in defiance of the moral judgment 
 of the world. No concert of powers, no inter- 
 national code, can pass judgment on the right or 
 wrong of a question of honor. Behind the pre- 
 text of this justification, nations have taken such 
 unwarranted stands, that the statement that 
 "honor" (with all its vague implications) , cannot 
 be arbitrated, is a euphonious way of saying, 
 might is right. 
 
 If instead of passing individual judgment, na-
 
 MORALIZATION OF NATIONAL HONOR 161 
 
 tions would consent to accept the judgment of an 
 impartial world court, then unwillingness to arbi- 
 trate the disputes which this world court declared 
 involved honor, would not indicate an adher- 
 ence to the ethics of force. It might be that such 
 a body would err, but a majority opinion of an 
 impartial group of men trained in affairs of honor 
 would at least be the best approximation to jus- 
 tice that civilization affords. It is sometimes 
 true that the majority is wrong, and a nation that 
 stands alone might be nearest the tioith. But the 
 chance for this is slight. The acceptance of an 
 impartial judgment rendered by a court on af- 
 fairs of honor, though it might not insure justice, 
 at least recognizes that truth must be sought in 
 the spirit of truth, that it is an attribute of the 
 mind, not of the cannon. 
 
 The last step in the moralization process would 
 demand a clear recognition that honor is an ethi- 
 cal complex implying the honor of two parties. 
 Morally regarded a nation cannot dishonor an- 
 other without dishonoring itself, any more than 
 one man can hold another "in the ditch without 
 himself remaining there." We recognize this 
 principle in the case of individuals. A man dis- 
 honors himself in dishonoring a woman. But in 
 the case of nations we feel that we can assert our 
 honor independently, and do not realize that at
 
 162 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 the very best our honor is only a fractional part 
 of the "integral moral complex" which must em- 
 brace the honor of the other side. Just as a 
 concavity and a convexity are indispensable to a 
 curvature, so there can be no ethical honor of one 
 country that is coupled with a violation of the 
 honor of another. All wars have resulted from 
 this one-sided conception of honor. 
 
 The one-sided aberration which pervades all 
 our political thinking in connection with the ma- 
 terial out of which wars grow, recurs even in this 
 purely moral question. It is true that nations 
 do not mean to stain the honor of other countries 
 in asserting their own, and that rationally consid- 
 ered they believe in the two-fold obligation which 
 genuine honor implies. Wars of conflicting hon- 
 ors however would be impossible if one nation 
 felt that the defense of its own honor was not 
 complete without the protection of the honor of 
 the other. If this had been the attitude of na- 
 tions, then the wars of honor of the past would 
 have to be explained as the repeated phenomena 
 of one nation proudly defending its honor against 
 another who persistently refuses to affront it, but 
 whose purpose in fact is protection. We have a 
 situation of double defense with no attack. Dr. 
 Felix Adler in this connection says — 
 
 "The great ethical error of the world till now
 
 MORALIZATION OF NATIONAL HONOR 163 
 
 has been that in righteous self-defense men have 
 become most unrighteous, because in self-defense 
 they have thought of their right as sundered from 
 the right of others. Yet my right is but one 
 blade of the shears, and the right of my fellow, 
 even though he be the aggressor, is the other 
 blade. . . . The employer announces his inten- 
 tion to crush the union of laborers, and in his 
 blind assertion of the fractional right which is his, 
 he destroys the integral right which is com- 
 pounded of his and theirs." 
 
 Of course the reason that honor has fallen into 
 this moral confusion and one-sidedness, is because 
 the object of loyalty has been the nation and not 
 humanity. To give honor genuine moral valid- 
 ity, "the basis of loyalty will have to be broad- 
 ened," and the ideal of honor as peculiar posses- 
 sions of fractional sections of hiunanity will have 
 to yield to a more comprehensive ideal. By in- 
 creasing the area of moral obligation we will elim- 
 inate this paradox of honor. Insistence upon a 
 national honor has very naturally diverted men 
 from a wider code and more fundamental general 
 principles of morality. The serious moral objec- 
 tion to all codes of honor is that they are frac- 
 tional, and sufficient unto themselves, bearing no 
 relation to larger aggregates of people. The 
 Southern patriot who owed undivided allegiance
 
 164 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 to the South and its honor, found it hard to yield 
 to the demands of a more comprehensive national 
 honor. 
 
 The moral world is a unit in which every act 
 must bear a very definite relation to the whole. 
 "The pebble that is thrown into the pond des- 
 troys the center of gravity of the universe." 
 Every act if it is to be moral must take into ac- 
 count the continuity of ethical conduct. Na- 
 tional boundaries cannot be used as legitimate 
 barriers to interiiipt this continuity. 
 
 The steps in the moralization of national honor 
 would be, first, rationalization and universaliza- 
 tion; secondly, the providing of adequate correc- 
 tives against its demoralization, by the acceptance 
 of external criticism and internal discussion; 
 thirdly, the abandonment of the doctrine that 
 each nation must be the sole judge of matters 
 affecting its honor; fourthly, the giving up of the 
 principle of "my country, right or wrong"; and 
 lastly, a recognition of the two-fold implication 
 of the honor complex. This would be a basis 
 for the moralization of the much abused and ir- 
 resistible war-slogan of national honor.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 A COURT OF INTERNATIONAL HONOR. 
 A PROBLEM IN POLITICS 
 
 In the last chapter I outlined the ethical tech- 
 nique by which the moralization of national 
 honor could be attained. In the present chapter 
 we will consider an equally effective political 
 scheme for accomplishing the same purpose. 
 
 It is an ethical truism that one country's 
 national honor will approach perfect moral- 
 ization only in so far as it takes into account the 
 just demands of other countries. Excessive and 
 unjust requirements must be modified to meet the 
 legitimate aspirations of other nations, if any 
 particular code of national honor is to become 
 moral. 
 
 Now in order to make these ethical adjust- 
 ments with regard to foreign policies one thing 
 is imperative. It is necessary that all the nations 
 enunciate very definitely and clearly their respec- 
 tive codes of honor, declaring in unequivocal 
 terms those elements of foreign policy which if 
 disputed would involve national honor. Without 
 
 165
 
 166 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 such diplomatic candor nothing can he accom- 
 plished. 
 
 To facilitate the articulation and the later ad- 
 justment of separate honor policies, a court of 
 INTERNATIONAL HONOR must be Created in which 
 all the distinct national obligations of honor will 
 be considered and compared. To formulate a 
 code of honor which will embrace for each nation 
 all the important elements of foreign policy that 
 might be said to involve honor, will, it is true, 
 be a colossal and embarrassing task. The vague 
 character of "honor," the ease with which it 
 may be involved in almost any dispute, and 
 the elusive way in which it escapes defini- 
 tion, would make the function of the court 
 "delicate" indeed. But more than this, its func- 
 tion would be impeded by the fact that na- 
 tions would very reluctantly remove their honor 
 skeletons from the diplomatic closets to expose 
 them to the scorn of an international pub- 
 lic opinion. It is quite possible for a nation to 
 accept silently in time of peace a specious foreign 
 policy, and were it disputed, to rise deluded by 
 passion and proclaim it a matter of national honor 
 to defend it ; it is quite another thing for a nation 
 to declare in a time of dispassionate calm, before 
 a world tribunal, that it proposed to adhere as an 
 obligation of honor to a policy which was ob-
 
 A COURT OF INTERNATIONAL HONOR 167 
 
 viously one of questionable character. A nation 
 preserves its sense of justice as well as its sense of 
 humor much better in times of peace than in a 
 moment of impending war. 
 
