JK 271 S559i SHOMLL A A ^ : I 8 \ 1 i 1 i 3 i 4 i 3 i INTELLIGENCE AM POLITICS THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES FROM THE LIBRARY OF FRANK J. KLINGBERG IIHillllHIMIIIIMIIMIIIIIItMIIHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMUMIIl/lllllllllllHllllllllllllllltKll/inillnillllllMIII MMiiMiiiiiiiNniniimiiuiffliiiMinHiiniiiMiiiiiitMiiHuiiiiiiiiniiMiniiii/iiniiiiiiiHiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiyfiuriiniMiiMiiiiiMiMi^ INTELLIGENCE | AND I POLITICS in- James T. Shotwell Professor of History in Columbia University NFAV YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1021 iniiiiiMiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinmiiiiiiiiiiiii^^ INTELLIGENCE AND POLITICS BY James T. Shotwell . / . . . • Professor of History in~^»lutnhia University Member American Delegation to Negotiate Peace, etc. NEW YORK THE^CENTURY CO. -^- 1921 Copyright, 1921, by The Century Co. Jv PREFACE The phrase "to make the world safe for democracy" has become a by-word for cynics; and for this the optimists are to blame. They failed to appreciate the dimensions of the task. But the task itself is, if anything, more valid than ever, by reason of the added danger of disillusionment; and unless some definite effort is forthcoming to make good the failure, the cynic will be justified by more than an eclipse of ideals. There are large sections of the civilized world threatened with the loss of their heritage of culture, countries where the guar- anty no longer holds that has safeguarded through more his- tories than our own, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Now these are imperilled. The strain upon the fabric of civ- ilization is almost at the breaking point, and the nation that remains complacently indifferent to such conditions but adds to its danger. It is, however, less because the problems of democracy are so pressing than because the means for dealing with them are still undeveloped, that the following pages have been writ- ten. They contain no program of anticipatory solutions, but are limited to the suggestion of devices for appreciating ex- perience. It is surely worth while to see if the political ma- chinery already in operation can be adapted to further uses and ultimately be made effective to the point of meeting the great emergency. 1630,382 TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE I. The Hesitation in the First Phase of the War 7 II. "Patriotism Is Not Enough" 10 III. Tests 14 IV. A Nation's Intelligence 21 V, Applied Political Science 26 VI. Parties and Prejudices 34 VII. Parties and Facts 37 VIII. The Alternatives 42 IX. Democracy and Public Morality 45 INTELLIGENCE AND POLITICS THE HESITATION IN THE FIRST PHASE OF THE WAR To those in Washington during the Spring and Summer of 1917, who were in a position to watch the United States adjust itself for war, there was presented one of the most sobering experiences ever afforded to the student of history. At first, as we all know, there was a strong emotional response to the call to arms. The quarrel that had been thrust upon us had been taken up in a spirit that appealed to the nobler instincts of the nation and the cause was made one with the century-long struggle of democracy for its place in the sun. Of a sudden it was seen that the decision which had been taken, placed before us a task like that at the founding of the nation. Democracy, then established, was now to be safeguarded, not only here, but throughout the world. Although we could but dimly sense the future, the fact that the American flag — with all its associations of republican history — was to be carried to the battle-lines of Europe, stirred within us the inspiration that comes from the consciousness of great responsibility. The names of Washington and Lincoln were evoked to witness the kin- ship of our spirit with that of the heroic past. There are no instruments or methods known to the social sciences by which to measure the extent of this emo- tional response to the President's war-message. History will have to rest satisfied with the casual evidence of a limited number of personal experiences. The nation was probably almost as much startled as it was inspired. But whether it caught its breath from surprise or an awed sense of new duty, there is no doubt but that its first response was one of acceptance. Then came a reaction. As the first impulse died away and it became necessary to translate inspiration into action, the country began to show signs of bewilderment and to demand explanations and facts. So serious a change set in during the latter part of April and the entire month of May, that the very fate of the country seemed to hang in the balance. This is fairly well known to every one who reads the newspapers, but to those engaged upon the task of keeping the nation to its purpose the situation devel- oped most compelling duties. Thousands of letters poured daily into those offices of the Government upon which devolved the task of setting forth its ideals and purposes. They came from all parts of the country, but more especially from the West and the Middle West, where the European War had not seemed so much a part of our affairs as in the East. They came from all classes of citizens, from young men of military age — wanting to know just why they might be called upon to serve ; from fathers and mothers asking the same question for their sons; insistent, pathetically insistent, upon their need for information as to the issue involved in the war; wanting to know just what would make the world safe for democracy. The writers of these letters were asking about things they had never troubled about before. They had suddenly discovered that the horizon of our national life had widened ; and they wanted to know, most of them probably for the first time, what it was now to include. They were not at all sure that these unfamiliar things concerned them. American political life — like that of most other nations, is