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diff --git a/34890-h/34890-h.htm b/34890-h/34890-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fbff8bd --- /dev/null +++ b/34890-h/34890-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7454 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Proclaim Liberty!, by Gilbert Seldes. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + p { margin-top: .5em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .5em; + text-indent: 1em; + } + h1 { + text-align: center; font-family: garamond, serif; /* all headings centered */ + } + h5,h6 { + text-align: center; font-family: garamond, serif; /* all headings centered */ + } + h2 { + text-align: center; font-family: garamond, serif; /* all headings centered */ + } + h3 { + text-align: center; font-family: garamond, serif; /* all headings centered */ + } + h4 { + text-align: center; font-family: garamond, serif; /* all headings centered */ + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + a {text-decoration: none} /* no lines under links */ + hr.wide {margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em; width: 25%; color: black;} + div.centered {text-align: center;} /* work around for IE centering with CSS problem part 1 */ + div.centered table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;} /* work around for IE centering with CSS problem part 2 */ + + .cen {text-align: center; text-indent: 0em;} /* centering paragraphs */ + .sc {font-variant: small-caps;} /* small caps */ + .noin {text-indent: 0em;} /* no indenting */ + .hang {text-indent: -2em;} /* hanging indents */ + .note {margin-left: 2em; margin-right: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} /* footnote */ + .block {margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;} /* block indent */ + .block2 {margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%;} /* block indent */ + .block3 {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 20%;} /* block indent */ + .right {text-align: right; padding-right: 2em;} /* right aligning paragraphs */ + .right2 {text-align: right; padding-right: 2em; font-size: 110%;} /* right aligning paragraphs */ + .totoc {position: absolute; right: 2%; font-size: 75%; text-align: right;} /* Table of contents anchor */ + .img {text-align: center; padding: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} /* centering images */ + .tdr {text-align: right;} /* right align cell */ + .tdl {text-align: left; padding-left: 1em;} /* left align cell */ + .tr {margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; margin-top: 5%; margin-bottom: 5%; padding: 1em; background-color: #f6f2f2; color: black; border: dotted black 1px;} /* transcriber's notes */ + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; right: 2%; + font-size: 75%; + color: gray; + background-color: inherit; + text-align: right; + text-indent: 0em; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal;} /* page numbers */ + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 90%;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right; font-size: 90%;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: text-top; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Proclaim Liberty!, by Gilbert Seldes + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Proclaim Liberty! + +Author: Gilbert Seldes + +Release Date: January 8, 2011 [EBook #34890] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PROCLAIM LIBERTY! *** + + + + +Produced by Curtis Weyant, Jeannie Howse and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<div class="tr"> +<p class="cen" style="font-weight: bold;">Transcriber's Note:</p> +<br /> +<p class="noin">Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has been preserved.</p> +<p class="noin" style="text-align: left;">Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. +For a complete list, please see the <span style="white-space: nowrap;"><a href="#TN">end of this document</a>.</span></p> +</div> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h1>PROCLAIM LIBERTY!</h1> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h3>ALSO by GILBERT SELDES</h3> +<br /> +<h4>On Related Subjects</h4> +<br /> + +<p class="noin" style="margin-left: 35%;"> + Your Money and Your Life<br /> + Mainland<br /> + The Years of the Locust<br /> + Against Revolution<br /> + The Stammering Century<br /> + The Seven Living Arts<br /> + The United States and the War (London, 1917)<br /> + This is America (Moving Picture)</p> + +<br /> +<h3>AND</h3> +<br /> + +<p class="noin" style="margin-left: 35%;"> + The Movies Come From America<br /> + The Movies and the Talkies<br /> + The Future of Drinking<br /> + The Wings of the Eagle<br /> + Lysistrata (A Modern Version)</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<h1><i>Proclaim</i></h1> + +<h1>LIBERTY!</h1> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h3><i>By</i></h3> + +<h3>GILBERT SELDES</h3> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<p class="noin" style="margin-left: 35%;">Proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the<br /> +inhabitants thereof; it shall be a jubilee unto them....