 The COURT OF INTERNATIONAL HONOR WOuld 
 
 not necessarily be a Court of Ai'bitration. Its 
 task of defining, codifying and amending the sep- 
 arate national codes of honor in accordance with 
 the political, economic and social demands and 
 aspirations of the respective nations, would more 
 than justify its existence. It is to be expected 
 that the problem of defining in any adequate way 
 the obhgations imposed by a nation's honor upon 
 its foreign policies, will be a delicate thing, and 
 it will in many cases help matters to define the 
 codes by a process of definite exclusion of certain 
 matters as those not involving honor, as well as 
 by inclusion. 
 
 Let us suppose such a Court to exist. What 
 would be the ease with which a given dispute, ap- 
 parently involving economics or politics, could be 
 converted into an affair of honor. Let us sup- 
 pose further, that England had incorporated into 
 her code of honor which was on record at the 
 Court, that she would never regard a boundary 
 dispute as an affair involving her honor. And 
 suppose that the Venezuelan boundary dispute 
 should come up again. Any complications of
 
 168 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 such a dispute that might arise because of offen- 
 sive attitudes or abusive language would be the 
 only possible "honor" ground on which the two 
 nations might clash. But no nation would really 
 go to war because of a mere attitude or a shghting 
 phrase used by one diplomat to another. The 
 court then would be asked to determine whether 
 the dispute was a boundary matter without "com- 
 plications." England would not be compelled to 
 abide by the decision, but at least she would have 
 the clearly articulated judgment of an authorita- 
 tive Court that the dispute involved a question of 
 boundary and nothing else, and that if she went to 
 war about it, it would be in violation of her 
 pledge as embodied in her code of honor. 
 
 This purely judicial function of determining 
 whether a given dispute falls under one of the 
 articulated categories of the respective national 
 codes of honor bears no relation at all to the ques- 
 tion of arbitrating these disputes. When Con- 
 gress passes an Anti-Trust Law defining a trust 
 as a monopoly in restraint of trade and the Su- 
 preme Court is called in to decide whether or not 
 a certain practice or combination is in restraint 
 of trade, we have not delegated to the Supreme 
 Court the power to pass Anti-Trust legislation. 
 
 The effect of articulating and codifying the re- 
 spective codes of honor would be twofold. A
 
 A COURT OF INTERNATIONAL HONOR 169 
 
 frank analysis of the whole problem in the task of 
 defining and collating, would bring to the surface 
 all sorts of hidden and obscure sources of conflict 
 which would not bear up under reason and the 
 moral pressure of an organized Court. Definite 
 codification in the international court of 
 HONOR would have the effect of stripping the 
 honor sentiment of its pettiness, its foolishness, 
 and its morbid "touchiness." The vague concept 
 in the case of each nation would be rationalized 
 into a definite body of honor demands which could 
 not be generalized, emotionalized, or stretched in 
 their meaning and application. The existence of 
 a definite code and a Court of Honor would be a 
 verj^ effective "restraining influence" on the ex- 
 cesses of the honor justification. 
 
 A similar court of honor was instituted in the 
 days of chivalry and dueling, and its effect was 
 to rationalize the whole conception on generally 
 accepted ideals. The air was cleared of emotion 
 and passion and definite rational standards re- 
 placed nondescript moral emotions, which, just 
 as they had no definite character in themselves, 
 needed no definite stimuli to arouse them. A 
 codification of national honors done in the light 
 of an international public opinion would result 
 in establishing the sentiment upon a universal in- 
 terpretation of right and justice, and would
 
 170 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 create an atmosphere which would make adjust- 
 ment and moralization possible. Without know- 
 ing very accurately the data which we wish to ra- 
 tionalize and adjust to broader principles of hu- 
 manity, it would indeed be difficult to make any 
 progress. Our first step in moralization is to 
 know the raw material, the things to be moralized ; 
 and here codification of clearly articulated policies 
 would be imperative. 
 
 In addition to paving the way for moralization, 
 a codification of national honors would bring to 
 light all the potential honor conflicts. Such a 
 process would not be anticipating wars which 
 might otherwise rest, potentially smoldering, be- 
 cause there would arise altogether too many con- 
 flicts involving one nation after another, for war 
 to appear in any way attractive or sensible for 
 the settling of these disputes. The United 
 States for example might clash with nearly the 
 whole world on the JNIonroe Doctrine, with Japan 
 on the question of immigration, with Canada on 
 tariff arrangements, with Japan again with re- 
 gard to the Philippines, involving perhaps every 
 other nation on the globe. With such an array of 
 possible honor disputes for the United States to 
 settle, we would refrain from declaring war 
 against the entire world. When the enemy is a 
 single nation and when the offense is a single
 
 A COURT OF INTERNATIONAL HONOR 171 
 
 offense clearly perceived, the chance for war 
 is great; but when the offenses are only poten- 
 tial, when they are numerous, and when they 
 involve almost every other nation, the situa- 
 tion is quite different. Since disagreements 
 would all of them be merely academic, and 
 brought about not in the course of an actual 
 clash, but simply as a result of an honest de- 
 sire to remove and adjust the potential causes 
 of friction, it is very likely that a certain amount 
 of judicial calm would envelop the disputes. To 
 say that there would be a great world conflagra- 
 tion anticipated, is to overlook the scale upon 
 which such a war would have to be repeated and 
 repeated. The alignment of enemy and friend 
 would be so complicated that war would be im- 
 possible and highly unreasonable. With the in- 
 terplay, and overlapping of economic, political 
 and social interests, generally, no nation would 
 be a clear-cut and absolute enemy to any other 
 nation, and every nation would probably be 
 in some measure an enemy to all other nations. 
 With a clear declaration of honor policies and 
 their resulting conflicts j, there would be such com- 
 plicated disagreements, oppositions and align- 
 ments, each nation being the center of a rapid 
 fire of criticism of its articulated honor policies 
 that there would be engendered as the only alter-
 
 17« WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 native to perpetual world war, a candid desire 
 to adjust these manifold disagreements. All 
 phases of the diplomatic negotiations, it is safe 
 to say, as a result of the present war, will be fol- 
 lowed by an intelligent and enlightened public in- 
 terest wliich will help to clear the atmosphere of 
 greed and unreasonableness. In the fii'e of an 
 international pubhc opinion working on the whole 
 honor problem, national honor will be divorced 
 from national advantage. 
 
 In the great kaleidoscopic jumble of potential 
 honor conflicts which the codification would give 
 rise to in the International Court, the ahgnments 
 of national interests would criss-cross in so many 
 ways that where with respect to the Bagdad rail- 
 way, for example, England would be an enemy 
 to Germany, she would be a friend to her with 
 respect to their common opposition to the INIonroe 
 Doctrine. It is not reasonable to suppose that 
 England, in view of this paradoxical relation of 
 friendship and emnity, would first fight against 
 Germany on account of her ambition for an open- 
 ing into the East, then turn around and ally her- 
 self with Germany to fight America because of 
 common antagonism to the INIonroe Doctrine. 
 France would be with Belgium in the matter of 
 her inviolable neutrality but against her with re-
 
 A COURT OF INTERNATIONAL HONOR 173 
 
 spect to the Belgian Congo. This does not mean 
 that she would both fight and protect Belgium. 
 And so we would find if all policies were clearly 
 enunciated, that each nation would in one or 
 more respects be a friend as well as a potential 
 enemy to every other nation. 
 