still parochial. One's own home is the natural starting point for the interest in the rest of the world, political or physical ; and in America, most of these homes have been made by those who live in them ; our citizens have had a share in a great creative work, building by their own efforts the communities as well as the houses in which they live. They are willing to admit that — as they used to say in the Germany of a kindlier day — "over the hills there are still people" ; but so far the only people about whom they have had to concern themselves have been people of the same kind, intent upon doing a day's work, and minding their own business. Now these people were writing to Wash- ington to find out why the bottom had dropped out of things. They w'ere called upon to join an enterprise which seemed removed as far as possible from their own affairs. There was no lack of good will. From the most remote villages men were ready to offer themselves for the supreme sacrifice on behalf of that mystical sovereign of our whim- sical democracy — Uncle Sam. They would go, if Uncle Sam really needed them. But they asked to be shown how and why he needed them. They wanted facts ; and until they had them they were not sure themselves how far their patriotic duty ran. That is the way the war came to the towns and country of America. The evidence of hesitation in the second phase, which became painfully clear to observers in Washington, was borne out by an analysis of the press of the country. In such a condition of doubt it was naturally impossible to feel assured of the readiness of the nation to go on, whole- heartedly and successfully, with the struggle. And, among those responsible for the conduct of affairs, there was some evidence of a pessimism or uncertainty, which in turn re- acted upon the country at large. For a time the situation was such as to cause alarm in the minds of those who had definitely committed themselves to the policy of interven- tion. Fortunately, this pessimism w^as not justified. Faced with the necessity for action, once the decision had been made, the great mass of the citizens of the United States felt themselves called upon to defend the honor of their country, to "see it through" ; and, while not all sharing the full ardor of conviction, shouldered their burden with but slight complaint. In crises like these a nation reveals the elements of its weakness ; but it is a revelation which we tend to overlook because we are so anxiously intent upon finding evidences of its strength and power of achievement. Then, as soon as we begin actually to accomplish anything, we are so busy making good that we have no time to turn back and analyze our failures. Afterwards, we trick ourselves in order to save our self-respect; and allow our historians to arrange the retrospect, so that future generations will not guess how infirm of purpose we were at a vital moment ; how near the nation might have been to moral disaster. It is possible to fool history ; it has been fooled steadily, from the royal annals of the Pharaohs to those of the Hohen- zollerns. Wherever the elements of a great story are woven together by the art of the narrator, the unheroic tends to disappear from the narrative. But the history of the pres- ent war does not yet belong to the realm of art. We can wait awhile for the epic. Fooling history has little bearing upon the present; but fooling ourselves is a different mat- ter. The worst of all blunders is self-delusion. "PATRIOTISM IS NOT ENOUGH" As a matter of fact we did not solve the problem which the first phase of our war presented — that of securing the direct adherence of a great democracy to a policy which demanded that it make sacrifices for things beyond the clear range of its interest. 10 In place of a solution, we fell back upon something that did not demand thought, something so primitive and so much a part of our natures as to belong rather to instinct than to ideas — simple, pure loyalty to "Uncle Sam." The rough mountaineering moonshiner who brought along the gun he used to have ready for government revenue officers, because he thought "Uncle Sam might need him," was but a more romantic figure in a nation-wide movement. This ancient loyalty, so far as one can see, saved the day, rather than a clarified idea of the reasons for the war. Valuable as such a sentiment may be, it is not as sound an element of national life to rely upon in a crisis as this experience might lead one to suppose. If the loyalty is unquestioning, it may be deceived ; if it questions it may falter. Disaster may front either alternative. Indeed, it is hardly too much to say that the disaster of the world war came through the failure to recognize that patriotism itself is not enough. Patriotism unquestioning confers power with irresponsibility upon Government ; and out of that finest metal of the soul, in which sacrifice tempers courage, the irresponsible State may forge the weapons of conquest and rapine. There is little likelihood that we shall follow the ex- ample of Germany, the Germany of 1914, and imperil our liberties by excess of loyalty. We have too much of the spirit of independence for that — an independence bred first of the adventure of the frontier, and then impressed upon our character by the opportunities for individual enterprise which go with the opening up of a continent. It is well, to be sure, to be upon our guard on this point, seeing how incredibly an intelligent people like the Germans have sur- rendered to irresponsible leadership and how careless many of our "best citizens" are of political responsibility. But, in spite of the growth of power in the hands of our execu- tives, state and city as well as federal — a tendency not witli- out its dangers — there remains a healthy attitude of crit 11 cism toward our officials, which finds sufficient expression to keep the administration continually aware of its proper subordination to the popular will. The contrast between the