</p> +<p class="right" style="margin-right: 35%;">Leviticus xxv, 10.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<div class="img"> +<img border="0" src="images/deco.png" width="10%" alt="Publisher's Mark" /> +</div> + +<h5>THE GREYSTONE PRESS<br /> +NEW YORK</h5> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA<br /> +BY THE WILLIAM BYRD PRESS, INC.<br /> +RICHMOND, VIRGINIA</h4> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4><span class="sc">To the Children</span><br /> +who will have<br /> +to live in the world<br /> +we are making</h4> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<h3>ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS</h3> +<br /> + +<div class="block2"> +<p>Thanks are given to the Macmillan Company for their permission to +quote several paragraphs from Arthur Koestler's <i>Darkness at Noon</i> in +my first chapter. <i>The Grand Strategy</i> by H.A. Sargeaunt and Geoffrey +West, referred to in chapter two, is published by Thomas Y. Crowell +Co.</p> + +<p class="right">G.S.</p> +</div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="toc" id="toc"></a><hr /> +<br /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> +<br /> + +<div class="centered"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="65%" summary="Table of Contents"> + <tr> + <td class="tdr" width="20%"> </td> + <td class="tdl" width="60%"> </td> + <td class="tdr" width="20%" style="font-size: 90%;">PAGE</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</a></td> + <td class="tdl">TOTAL VICTORY</td> + <td class="tdr">13</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</a></td> + <td class="tdl">STRATEGY FOR THE CITIZEN</td> + <td class="tdr">29</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</a></td> + <td class="tdl">UNITED...?</td> + <td class="tdr"> 44</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</a></td> + <td class="tdl">"THE STRATEGY OF TRUTH"</td> + <td class="tdr">61</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</a></td> + <td class="tdl">THE FORGOTTEN DOCUMENT</td> + <td class="tdr">77</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</a></td> + <td class="tdl">"THE POPULATION OF THESE STATES"</td> + <td class="tdr">92</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</a></td> + <td class="tdl">ADDRESS TO EUROPE</td> + <td class="tdr">111</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</a></td> + <td class="tdl">THE SCIENCE OF SHORT WAVE</td> + <td class="tdr">119</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX</a></td> + <td class="tdl">DEFINITION OF AMERICA</td> + <td class="tdr">129</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X</a></td> + <td class="tdl">POPULARITY AND POLITICS</td> + <td class="tdr">156</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI</a></td> + <td class="tdl">THE TOOLS OF DEMOCRACY</td> + <td class="tdr">163</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII</a></td> + <td class="tdl">DEMOCRATIC CONTROL</td> + <td class="tdr">170</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII</a></td> + <td class="tdl">THE LIBERTY BELL</td> + <td class="tdr">199</td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h2>PROCLAIM LIBERTY!</h2> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CHAPTER I</h3> + +<h2>Total Victory</h2> +<br /> + +<p>The peril we are in today is this:</p> + +<p>For the first time since we became a nation, a power exists strong +enough to destroy us.</p> + +<p>This book is about the strength we have to destroy our enemies—where +it lies, what hinders it, how we can use it. It is not about +munitions, but about men and women; it deals with the unity we have to +create, the victory we have to win; it deals with the character of +America, what it has been and is and will be. And since character is +destiny, this book is about the destiny of America.</p> + +<p>The next few pages are in the nature of counter-propaganda. With the +best of motives, and the worst results, Americans for months after +December 7, 1941, said that Pearl Harbor was a costly blessing because +it united all Americans and made us understand why the war was +inevitable. A fifty-mile bus trip outside of New York—perhaps even a +subway ride within its borders—would have proved both of these +statements blandly and dangerously false. American unity could not be +made in Japan; like most other imports from that country, it was a +cheap imitation, lasting a short time, and costly in the long run; and +recognition of the nature of the war can never come as the result of +anything but a realistic analysis of our own purposes as well as those +of our enemies.