 This great confusion would of itself convince 
 rulers and diplomats of the sheer madness of 
 casting their choice for war as a means of settle- 
 ment. It would place each nation in the impos- 
 sible condition of expecting the support of a coun- 
 try with respect to an honor policy with which 
 that country sympathized, on the one hand, and 
 on the other hand, seeking to defeat by war the 
 same country because of its opposition to another 
 honor policy. But perhaps the greatest effect of 
 the Court of International Honor would be felt 
 in the public education which would follow as a 
 result of the destruction of secret diplomacy 
 and the consequent exposure of the unworthi- 
 ness of many national honor policies of every 
 country, followed by the awakening realization 
 of the utter stupidity of resorting to war as a 
 means of settling these bewilderingly numerous 
 and totally unreasonable diplomatic claims. 
 When this clearing process begins, when peo- 
 ple are ready to abandon the ideal of "my
 
 174, WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 country right or wrong," we will have made the 
 greatest step in internationalization that has yet 
 been achieved. 
 
 The codes that are compiled will of course 
 have to be painfully specific and definite. As 
 time goes on each nation will want to modify and 
 amend its honor policies. However difficult this 
 may be, the situation will have to be accepted, 
 for the code must not be allowed to fall behind 
 the time, become indefinite or obscure, general or 
 ambiguous. Uncompromising rigidity and ex- 
 acting definiteness would be its only excuse for 
 being. 
 
 The effect of clear declaration of policy can 
 not be overestimated. Let us suppose that Eng- 
 land had definitely stated in unequivocal terms 
 and had registered its attitude with the Court, to 
 wit : "That England will regard it as a matter of 
 national honor to use all its military and economic 
 forces to prevent and to repel an invasion of 
 Belgium." Let us further suppose that all the 
 signatories to the treaty which guaranteed Bel- 
 gian neutrality had stated just as clearly their 
 position and recorded these honor obligations 
 with the Court. Is it likely that in the face of 
 bringing down upon herself universal condemna- 
 tion through a violation of the honor obligations 
 of the civilized world, Germany would have dared
 
 A COURT OF INTERNATIONAL HONOR 175 
 
 to invade Belgium? It is said that if England's 
 attitude alone had been clearly perceived, if Ger- 
 many had been sure that England's honor was 
 genuinely bound up with Belgian neutrality, it is 
 very doubtful whether she would have gone to 
 war. 
 
 Declaration of honor policies would clear the 
 international skies from all the overhanging 
 clouds of suspicion and fear, and would eliminate 
 secret diplomacy and national subterfuge, hidden 
 undercurrents of policy, and all the other ma- 
 terial out of which wars arise. 
 
 Who can say how many wars have been averted 
 through the clear and definite articulation of the 
 Monroe Doctrine for example? The very clar- 
 ity with which the doctrine is couched, has served 
 to ward off possible opposition to it which nations 
 might have felt in the dim regions of subconscious 
 antagonism. Our position is so clearly under- 
 stood that an offense to our honor in that par- 
 ticular could not hide behind any veil of misun- 
 derstanding, fear or suspicion. It would be 
 clearly an insult to our honor not unconsciously, 
 but because of the definiteness of the Doctrine, 
 deliberately inflicted. Nations rarely oppose a 
 clearly enunciated policy, but fight more ef- 
 fectively when the purpose of a war is vague, 
 elastic and indefinite, It is something of the psy-
 
 176 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 cholog}^ of wonder which makes wars successful. 
 If the real causes of wars which usually come out 
 specifically in the terms of peace, were blazoned 
 before the people before the wars, it is doubtful 
 whether such an atmosphere of candor would add 
 zest to the patriot. Confusion, vagueness, gen- 
 eralities, and the indefinite irresistible slogan of 
 national honor, are the very air which the war 
 spirit breathes. 
 
 The value of definiteness and codification of 
 honor principles and policies lies of course chiefly 
 in that they would remove the temptation to 
 emotionalize the issue. Stripped of its vague 
 emotional accretions and boldly defined, a dispute 
 of honor will lose its irresistible glamor which in- 
 heres more than in anything else in its very in- 
 definiteness, and it will become a legal or ju- 
 dicial question relatively easy to settle. Wolff, 
 in his suggestive work on "International Govern- 
 ment," cites an interesting example of the effect 
 of rational preventives on the matter of devitaliz- 
 ing the emotional possiblities of an honor dispute. 
 
 "There will never be a case in which national 
 honor is more dangerously and vitally affected 
 than it was in the Dogger Bank incident. The 
 danger lay in the fact that the honor of the Rus- 
 sian fleet was in question when Lord Lansdowne 
 demanded apologj^ . . . War as usual in such
 
 A COURT OF INTERNATIONAL HONOR 177 
 
 cases appeared inevitable. . . . But it so hap- 
 pened that there had been invented at the first 
 Hague Conference a Procedure of International 
 Inquiry which enabled the Dogger Bank ques- 
 tion to be put to a Tribunal in a judicial form. 
 A difference involving honor was therefore re- 
 duced to the common legal and judicial question 
 of fact and of the degree of responsibility and 
 blame attaching to the different persons for the 
 results of certain actions. And so the inevitable 
 war was avoided." 
 
 Another very important constructive thing 
 could be done with the welter of conflicting na- 
 tional honor demands which the Court would 
 have at its disposal. The Court of International 
 Honor would be a Clearing House which would 
 deal in national honor securities and consequently 
 be in a fair position to pass on the solvency, 
 the moral validity of the separate securities 
 in the light of broader principles of justice 
 and humanity. Out of this great mass of honor 
 policies some will recommend themselves as gen- 
 uine while others will condemn themselves as 
 spurious. The Court might not have the power 
 to compel a nation to withdraw its insistence upon 
 some policy which it did not approve. But it is 
 not overoptimistic to hope that such a Court might 
 be invested with the power of recommendation.
 
 178 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 The constructive work of the Court of Inter- 
 national Honor, then, would he to calamine and 
 collate certain honor policies of the separate na- 
 tions, which it approved; to incorporate them 
 into a Code of International Honor; to put 
 the moral force and if possible the military force 
 of a League to Enforce Peace, behind these ac- 
 cepted policies. Such a code would be the 
 only sustaining sentiment for any international 
 police force that might be created after the 
 war, and the advantage of the codification of 
 this sentiment of honor in its various aspects, 
 would be to make the function of the international 
 force clear and definite. The result would 
 be not only that it would know exactly what 
 to do, but that the separate nations would know 
 clearly and in advance what not to do, which 
 so far as securing peace is concerned is a great 
 deal more important. 
 
 Of course what would be incorporated into this 
 international code of honor would be only the 
 generous national honor policies, to which would 
 be added generally accepted practices of interna- 
 tional law. For example, America's protectorate 
 over Cuba might very probably be approved by 
 a majority vote of the Court, and be incorporated 
 into the new international code behind which 
 would be placed all the military and moral power
 
 A COURT OF INTERNATIONAL HONOR 179 
 
 of the nations. England's policy in New Zea- 
 land, America's attitude toward the Panama 
 Canal, France in Morocco, and other definite and 
 more or less approved policies would be specific- 
 ally embodied with the result that it would not 
 only strengthen these accepted policies, but by 
 contrast would lend a moral weakness and naked- 
 ness to these excluded policies, even though the 
 court did not have the power to condemn and 
 eliminate the more selfish practices of individual 
 national honors. The silent condemnation which 
 in effect exclusion from an international code of 
 honor would mean, might work wonders. 
 
 The plan of codification together with an or- 
 ganized force behind the code is not Utopian. 
 Such a staunch nationalist as Ex-President 
 Roosevelt endorses some such scheme. 
 
 "My proposal is that the efficient civilized na- 
 tions — those that are efficient in war as well as 
 in peace — shall join in a world League for the 
 peace of righteousness. — This means that they 
 shall by solemn covenant agree as to their re- 
 spective rights which shall not be questioned; 
 that they shall agree that all other questions aris- 
 ing between them shall be submitted to a Court 
 of Arbitration." 
 