attitude of the country toward the President in the opening months of the war with that toward him after the war was over illustrates this point very well indeed. The country supported Mr. Wilson when he went to war, although it had apparently elected him largely in the belief that he would keep us out of it, because the President made it clear that he was closely observant of popular feeling. No one then thought of evoking the ancient safeguards of our Constitution against the tyranny of government ; for there is underlying the Constitution itself a sort of "social contract" between gov- ernment and the people which keeps even a war-president, with all his power, to some degree, a responsive as well as a responsible head of a nation. But popular feeling in war time is a vastly different thing from popular feeling in time of peace. In war time the current flows one way, and, above all, the call for common action is directed towards another State — the enemy is without. In time of peace, diversity of opinion and of policy makes the problem of responsible Presidential leadership distinctly more different — to the point indeed where one may question if it is possible. Divergent views on the major questions of the day may be sustained as earnestly by sections of the country as the principles for which it engages in war. It is this very complexity of the national life, and the variety of its interests, which furnish the chief security against encroachments of power by an Executive. Criticism de- velops automatically in such a situation, and the American people are nothing, if not critical. We are not likely soon to imitate the folly of Germany ; we are too little given to the discipline of obedience to be- come subservient. But the other alternative is a real 12 danger. It is in the guise of "Liberty" that anarchy mas- querades. Anarchy itself as an article of faith is far removed from the temperament of the people. There is too strong a belief in the efficiency of the Constitution for such a creed to make much headway. But it is not the formal doctrine of anarchy which is mainly to be feared. It is that simple practice of taking the law into one's own hands, which is almost as distinctively an American ele- ment of social practice as bureaucratic regularity is Ger- man. Self-help in the relatively unformed societies of the frontier States — where personalities, rather than institu- tions, embody law and order — was a vastly diiTerent thing from the breakdown of institutions in the mature and im- personal society of the business world which moves today. Behind the frontier practices there lay after all, some appreciation of that subtle bond of mutual trust, that social contract which underlies our whole political structure, for the men to whom fell the responsibility of leadership had been bred in communities w^here the traditions of political life were deeply rooted. On the other hand, the immigrants who have poured in by millions into the country during the last generation have seldom any such background of experi- ence. Their appreciation of liberty is only outwardly the same as that of the older American stock ; and there is nothing more difficult to acquire than the sense of balance between self and society, which is the American idea of a free community. The European war — especially in its earlier stages — revealed how many there were in this country who had not yet grasped it. Students in our uni- versities, whose ancestors had suffered under the Czars, interpreted the troubles of our colonial era as though the subjects of George III had faced circumstances almost as distressful as those of Ivan the Terrible. Others recalled the cowed populace of Austria under Metternich. They had no suspicion of the stern insuppressible spirit of the Puritan, or the unsubdued independence of the frontier. 13 They did not know what constructive freedom means. For such Americans there is no unwritten Constitution which steadies our loyalty by securing our liberties. Loyalty is the emotion of patriotism ; and "patriotism is not enough," The last words of Edith Cavell should ring out as a warning in days like these. The country is not safe which relies upon patriotism alone to tide it over its crises — and the crises which the war has brought are by no means over. TESTS History shows that the trial of war is always a double one; the hardest test is generally in the readjustment after- ward. In the case of most great wars, one can definitely trace this second struggle of society to re-attain the equilibrium of peace. The Hundred Years' War cost France two centuries more of such readjustment. In the thirteenth century French civilization had reached almost the threshold of modern times. It had practically attained the degree of political development which it had three hundred years later when Richelieu organized the admin- istrative structure of today. Between that earlier dawn of politics, that day of Gothic art, when the great medieval cathedrals were building in every busy city, when the Uni- versity of Paris was begun, when the law courts settled in the royal palace, and lawyers began to rule in the name of even such a king as St. Louis — between that day and the time of Richelieu stretches a story of tragic import. It shows the moral as well as the physical and intellectual decline of a nation under the stress or menace of war. There was the devastation by the bandit-soldiery who helped to win the war for the King, but who learned to defy the royal power once it had become dependent. Then the rival houses of Burgundy, and Armagnac, profiteers of anarchy, 14 terrorized the land by every crime in the calendar. In the following age, even in the name of religion, the Guises and the Bourbons kept the country in anarchy and ruin. In short, for almost three centuries France made little progress, unable to recover from the effects of one war until its evil consequences had bred another. German history can offer similar tribute to the