</p> + +<p>What follows is, obviously, the work of a citizen, not a specialist. +For some twenty years I have observed the sources of American unity +and dispersion; during the past fifteen years my stake in the future +of American liberty has been the most important thing in my life, as +it is the most important thing in the life of anyone whose children +will live in the world we are now creating. I am therefore not +writing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>frivolously, or merely to testify to my devotion; I am +writing to persuade—to uncover sources of strength which others may +have overlooked, to create new weapons, to stir new thoughts. If I +thought the war for freedom could be won by writing lies, I would +write lies. I am afraid the war will be lost if we do not face the +truth, so I write what I believe to be true about America—about its +past and present and future, meaning its history and character and +destiny—but mostly about the present, with only a glance at our +forgotten past, and a declaration of faith in the future which is, I +hope, the inevitable result of our victory.</p> + +<p>We know the name and character of our enemy—the Axis; but after +months of war we are not entirely convinced that it intends to destroy +us because we do not see why it has to destroy us. Destroy; not +defeat. The desperate war we are fighting is still taken as a gigantic +maneuvre; obviously the Axis wants to "win" battles and dictate "peace +terms". We still use these phrases of 1918, unaware that the purpose +of Axis war is not defeat of an enemy, but destruction of his national +life. We have seen it happen in France and Poland and Norway and +Holland; but we cannot imagine that the Nazis intend actually to +appoint a German Governor General over the Mississippi Valley, a +Gauleiter in the New England provinces, and forbid us to read +newspapers, go to the movies or drink coffee; we cannot believe that +the Axis intends to destroy the character of America, annihilating the +liberties our ancestors fought for, and the level of comfort which we +cherished so scrupulously in later generations. In moments of pure +speculation, when we wonder what would happen "at worst", we think of +a humiliating defeat on land and sea, bombardment of our cities, +surrender—and a peace conference at which we and Britain agree to pay +indemnities; perhaps, until we pay off, German and Japanese soldiers +would be quartered in our houses, police our streets; but we assume +that after the "shooting war" was over, they would not ravish our +women.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Victory</i> (<i>Axis Model</i>)<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span></p> + +<p>All this is the war of 1918. In 1942 the purpose of Axis victory is +the destruction of the American system, the annihilation of the +financial and industrial power of the United States, the reduction of +this country to an inferior position in the world and the enslavement +of the American people by depriving them of their liberty and of their +wealth. The actual physical slavery of the American people and the +deliberate taking over of our factories and farms and houses and motor +cars and radios are both implied in an Axis victory; the enslavement +is automatic, the robbery of our wealth will depend on Axis economic +strategy: if we can produce more <i>for them</i> by remaining in technical +possession of our factories, they will let us keep them.</p> + +<p>We cannot believe this is so because we see no reason for it. Our +intentions toward the German and Italian people are not to enslave and +impoverish; on the contrary, we think of the defeat of their leaders +as the beginning of liberty. We do not intend to make Venice a +tributary city, nor Essen a factory town run by American government +officials. We may police the streets of Berlin until a democratic +government proves its strength by punishing the SS and the Gestapo, +until the broken prisoners of Dachau return in whatever triumph they +can still enjoy. But our basic purpose is still to defeat the armed +forces of the Axis and to insure ourselves against another war by the +creation of free governments everywhere.</p> + +<p>(Neither the American people nor their leaders have believed that a +responsible peaceable government can be erected <i>now</i> in Japan. Toward +the Japanese our unclarified intentions are simple: annihilation of +the power, to such an extent that it cannot rise again—as a military +or a commercial rival. The average citizen would probably be glad to +hand over to the Chinese the job of governing Japan.)</p> + +<p>Fortunately, the purposes of any war alter as the war goes <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>on; as we +fight we discover the reasons for fighting and the intensity of our +effort, the cost of victory, the danger of defeat, all compel us to +think desperately about the kind of peace for which we are fighting. +The vengeful articles of the treaty of Versailles were written after +the Armistice by politicians; the constructive ones were created +during the war, and it is quite possible that they would have been +accepted by Americans if the United States had fought longer and +therefore thought longer about them.