 But the new world League to Enforce Peace 
 will not be able to proceed on the basis of a mere
 
 180 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 pooling of selfish national aims. Each one of 
 these aims will have to stand the test of interna- 
 tional validity. Such validity will he determined 
 by an international public opinion influencing the 
 Court and its work. The trouble with interna- 
 tional public opinion heretofore has been that it 
 was not organized ; that there was no official body 
 through which it could express itself, so that any 
 moral pressure which it would unquestionably 
 have been able to exert if it had been organized 
 and articulated, has been lost. Wells correctly 
 says, that "the trouble with the peace movement 
 is that there is no authoritative body whose busi- 
 ness it is to see that peace is maintained." 
 Nor is it any one's business to crystallize inter- 
 national public opinion for a nation about to 
 enter war. Of course a nation can get snatches 
 of foreign sentiment from the press of foreign 
 countries, and from other public utterances ; but 
 it does not really know the attitude that other 
 nations as a whole feel toward it in a dispute 
 in which it is about to engage. The situation 
 is aggravated by the desire which nations feel 
 to be neutral, as a result of which that spon- 
 taneous judgment is crushed, which if it were 
 enunciated would help to create the strongest 
 possible instrument for fair play and humanity. 
 A dignified expression of world opinion upon
 
 A COURT OF INTERNATIONAL HONOR 181 
 
 every dispute that arose between nations, would 
 compel the nation in the wrong to withdraw, 
 or if not to withdraw at least to lose heart, 
 while it would strengthen the side that was 
 declared to be right. No nation in its senses 
 would willingly disregard the officially articu- 
 lated judgment of the nations, to stand con- 
 demned by a world court of honor, and to re- 
 veal itself in the moral nakedness of an outlaw 
 among nations. When the stakes were large it 
 might be that moral pressure would be ineffec- 
 tive ; but when the issues involved were less vital, 
 a sense of national humor would supplant an 
 unreasoning sense of national honor and peace- 
 able adjustment would result. MacFarland has 
 this to say of the power of moral pressure — 
 
 "At once and in a word I am still one of those 
 who believe that international public opinion is 
 the power and the only power which can produce 
 compliance with the award of an international 
 tribunal, whether that be an international arbi- 
 tration tribunal or a judicial tribunal as a world 
 court." 
 
 Whatever means are used to enforce a judg- 
 ment of the court, whether it be the military 
 power of a society of nations, economic pressure, 
 isolation, or the combined moral pressure of inter- 
 national public opinion alone, the important thing
 
 182 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 is to have the judgment articulated in every great 
 crisis which might be seen to be leading to war. 
 The Court will not be able to control national 
 honor policies directly, but its indirect effect 
 would be tremendous, and in so far as policies of 
 aggression were concerned, no nation would dare 
 to violate international honor in such a flagrant 
 way. Elihu Root says in this connection: 
 
 "Law cannot control national policy, and it is 
 through the working of long continued and per- 
 sistent national policies that the present war has 
 come. Against such policies all attempts at con- 
 ciliation and understanding and good will among 
 nations of Europe have been powerless. But 
 law if enforced can control the external steps by 
 which a nation seeks to follow a policy, and rules 
 may be so framed that a policy of aggression 
 cannot be worked out except through open viola- 
 tions of law which will meet the protest and con- 
 demnation of the world at large backed by what- 
 ever means shall have been devised for law en- 
 forcement." 
 
 The fear that the moral pressure of a well- 
 defined international judgment will not be ade- 
 quate, is unfounded. It is said that since the re- 
 entry of arbitration into the world with the Jay 
 Treaty, there has not been a single important 
 case of a refusal to abide by a judgment. Na-
 
 A COURT OF INTERNATIONAL HONOR 183 
 
 tions have often refused to submit disputes to 
 arbitration, but when they have actually agreed 
 to arbitrate, "they have invariably abided by the 
 tribunal of their own choice." In 1891 judg- 
 ment had been given against Venezuela in favor 
 of Peru which the former refused to abide by. 
 But such cases are rare. 
 
 The proposed International Court of Honor 
 then, would formulate an international morality 
 of casus belli, adopted and sanctioned hy a Con- 
 gress of powers as ''honorable" policies, upheld by 
 an international sentiment of honor, and, if possi- 
 ble, defended by the physical power of a League 
 to Enforce Peace. Enough time has been de- 
 voted to giving an international sanction to the 
 rules of war. After all it is not such a vital thing 
 in the interests of peace to have a body of conven- 
 tions which recognize certain methods of killing as 
 preferable and more civilized than others. A 
 genuine peace tribunal would consider the means 
 of securing peace rather than a method of hu- 
 manizing war. What would we think of a state 
 where there were no laws against murder, but 
 very explicit and detailed laws governing proper 
 methods of murder? The psychological effect 
 of such laws would be to encourage murder and 
 crime by the very recognition of them in law, 
 even if that recognition consisted only in a most
 
 184. WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 vigorous disapproval. A description of legiti- 
 mate and approved violence has no ethical pro- 
 hibition per se. 
 
 In the place of the international honor and 
 morality which the two Hague Conferences codi- 
 fied, and in which war was taken for granted and 
 merely humanized, our Court of International 
 Honor would establish an international morality 
 of peace, a clearly enunciated and codified senti- 
 ment of international honor, which woidd recog- 
 nize peace as the normal and projjer relation 
 among states. Aside from the profound moral 
 and ps3^chological effect which this shift of 
 emphasis would have, its practical constructive 
 influence on maintaining peace would be tre- 
 mendous. 
 
 The first chapter in the code of international 
 honor of course would be to recognize the Court's 
 authority, to respect its recommendations, and to 
 abide by its judgments. It will do little good to 
 have a police force to enforce judgments if our 
 new INTERNATIONAL HONOR docs uot acccpt as its 
 first obligation, the principle of abiding and ac- 
 cepting the Court's judgments. Each nation 
 must not be allowed further to build up its own 
 military strength, or we might easily have an- 
 other war like the present, in which the forces
 
 A COURT OF INTERNATIONAL HONOR 185 
 
 of the world were arraigned against the military- 
 power of a recalcitrant group. 
 
 Too much time must not be spent as was true 
 at the second Hague Conference, in defining the 
 rights of neutrals. The "rights of neutrals" im- 
 portant though they are, presuppose war and 
 hence cannot be said to be a step in the direction 
 of peace. The lack of enthusiasm with which na- 
 tions have backed such conventions shows its ap- 
 peal as an instrument of peace. It is no wonder 
 that an international honor which merely recog- 
 nized certain approved methods of war did not 
 rouse the enthusiasm of nations. If Russia and 
 Japan should happen to be at war and Japan 
 should violate the neutrality of French Indo- 
 China, it is not likely that the world would throw 
 itself into a paroxysm of offended honor. There 
 is nothing in such an abstract violation to stir the 
 emotions, and without emotions the psychic recog- 
 nition of an offense, as I have shown elsewhere, 
 is cold and colorless. A great deal more enthusi- 
 asm could be aroused for constructive ideals of 
 peace, justice and humanity, if these things were 
 codified into international honor, than has 
 been aroused by violations of abstract principles 
 of international law defining the rules of civilized 
 barbarity.
 