blasting after-effects of war. Not to go back to the Middle Ages, so filled with illustrations of the backward, brutalizing nature of the so-called "chivalry", take only the results of the Thirty Years' War, when the strength of Germany was so wasted that it was benumbed for a century, unable to produce a single work of literature worth recording, or at least fit to rank with the great classics in German speech. Whether a nation is bled white or bleeds itself, its loss in vitality is all the same. It is unnecessary to follow in detail such instances as these. But it is surely pertinent at the close of this war to recall the dark, stifling years of Europe after Waterloo — the mad revanche on the part of those whom the Revolution and Empire had dispossessed, the suffering of the helpless poor to which Blue Books bear tragic witness, the foolish suppression of thought by governments still feeling them- selves insecure, and the long delay of reform, which the exhausted nations tolerated rather than suffer from another upheaval. History has no surer generalization to offer than that war leaves the gravest issues still to be fought for. Of these two tests, moreover, it is the second one, that which comes after the fighting is over, which tries our stamina most severely. It is a test of moral character, after all the enthusiasm has been burned out in the war itself. It leaves us to march to our goal with no bands playing, no flags flying, no inspiriting comradeship keeping step. The orders are by no means clear; we are left to our own devices and the confusion of divided counsels. Tired out 15 when we begin, from the exhaustion of the war itself, at a moment when we need every ounce of strength for the new demands upon our energy, we face a crisis of the gravest sort. We have not only to safeguard the issues fought for, but to re-adjust ourselves from the fighting; to take up in the post-war period the problems which have accumulated upon our hands during the period when we had no time to consider them. This is the hardest test which can be set before the nation, and history has so far, in every instance, had to record a measure of defeat. It makes little differ- ence whether a nation has been victorious or vanquished; though the failure is of a different kind. In conquered states, as Machievelli pointed out, seditions arise; but the conquerors suffer hardly less in frustrated ambitions and distorted ideals. The case of our own history after the Civil War is to the point. Not only was there the sad blundering of Reconstruction, in which the temperate statesmanship of Lincoln was lost to sight in the ardor of partisanship, but public office became the spoil of placemen. Soldiers, sometimes but poorly qualified to assume the con- trol of the intricate mechanism of civil government, became the administrators of the nation's business. And that busi- ness was at its lowest ebb. Among the many misleading things that history has been guilty of, there is perhaps nothing worse than that it should have treated war as a purely military event ; for the displacement which war causes in the process of civilization is an essential part of war history. And, unless the whole period of reconstruction is measured as part of the event of war itself, we shall never come to any clear understand- ing of the catastrophe. So long as the actual fighting is in progress, the stimulation of war activities, regardless of cost, brings out a delusive appearance of prosperity in industry and every phase of national production. The pinch comes only with the close of the war, when the forced 16 markets no longer buy and the process of deflation sets in with its menace of bankruptcy. This is more than an economic fact, for in the uncertainties of a declining market there is little foothold for altruism and high ideals. With hardship and unemployment brought to one's door, the interests of the world outside grow more and more remote. It is a notable fact that where the sense of insecurity, economic or political, dominates in national outlook, there is little chance for enlightened statesmanship. Insecurity raises at once the question of self-interest and self-interest under such circumstances quickly passes over into pure, unenlightened selfishness. This is a vicious circle, for selfishness almost invariably defeats its own ends. It may be as much an enemy of public welfare in dictating policies of aloofness and protected isolation as in the more obvious and aggressive form of economic imperialism. Indeed it is doubtful whether withdrawal from international co-opera- tion in the avenues of trade at a time when it is most needed is not a greater impediment to recovery than participation prompted by the hope of gain. In any case both policies are likely to unmask the unlovely forms of national greed in the unhealthy atmosphere of post-war days. The sense of insecurity is also responsible to some ex- tent for a tendency for one aspect of war itself to be pro- longed after the fighting is over. Militarism has come to the fore for something like a generation after every great war in history. Military heroes tend to monopolize the political scene, often ill-equipped for the problems of the peaceful life. This is not simply due to hero-worship, as has been so lightly assumed. It also springs from a sense of the uncertainties of disturbed international relations and the unsettled state of society at home. Where the ordered processes of civilization seem ineflfective, people turn to those strong and forceful characters who will not hesitate in time of crisis. Militarism (including navalism) is a 17 short cut to safety. Like selfishness, it is dangerous in pro- portion as it lives upon fear and the sense of insecurity; for, so war tends to perpetuate itself. More serious than the growth of militarism, however, is the failure of liberalism, a failure which seems inevitably to follow war. If there ever was a time when forward- looking, constructive liberalism was