</p> + +<p>We shall probably have time to think out a good peace in this war. But +we will not create peace of any kind unless we know why an Axis peace +means annihilation for us; and why, at the risk of defeat in the field +and revolution at home, the Axis powers had to go to war on the United +States.</p> + +<p>If we impose our moral ideas upon the future, the attack on Pearl +Harbor will stand as the infamous immediate cause of the war; by Axis +standards, Pearl Harbor was the final incident of one series of +events, the first incident of another, all having the same purpose, +the destruction of American democracy—which, so long as it endured, +undermined the strength of the totalitarian powers.</p> + +<p>Why? Why are Hitler and Mussolini and Tojo insecure if we survive? Why +were we in danger so long as they were victorious? The answer lies in +the character of the two groups of nations; in all great tragedy, the +<i>reason</i> has to be found in the character of those involved; the war +is tragic, in noble proportions, and we have to know the character of +our enemy, the character of our own people, too, to understand why it +was inevitable—and how we will win.</p> + +<p>Our character, molded by our past, upholds or betrays us in our +present crisis, and so creates our future. That is the sense in which +character is Destiny.</p> + +<p>We know everything hateful about our enemies; long before the war +began we knew the treachery of the Japanese military caste, the jackal +aggression of Mussolini, the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>brutality and falseness of Hitler; and +the enthusiastic subservience of millions of people to each of these +leaders.</p> + +<p>But these things do not explain why we are a danger to the Axis, and +the Axis to us.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2">"<i>Historic Necessity</i>"</p> + +<p>The profound necessity underlying this war rises from the nature of +fascism: it is a combination of forces and ideas; the forces are new, +but the basic ideas have occurred at least once before in history, as +the Feudal Order. Democracy destroyed Feudalism; and Feudalism, +returning in a new form as Fascism, must destroy democracy or go down +in the attempt; the New Order and the New World cannot exist side by +side, because they are both expanding forces; they have touched one +another and only one will survive. We might blindly let the new +despotism live although it is the most expansive and dynamic force +since 1776; but it cannot let us live. We could co-exist with Czarism +because it was a shrinking force; or with British Imperialism because +its peak of expansion was actually reached before ours began. We could +not have lived side by side with Trotskyite Communism because it was +as aggressive as the exploding racialism of the German Nazis.</p> + +<p>As it happened, Stalin, not Trotsky, took over from Lenin; Socialism +in one country supplanted "the permanent revolution". Stalin made a +sort of peace with all the world; he called off his dogs of +propaganda; he allowed German Communism to be beaten to death in +concentration camps; and, as Trotsky might have said, the "historical +obligation" to destroy capitalist-democracy was undertaken not by the +bearded old Marxian enemies of Capital, but by Capital's own young +sadists, the Storm Troopers, called in by the frightened bankers and +manufacturers of Italy and Germany. That is why, since 1932, realist +democrats have known that the enemy had to be Hitler, not Stalin. It +was not a choice <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>between ideologies; it was a choice between degrees +of expansion. Moreover, Stalin himself recognized the explosive force +of fascism in Germany and shrank within his own borders; he withdrew +factories to the Urals, he dispersed his units of force as far from +the German border as he could. By doing so, he became the ideal ally +of all those powers whom Hitler's expanding pressure was discommoding. +The relatively static democratic nations of Europe, the shrinking +semi-socialist states like France and Austria, were bruised by contact +with Hitler; presently they were absorbed because the Nazi geography +demanded a continent for a military base.</p> + +<p>The destruction of America was a geographical necessity, for Hitler; +and something more. Geographically, the United States lies between +Hitler's enemies, England and Russia; we are not accustomed to the +thought, but the fact is that we are a transatlantic base for +England's fleet; so long as we are undefeated, the fleet remains a +threat to Germany. Look at the other side: we are a potential +transpacific base for Russia; our fleet can supply the Soviets and +China; Russia can retreat toward Siberian ports and join us. So we +dominate the two northern oceans, and with Russia, the Arctic as well. +That is the geographic reason for Hitler's attack on us.</p> + +<p>The moral reason is greater than the strategic reason: the history of +the United States must be destroyed, its future must turn black and +bitter; because fasci-feudalism, the new order, cannot rest firmly on +its foundations until Democracy perishes from the earth.