 186 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 There is little question that with regard to the 
 rules that the two Hague Conferences laid doAMi 
 as the laws of war, no real sense of ixtekxa- 
 TiONAL HONOR exists. This is not because na- 
 tions do not intellectually approve of the Hague 
 Conventions. In times of peace no nation ever 
 questions them. It is only in time of war when 
 the intellectual approval finds it difficult to hold 
 its own against the battering force of emotional 
 necessity, that compromise is inevitable even with 
 the most enlightened nations. How can we talk 
 of the existence to-day of a sense of international 
 honor with regard to the rights of neutrals for 
 example to which at the second Hague Confer- 
 ence all the nations were signatories, when we 
 have such a contradiction as this: "On the one 
 hand we have a treaty most solemnly guaran- 
 teeing the inviolability or the permanent neutral- 
 ity of a country like Belgium let us say, and on 
 the other hand the conviction on the part of the 
 government of that country that it would not be 
 justified in diminishing its army by one single sol- 
 dier on the strenofth of this guarantee." 
 
 The 'problem of the future will he to create a 
 sense of international honor that is not pale and 
 divorced from emotion, hut fervent and militant; 
 a sense of international honor which will not 
 merely feel offended at open violations of peace
 
 A COURT OF INTERNATIONAL HONOR 187 
 
 and the laws of peace, and the refusal of a na- 
 tion to abide by the judgment of the Court, but 
 an emotional sense of international honor that 
 will be just as passionate, just as virile and just 
 as genuine as national honor is to-day. Pas- 
 sionate nationalism must be enlarged not to aca- 
 demic internationalism, but to a real throbbing 
 sense of emotional international honor. 
 
 "Only when the great nations of the world 
 have reached some sort of an agreement," says 
 President Wilson, "as to what they hold to be 
 fundamental to their common interests, and to 
 some feasible method of acting in concert when 
 any nation or group of nations seeks to disturb 
 those fundamental things, can we feel that civili- 
 zation is at last in a way of justifying its exist- 
 ence." 
 
 The ways and means of fusing the vital human 
 force of emotion with the cold abstraction of 
 international honor, which is to be the slogan of 
 the new era, will be considered in the next chap- 
 ter.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 AN EMOTIONAL EQUIVALENT FOR NATIONAL 
 HONOR. 
 
 A PROBLEM IN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 The emotional values which are inseparably as- 
 sociated with national honor are for the most part 
 not only aesthetic but indispensable to a normal 
 expression of human nature. It would be im- 
 possible to crush the perfectly natural love for 
 these values without destroying the source of 
 much that is good and beautiful in men's char- 
 acter. Our problem is either to change the im- 
 pulses, or re-shape the end which they serve. 
 Human nature in its basic instincts is unchang- 
 ing; national honor which has hitherto been the 
 medium through which all the dramatic impulses 
 have found collective expression, is not on the 
 other hand, an absolute unalterable ideal. Of the 
 two human nature then must be accepted as it is ; 
 the dramatic impulses however may be directed 
 along lines of constructive good toward some- 
 thing broader and deeper than merely "national" 
 
 188
 
 AN EMOTIONAL EQUIVALENT 189 
 
 honor. In other words we must find for national 
 honor, which has up to the present been the sole 
 incentive for the dramatic mass tendencies of 
 men, an emotional equivalent. 
 
 It is altogether human for every man occa- 
 sionally to indulge in violent disHke. It makes 
 little difference whether the object of the ani- 
 mosity happens to be Mexico, or capital or woman 
 suffrage, or the Oshkosh Gazette, provided only 
 our natural disposition to rant, is satisfied. Vehe- 
 ment hatred is an intense dramatic value espe- 
 cially when it carries with it all the mass momen- 
 tum of a great and powerful nation. Now then, 
 we can either condemn the human trait which 
 seeks an emotional joy in hatred, or we can find 
 some other more desirable objective for this 
 passion. 
 
 In a similar way men love a good fight with all 
 the dramatic possibilities of success and failure. 
 The spectacle of nations in battle is the arch 
 drama of civilization, shot through with almost 
 every possible human emotional appeal. Here 
 too we can either check pugnacity, or change the 
 end, by resetting the scenes of international poli- 
 tics; we can either suppress the impulse to fight, 
 or again, find a more reasonable objective for its 
 activity. Other emotional values can be cited. 
 Our problem then is to provide for all the emo-
 
 190 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 tional values which inhere in an expression of 
 national honor, a composite emotional equivalent. 
 The basic cause for war is the impulses which 
 find to-day in national honor alone a field for 
 expression. Our object should he to direct these 
 impulses into a sentiment of international honor 
 which offers a dramatic and cesthetic setting 
 within which they could express just as effec- 
 tively, and provides that emotional equivalent 
 that not only does no violence to human nature, 
 hut ministers to it as perfectly as does the ideal of 
 national honor. The dramatic tendencies would 
 find in international honor not only an en- 
 larged stage for creative activity, but a very much 
 enlarged, audience, unanimously sympathetic, 
 which circumstance would lend additional dra- 
 matic force to any emotion that might be felt. 
 By creating a sentiment of international honor in 
 a world federation, national honor would gradu- 
 ally disappear, just as aggressive state honor 
 ceased to exist when the United States was con- 
 federated, even though state loyalties had been 
 passionately strong, and interstate hatreds and 
 antagonisms equally violent. Every step in fed- 
 eration, and federation has been the history of 
 progress, has involved a sacrifice of the smaller 
 honor to the more comprehensive one. We are 
 now ready to take the last step in increasing the
 
 AN EMOTIONAL EQUIVALENT 191 
 
 moral area of honor, and, in fact, integrating it, 
 so that its ethical inhibitions will no longer stop 
 at the frontier. And in order to do this we must 
 bring into being a new arena of conflict, similar 
 to that of national honor in dramatic possibilities, 
 yet broader in its basic loyalties, and operating 
 under more comprehensive principles of justice 
 and right. This would supply an emotional 
 equivalent for the emotions underlying national 
 honor which so long as human nature remains as 
 it is, must be retained, while it would obviate the 
 moral shortcomings and the destructive quality 
 of national honor. Such an equivalent would do 
 away with war, at least in the intensely national 
 spirit in which it exists to-day. It would fur- 
 thermore internationalize military power in the 
 best interests of humanity. To hope for a world 
 without some use of force is to indulge in a Uto- 
 pian dream. To think of a world without some 
 ideal of honor likewise, for which men, when they 
 are roused to a passionately unselfish idealism, 
 can lay down their lives, is to overlook what may 
 be called the emotional imperative of human 
 nature. 
 
 If we are to retain an emotional balance in our 
 transition from national to international honor, 
 we must keep all the dramatic and aesthetic stage 
 setting and associations of national honor. Un-
 
 192 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 less we make the international sentiment a real 
 emotional equivalent, this new sentiment will not 
 be imbued with the same actuating power as the 
 thing out of which it must evolve. We must be 
 careful to preserve all the outward forms which 
 have supplied so many vital emotional stimuli in 
 the complex of national honor, and attain the new 
 sentiment by changing only the substance. The 
 dramatic figure of the soldier whose daring and 
 strength have become emotionally intrenched in 
 human nature through untold expressions of eu- 
 logy in song, verse, novels, drama, sculpture and 
 oratory through the ages, the soldier's part must 
 continue to be the title role in our new interna- 
 tional drama. But the horizon of his purpose 
 must be broadened. The gun with its tragic 
 power of life and death cannot be discarded in 
 our new setting; but its thunder must proclaim 
 a new note of high resolve. The flag must con- 
 tinue to stream in the breeze against the pictur- 
 esque dawn, but this time a flag of new design. 
 And if any international symbol is to be inspir- 
 ing, it will have to be as Percy Mackaye suggests, 
 something more dramatic "than the meek symbol 
 of a dove which the artless disciples of peace 
 present." To destroy the emotional and moral 
 ideal of loyalty would be to kill the root of the 
 moral life; we must however "broaden its basis,"
 
 AN EMOTIONAL EQUIVALENT 193 
 
 Force must not be eliminated but international- 
 ized; valor not condemned but sensibly applied. 
 In other words honor, the slogan which opens up 
 an arena of passionate conflict, with its spectac- 
 ular display of aesthetic emotions in mass setting 
 must be preserved ; but the ob j ective of honor can 
 be changed from national to international. The 
 basis for the activity of honor can be enlarged but 
 the honor instinct can not be stamped out. We 
 can increase the area of moral obligation but we 
 cannot rule the ideal of obligation out of men's 
 consciences by any impractical scheme of re- 
 form. 
 