needed, it is surely in times like these. For liberalism offers a solvent to those problems which arise when new and old forces meet ; it is the mediating force between the conservative appreciation of what society has already achieved and the impatience of radicalism over what is left undone. It registers the con- stant adjustment of the social structure to the play and counterplay of policies or facts. It is a strange paradox that a movement which has this element of compromise in its very make up seems to acquire in time of war the unad- justable character of the doctrinaire, holding to its ideals of progress and reform in spite of impossible conditions, blind to expediency and to the interests of the state. The result has been its own discomfiture and the resultant lessening of the adjustability of society to the needs of the day. This eclipse of liberalism is perhaps best seen in the way in which the two ideals of nationalism and liberty have thrown aside the restraints of responsibility and become an explosive force of decentralization and chaos. It is a hard blow to liberals to see the smaller people of mid-Europe, for whose freedom the allies fought, endangering the heritage of a thousand years of European culture by erect- ing impassable frontiers and cherishing behind them more of ancient, tribal hatred than of a sense of that world citi- zenship in whose name their liberties were evoked. Self- determination proved to be a most dangerous shibboleth, and to lend itself in the hands of immature peoples to the most grotesque demands of sovereignty. 18 Finally, the menace most in evidence, th^ Revolutionary movement of radicalism, is perhaps less menacing by itself than as a result of the others. In the period of deflation there is likely to be more suffering by the working class than protest. Unemployment brings a sense of helpless- ness rather than of belligerency. But, if the situation is not intelligently met and only oppressive measures are taken when protests do arrive, we shall all suffer for it. Whatever happens in America it is well to recognize that Bolshevism is but the extravagant aspect of the most pro- found change that European society has undergone since 1789, when France threw off the structure of the Middle Ages. Whatever we may think of it, the proletariat in every country there has been watching with deepest inter- est the spectacle of the docile, ignorant peasantry of Russia arousing itself to what has been hailed as the vastest social- istic experiment ever brought to the verge of reality. Even while discounting the success of that experiment and re- fusing to enlist in the Third International at the behest of Lenine, the leaders of revolution in the western area can still command large forces of their own, and if no outlet is offered through the agencies which the State supplies, they will sooner or latter bring disorders within it. The menace in this movement is less in America than in older and more organized societies, for this country is still, upon the whole, the land of opportunity. If, how- ever, opportunity should be unduly curtailed, the tide of revolt piles up behind the impediments and bursts out in strikes, in riots, and in the danger of civil w'ar. That very spirit of independence in our democracy, to which reference has been made, makes ever ready an insubordination and defiance of constituted authority, and lends to our labor troubles a peculiarly sinister aspect. So far we have attempted to meet this situation armed with little else than the emotion of patriotism. We have struck instinctively rather than intelligently at radicalism, 19 failing to see that there must be something more substan- tial in the faith of our democracy than mere reliance upon the old-fashioned loyalty to "Uncle Sam," if it is to be proof against the allurements of the demagogue. For the world has so lost its moorings, that the distant illusive shores of Utopia sometimes seem almost in sight ; and well- meaning, earnest men are ready to risk even ship-wreck to reach them. High aspirations are not infrequently the cause of disaster. And if the breath of the new day, which has given life to aspirations for world democracy, stirs as well the embers of a revolt against the whole social struc- ture, no simple emotions of patriotism will be proof against it as it bursts into flame. There must be something more than loyalty to old traditions in our citizenship. Apart from the fact that great numbers of our citizens have no share in those traditions, the ideal of international solidarity along the lines of economic interest seems, to many, a sounder principle of society than that of the old-fashioned patriotism. Socialism cannot be disposed of by emotions. The test of war has shown that some of the constructive features of its program have been adapted to suit the needs of most of the European States. It is no longer a mere philosophy of doctrinaires ; it is one of the real facts of a very real world. National oversight and control of public utilities is a policy with very elastic possibilities of applica- tion. The problem is one to be faced and studied intelli- gently, not left to prejudice and impulse to decide. The extension of Government control over the economic ma- chinery of the modern world is a process so general and so insistently demanded that, whether one names it socialism or not, it is one of the most decisive features of political life today. The more one watches this development, how- ever, the more one sees how poor and frail a thing is mere patriotic emotion to steady our democracy in the face of the experiments which it seems sure to try, and to save it from the folly of extremes. 20 A NATION'S INTELLIGENCE We have talked about preparedness, but the best de- fences are still unprovided. The strongest weapon in a nation's armory is intelligence ; its most formidable force is knowledge under control. If these are not available, we are unprepared for emergencies. The only safety l