 To say that the basis of the honor obligation 
 cannot be broadened without doing violence to 
 the dramatic side, and the emotional value of 
 its expression, is to contradict the testimony 
 of history. Honor is a class ideal, the ideal of a 
 fragment of humanity, the object of its loyalty 
 always being a group, a professional class, a na- 
 tional unit. As these units increased and became 
 more comprehensive, the honor obligation nat- 
 urally kept pace to coincide always with the new 
 grouping, for obviously conflicting honor loyal- 
 ties were never countenanced by any unit. And 
 the history of federation proves one thing very 
 clearly, namely, that the social and political basis 
 of honor is not a constant factor, and that while
 
 194 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 its essential nature is unchanging, the objects of 
 its loyalty change with the vicissitudes of politics 
 and social organization. During the middle ages, 
 for example, national honor in the sense of loy- 
 alty to a political group was submerged by what 
 might be termed religious honor, the latter loy- 
 alty crossing political frontiers and disintegrat- 
 ing political units. On the other hand appar- 
 ently incompatible social and religious units have 
 made common national honor, as, for example, 
 the cases of Austria and Switzerland. In other 
 words, the form of honor, that is loyalty to some 
 definite class, whether the cohesive bond be a po- 
 litical, rehgious or social ideal, has always been a 
 constant, while the content, that is the size or 
 character of the groups, admits readily of varia- 
 tion. Honor being a class ideal, it follows that 
 the moment such a class is embraced by a more 
 comprehensive group the particular class honor 
 disappears. When the separate states of Amer- 
 ica federated into the American Union, the class 
 "states" ceased to be a moral absolute, and conse- 
 quently the code of honor that characterized states 
 as distinct moral entities became an anachronism. 
 In the same way the creation of a federated 
 league of nations, if the proper emotional asso- 
 ciations were established around the honor ex- 
 pression of such a league, would destroy the class
 
 AN EMOTIONAL EQUIVALENT 195 
 
 "nation" as an aggressive political unit, and 
 national honor which rests upon the theory that 
 the nation is a moral absolute, would be modified, 
 and gradually disappear as its place was taken 
 by the larger honor loyalty. 
 
 Now the problem for pacifists is to create 
 inductively this new sentiment of international 
 honor. A world federation of course would be 
 imperative as the first step in this direction; but 
 federation, mechanical and impersonal, would not 
 give rise automatically to a genuine sentiment. 
 It is quite possible to think of a very effective 
 political federation of nations which would break 
 up into national states again in time of stress if 
 the sentiment to sustain federation were lacking. 
 On the other hand if the sentiment really existed, 
 the external political machinery of federation 
 would be but a mere form. We have many laws 
 on the statute books, our "blue laws" for exam- 
 ple, which are not real or effective because public 
 opinion is not back of them. The spirit of law 
 may easily have a very real existence without 
 the letter, but it does not work so easily the other 
 way. And so no objective political arrange- 
 ment of nations per se will attain our purpose, 
 without the sustaining emotional equivalent. 
 An academic international honor might be said to 
 exist to-day in the so-called family of nations, but
 
 196 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 it is not a dynamic force in world politics. 
 World organization cannot be depended upon to 
 provide anything but a very fragile outline; for 
 the real substance of the new honor we must look 
 elsewhere. 
 
 We will not find the substance for our new sen- 
 timent in "education" and intellectual propa- 
 ganda along the lines of internationalism. If 
 there is one thing the present war eminently 
 proves, it is that education toward world peace 
 has not been effective. Intellectual appeals for 
 peace do not seem to register. ]Men go to war 
 fully conscious of its stupidity, of its horror, of 
 its economic illusions, of its moral degradation. 
 To stop war we must substitute for the emo- 
 tions that sustain it, counter emotions that are 
 stronger, not intellectual subtleties about the 
 legal, political, or economic advantages of inter- 
 nationalism. We must administer the psycho- 
 logical treatment of creating opposite and 
 stronger sentiments for the ones we ^vish to elim- 
 inate. Emotional habits like physical habits are 
 influenced less by reasoning than by a sort of 
 counter irritation. 
 
 Instead of creating an ^'international mindf' 
 we will have to mold the international heart, 
 if we wish to make real the dream of a sentiment 
 of INTERNATIONAL HONOR. Instead of learning
 
 AN EMOTIONAL EQUIVALENT 197 
 
 to THINK internationally we must learn to feel 
 internationally. Rationally in time of peace 
 most men "distrust profoundly the common 
 meaning of the term national honor'' and ap- 
 prove some sort of morality which does not stop 
 at the border line, hut in time of war the situa- 
 tion reverts again to a sort of emotional determin- 
 ism. National honor is again invested with emo- 
 tional validity that with respect to its dynamic 
 power to determine action surpasses all conceiv- 
 able rational incentives. We cannot afford to 
 discount this experience which has been only too 
 often driven home to us when we have felt intel- 
 lectually so ready for the dawn of that new era 
 of permanent peace. We must recognize the 
 simple truth that our intellectual honor will never 
 be THOUGHT, but "felt" into existence. 
 
 The fact that we recognize national honor to 
 be an emotional structure does not mean that the 
 objective of it may not and should not admit of 
 rationalization. Such a process would be espe- 
 cially imperative in the creation of our new senti- 
 ment of international honor. In fact the more 
 exacting and definite that rationalization, the 
 more steady would be the frame-work of the 
 whole new sentiment. But things could not stop 
 at that point. While the objective must be ra- 
 tionalized and broadened from national to inter-
 
 198 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 national, the honor complex proper must be car- 
 ried over. Into the new rational frame-work 
 must be poured the emotional content which is the 
 dynamic power of the whole in the case of na- 
 tional honor. Statesmen and intellectuals may 
 think international honor with a fine discrimina- 
 tion and clarity, but if we wish to insure the sup- 
 port of nations as mass units, it is necessary that 
 "the man in the streets" be made to feel the senti- 
 ment with the same heart glow with which he 
 senses the national honor sentiment at present. 
 Unless the emotional content is preserved intact 
 and is merely transferred to the newer ideal of 
 international honor, it is useless to hope that it 
 may ever become an effective and vital equivalent. 
 We know that martyrs who will die for a convic- 
 tion are rare, but soldiers and patriots who will 
 give their lives for a series of emotional satisfac- 
 tions, are the most common thing in the world. 
 In organizing a clientele for the sentiment of in- 
 ternational honor therefore, we must enlist every 
 device of psychology to catch and appeal to this 
 side of human nature. We must recognize the 
 fact that there are millions of men who would 
 gladly go to war even for peace, because the ir- 
 refutable argument that peace can be secured in 
 that way, has entered them via the emotions, but 
 they would be slow to give a dollar to the Car-
 
 AN EMOTIONAL EQUIVALENT 199 
 
 negie Endowment for International Peace when 
 their persuasion that the Association is serving 
 the same end has merely been intellectual. 
 
 I maintain therefore that in persuading the 
 man in the streets of the validity and idealism of 
 a sentiment of international honor, our public 
 forum 7nust he the heart rather than the mind, 
 and hy changi^ig our pacifist tactics in this essen- 
 tial alone can we hope to succeed in the creation 
 
 of the GREAT INTERNATIONAL EMOTION wMch 
 
 would be the only abiding and unfaltering guar- 
 antee for the peace of the future. 
 
 This change in our modus operandi means that 
 we will have to abandon the profound academic 
 discussions and expositions of the merits of inter- 
 nationalism, all that abstract argument for peace 
 which persuades, and perhaps only temporarily, 
 only those who are already persuaded, and does 
 not reach the great "voiceless masses" who do the 
 fighting. I do not mean that the average man 
 does not agree that peace is to be preferred to 
 war, but of what avail is a mild intellectual oppo- 
 sition to war, when the heart cries "come." In- 
 tellectual appeals do not reach the mass, and per- 
 suade even "intellectuals" only until the next war 
 approaches, when all the mental checks are swept 
 to one side. 
 
 Pacifists, more than any group of reformers,
 
 200 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 have committed what psychologists call the "in- 
 tellectualist fallacy." Every pacifist argues the 
 merits of peace. The American Association for 
 International Conciliation is a representative 
 peace society, and its tactics are those of the peace 
 organizations the world over. For more than 
 ten years it has been rationally educating the 
 world for peace by putting the leading "jurists 
 and economists of the world at work in the service 
 of humanity to ascertain just what have been and 
 are the legal and economic incidents of wae, 
 
 AND JUST WHAT ARE THE LEGAL AND ECONOMIC 
 ADVANTAGES TO FOLLOW UPON THE ORGANIZATION 
 OF THE WORLD INTO A SINGLE GROUP OF FRIENDLY 
 AND COOPERATING NATIONS BOUND TOGETHER BY 
 THE TIE OF A JUDICIAL SYSTEM RESTING UPON THE 
 MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS OF MANKIND." 
 
 This has been the program in general of all 
 pacifist propaganda. It is based upon the erro- 
 neous assumption that the underlying reason for 
 war, in fact the "only remaining obstacle to 
 peace!' is that men believe in the economic and 
 other advantages of the military system, and that 
 once this intellectual prop has been removed, 
 men will no longer see any sense in fighting. 
 This false view that men fight out of a finely cal- 
 culated economic hedonism, out of intellectual 
 persuasion of the advantages of war, has been the
 
 AN EMOTIONAL EQUIVALENT 201 
 
 Achilles tendon of all pacifist technique. As I 
 tried to show in my first chapter, the remote and 
 vaguely perceived causes of war may he economic, 
 or the ex-post-facto justification for it, may he 
 that certain henefits are incidental to war; hut 
 the great underlying current upon which these in- 
 tellectual perceptions float as mere huhhles which 
 burst in their impotence to modify the current 
 into spray that is swept along, the underlying 
 motives which actuate nations as nations to fight, 
 is that structure of emotional imperatives in hu- 
 man nature which finds in war its most satisfying 
 ohjectives. If then peace advocates are to de- 
 stroy the fundamental cause of war they must 
 direct their efforts to emotional persuasion, to the 
 task of providing an emotional equivalent for the 
 buoyant emotions upon which war rests. 
 
 I do not mean to say that leading pacifists do 
 not themselves admit the weakness of intellectual 
 persuasion for peace, but they have not acted 
 absolutely upon their recognition of this. Dr. 
 Nicholas Murray Butler, for example, admits 
 that "it is astonishing how even men of the 
 highest intelligence and the largest responsibility 
 will be swept off their feet in regard to inter- 
 national matters at some moment of strong na- 
 tional feeling or on the occasion of some incident 
 which appeals powerfully to the sentiments or
 
 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 the passions of the people. At the very moment 
 when the nation most needs the guidance of its 
 sober-minded leaders of opinion, that guidance 
 is likely to be found wanting. . . . One who 
 wishes to know how difficult it is to acquire the 
 international mind in the presence of a great 
 wave of national feeling has only to read this im- 
 portant paper by Mr. Adams" (on the Trent 
 Affair). 
 
 An interesting illustration of the failure of the 
 "intellectualist pacifism" appeared in one of our 
 foremost magazines. Several years ago Norman 
 Angell wrote his epoch making work — "The 
 Great Illusion," which was generally accepted by 
 economists all over the world. In speaking of 
 Alsace-Lorraine ]Mr. Angell maintained that, 
 "the whole notion of national possession benefit- 
 ing the individual is founded upon mystification, 
 upon an illusion. Germanj^ conquered France 
 and annexed Alsace-Lorraine. The "Germans" 
 consequently "own" it and enrich themselves with 
 the newly acquired wealth. That is my critic's 
 view as it is the view of most European states- 
 men; and it is all false. Alsace-Lorraine is 
 
 OWNED BY ITS INHABITANTS AND NOBODY ELSE; 
 
 AND Germany with all her ruthlessness has 
 NOT BEEN able TO DISPOSSESS THEM. . . . Prus- 
 sia the conqueror pays just as much and no less
 
 AN EMOTIONAL EQUIVALENT 203 
 
 than Alsace the conquered who, if she were not 
 paying this $5,600,000 (taxes) to Germany, 
 would be paying it, or according to my critic a 
 much larger sum to France ; and if Germany did 
 not own Alsace-Lorraine she would be relieved of 
 charges that amount not to five but many more 
 millions. The change of ownership does not 
 therefore of itself change the money position of 
 either owner or owned. . . . Thus we realize 
 that when Germany has 'captured' Alsace-Lor- 
 raine she has captured a province worth 'cash 
 value' in my critic's phrase, $330,000,000. 
 What we overlook is that Germany has also cap- 
 tured the people who own the property and who 
 continue to own it. We have multiplied by X 
 but we have overlooked the fact that we have had 
 to divide by X." 
 
 This economic truism seemed so obvious that 
 political economists were literally ashamed of 
 themselves for not having seen it before. And 
 yet to-day such an eminent publicist as Stephen 
 Brooks propounds the illusion all over again. In 
 an article in the North American Review he 
 insists — 
 
 "The soil of the lost provinces has made Ger- 
 many's fortunes. She has derived from it her 
 metallurgical ascendancy, the motive power for 
 her industries, her wealth, and as a conse-
 
 204j what is "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 quence her moral, military and political power." 
 . . . "In the fate of Alsace-Lorraine there is in- 
 volved nothing less than the industrial primacy 
 of Europe." 
 
 This position is the more absurd when we real- 
 ize that in the last 40 years while the ore deposits 
 were in the "possession" of Germany, it was a 
 protective tariff imposed upon the importation of 
 iron from Alsace by the French government it- 
 self, which kept the ore from flowing into France 
 which it would have done to the extent that 
 Frenchmen were willing to pay as much or more 
 for the ore than Germans. 
 
 The plan of abstract education as to the ad- 
 vantages of peace and the illusion of war, has 
 evidently proved ineffective. By persuading our 
 minds for peace we are rolling the stone of 
 Sisyphus which, after we have painfully rolled it 
 almost to the summit of the hill, suddenly breaks 
 from our grasp as we become aware of a great 
 emotional upheaval; we turn about heart-broken 
 only to follow the rock as it tears down and 
 crashes to the bottom again. 
 
 The future of the peace problem rests in the 
 creation of the international heart. This is 
 not a plea for emotionalism in our much vaunted 
 rational twentieth century, but a candid recogni- 
 tion of human nature as it is, and of the fact that
 
 AN EMOTIONAL EQUIVALENT «06 
 
 the cause of internationalism therefore will never 
 be realized until this simple truth has been taken 
 into account in shaping our peace propaganda. 
 What good is it to know that "sober-minded" 
 men are always swept off their feet by emotion in 
 time of crisis, if we dismiss this phenomenon and 
 proceed to pile up more arguments to "educate" 
 more thoroughly these sober minds? Is it that 
 they may surprise us even more at the next crisis ? 
 Knowing this it seems that we might sensibly 
 change our modus operandi instead of persisting 
 in propaganda which, we are continually being 
 reminded, is useless. 
 
 We must utilize the wonderfully powerful 
 emotional force that at present exists for war, in 
 the interests of peace by re-setting the emotional 
 associations in connection with which this un- 
 reasoning force evolves. When we have accom- 
 plished this, then all the argument in the world 
 will not avail to persuade us of the benefits of 
 war. When this change of heart takes place we 
 can then imagine the reverse situation becoming 
 common, namely, a nation although persuaded 
 intellectually of the economic or other disadvan- 
 tages of a certain military course being suddenly 
 swept off its feet for peace by the compelling 
 force of the emotional complex of international 
 honor.
 
 206 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 Now the technique by which a sentiment of in- 
 ternational honor can be created must be the 
 same as that which created the sentiment of 
 national honor. All of its characteristics will be 
 the same except that the geographical basis of 
 it will be enlarged to include humanity instead of 
 mere fragments of it. We have seen that na- 
 tional honor consists in a series of potentially 
 dramatic impulses consecrated by ideal symbols 
 and associations. Knowing the inductive steps 
 by which national honor came to be, our psycho- 
 logical experts can deductively work back from 
 a hypothetical sentiment of international honor to 
 supply a similar series of dramatic symbols and 
 associations for its sustenance. 
 
 To begin with we are taking over the term 
 honor which in itself has a great deal of psycho- 
 logic "good-will," and in creating the term inter- 
 national honor we cannot help transferring much 
 of the sacrosanct emotional associations which at- 
 tach to all other codes of honor. As we have 
 seen, national honor acquires most of its unrea- 
 soning intensity from the word "honor" rather 
 than from the prefix "national." This glamor 
 is given to us gratis, as it were, in laying the basis 
 for the new sentiment. 
 
 Our first real task, of course, is to provide the 
 political and physical basis for the "international"
 
 AN EMOTIONAL EQUIVALENT 207 
 
 part of international honor, that is some sort of 
 working federation of the family of nations. It 
 is for statesmen to supply the political machinery 
 for a federation which will not take away from 
 the separate states any more "sovereignty" than 
 is absolutely necessary for the creation of a work- 
 ing world federation. Without the physical 
 basis for a politically integrated humanity and an 
 outward internationalism, a sentiment of inter- 
 nationalism would hang in the air. Some out- 
 ward expression of international honor there must 
 be to which the new sentiment can attach itself 
 and begin to build up its emotional associative 
 ramifications. 
 
 A definite code of international law together 
 with a code of accepted principles of international 
 honor gleaned from the national codes, and ap- 
 proved by the international parliament, will pro- 
 vide a definite legal machinery around which still 
 further associations can build themselves. An 
 international police force will help to bring into 
 existence the "center" for our sentiment. The 
 more numerous the concrete reahties onto which 
 the sentiment can be grafted, the more abiding 
 will it be. An international postal system with 
 international stamps, an international unit of ex- 
 change, an international flag, symbols and songs, 
 all these would have an emotional value. The
 
 208 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 more frequently the man in the streets is made to 
 come into contact with the physical machinery 
 around which it is expected that he mold his sen- 
 timent of international honor, the more spon- 
 taneously will it arise. 
 
 After the present war the time will be ripe 
 for the shaping of this yet nebulous idea into 
 a comprehensive policy. And without question 
 this task seems to belong first to America. As 
 a matter of fact, she has already embarked on 
 this mission. In her resolve to "make the world 
 safe for democracy" she is consecrating her blood 
 and treasure not to an outworn ideal of national 
 selfishness, but to international honor. This is 
 her great justification. It has not as yet been 
 emphasized in just these terms, for the ideal al- 
 ways runs ahead of its conventional expression. 
 It will be for us, with our man of great heart and 
 great vision as America's spokesman, to give to 
 the world this new slogan, to make real, vital, and 
 emotionally valid by repeated utterances, and by 
 every device of reason, imagination and art, this 
 thing for which we are giving our lives. The 
 time is potent with spiritual vitality and emo- 
 tional glamor, which if rightly directed by states- 
 men throughout the world, may be made to em- 
 body itself in this international ideal. The high 
 task is already sanctified by the sufferings, the
 
 AN EMOTIONAL EQUIVALENT 209 
 
 sacrifices, the lives of millions of human beings. 
 It is but for leaders to turn to account this bap- 
 tism of life which is being poured upon humanity, 
 that the new birth to a greater humanity may 
 come into being; that this ideal of international 
 honor may be born to a conscious existence. 
 
 To expedite the process by which this new ir- 
 resistible slogan may come to be adopted in the 
 hearts of men, the idea of "advertising" seems out 
 of place. And yet if we wish to be practical, if 
 we wish to obtain results, we must recognize the 
 wisdom of "efficiency" as applied to the task of 
 popularizing an ideal yet new, just as we recog- 
 nize it in our efforts to place a new article on the 
 market. As I have said before we must take ad- 
 vantage of our knowledge of mass psychology. 
 Advertising seems a crude word and yet it was 
 by this means albeit unconscious, that our present 
 national honor sentiment became an irresistible 
 slogan against which reason stands helpless. So 
 it is for us to engage after the war in a mammoth 
 advertising campaign to put before the people of 
 the world the commodity of international honor, 
 to utilize every psychological device to appeal to 
 the sentiments, and to create inseparable ramify- 
 ing emotional associations around the ideal. 
 
 The possibilities for starting this ball of a 
 rational sentiment along a path in which it will
 
 210 WHAT IS "NATIONAL HONOR"? 
 
 be able to attract to itself emotional accretions, 
 are fertile and varied. The public school has its 
 opportunity to present to impressionable minds 
 the pictures of heroes of the present war with 
 some accompanying recognition of their heroism 
 not in defense of some country, but in defense of 
 international honor. To the artist who paints 
 the battlefield of the Marne, there is presented 
 another channel, for did not international 
 HONOR struggle for justification on that ground? 
 The interpretative privilege of the historian 
 should here be enlisted for the cause. A mu- 
 seum of INTERNATIONAL HONOR, Or a hall of IN- 
 TERNATIONAL HONOR wherein would be placed 
 figures of those men who have given their services 
 or their hves for things greater than national 
 honor, would serve a valuable purpose here. 
 Drama and moving pictures could strike new 
 emotional chords in response to this appeal of en- 
 lightened honor. Here would we beg the genius 
 of the magic pageant maker, Percy Mackaye, for 
 aid in the creation of a thing greater than com- 
 munity spirit, the international spmt. What 
 healing of the nations we might hope for if art, 
 music, drama and literature combined to work for 
 this end, that the new sentiment might be imbued 
 with dramatic and emotional associations, with 
 the emotional imperatives which, as I have shown,
 
 AN EMOTIONAL EQUIVALENT 211 
 
 inhere in human nature and have hitherto found 
 in national honor alone, consummate expression. 
 By emotional appeals only will the "interna- 
 tional heart" grow into being upon which in- 
 ternational honor will rest as upon the rock of 
 Gibraltar; for it is the heart, not the mind, 
 whence all honor impulses flow.
 
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 AN APPEAL TO AMERICANS OF GERMAN 
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 the Road to Peace 
 
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