</p> + +<p>So long as a Democracy (with a comparatively high standard of living) +survives, the propaganda of fascism must fail; the essence of that +propaganda is that democratic nations cannot combine liberty and +security. In order to have security, says Hitler, you must give up +will and want, freedom of action and utterance; you must be +disciplined and ordered—because the modern world is too complex to +allow for the will of the individual. The democracies insist that the +rich complexity of the world was created by democratic freedom <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>and +that production, distribution, security and progress have not yet +outstripped the capacity of man, so that there is room for the private +life, the undisciplined, even the un-social. The essential democratic +belief in "progress" is not a foolish optimism, it is basic belief in +the desirability of <i>change</i>; and we, democratic people, believe that +the critical unregimented individual must have some leeway so that +progress will be made. The terror of change in which dictators live is +shown in their constant appeal to permanence; we know that the only +thing permanent in life is change; when change ceases, life ceases. It +does not surprise us that the logic of fascism ends in death.</p> + +<p>So long as the democratic nations achieve change without revolution, +and prosperity without regimentation, the Nazi states are in danger. +In a few generations they may indoctrinate their people to love +poverty and ignorance, to fear independence; for fascism, the next +twenty years are critical. Unless we, the democratic people, are +destroyed now, the fascist adults of 1940 to 1960 will still know that +freedom and wealth co-exist in this world and are better than slavery.</p> + +<p>So much—which is enough—was true even before the declaration of war; +since then the nazi-fascists must prove that democracies cannot defend +themselves, cannot sacrifice comfort, cannot invent and produce +engines of war, cannot win victories. And we are equally compelled, +for our own safety, to destroy the <i>principle</i> which tries to destroy +us. The alternative to victory over America is therefore not +defeat—or an inconclusive truce. The alternative is annihilation for +the fascist regime and death for hundreds of thousands of nazi party +men. They will be liquidated because when they are defeated they will +no longer have a function to perform; their only function is the +organization of victory.</p> + +<p>The fascist powers are expanding and are situated so that with their +subordinates, they can control the world. And the purpose of their +military expansion is to exclude certain nations from the markets of +the world. Even for the "self <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>sufficient" United States, this means +that the standard of living must go down—drastically and for ever.</p> + +<p>The policy is not entirely new. It develops from tariff barriers and +subsidies; we have suffered from it at the hands of our best +friends—under the Stevenson Act regulating rubber prices, for +instance; we have profited by it, as when we refused to sell helium to +Germany or when our tariff laws kept Britain and France out of our +markets, so that they never were able to pay their war debts. This +means only that we have been living in a capitalist world and have +defended ourselves against other capitalists, as well as we could.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Revolution in Reverse</i></p> + +<p>The new thing under nazi-fascism is the destruction of private +business, buying and selling. As trade is the basic activity of our +time, nazi-fascism is revolutionary; it is also reactionary; and there +is nothing in the world more dangerous than a reactionary revolution. +The Communist revolution was radical and whoever had any stake in the +world—a house, a car, a job—shied away from the uncertainty of the +future. But the reactionary revolution of Mussolini and Hitler +instantly captivated the rich and well-born; to them, fascism was not +a mere protection against the Reds, it was a positive return to the +days of absolute authority; it was the annihilation of a hundred and +fifty years of Democracy, it blotted out the French and American +Revolutions, it erased the names of Napoleon and Garibaldi from +Continental European history, leaving the name of Metternich all the +more splendid in its isolation. The manufacturers of motor cars and +munitions were terrified of Reds in the factories; the great bankers +and landowners looked beyond the momentary danger, and they embraced +fascism because they hoped it would destroy the power let loose by the +World War—which was first political and then economic democracy.</p> + +<p>This was, in theory, correct; fascism meant to destroy democracy, but +it had to destroy capitalism with it. The idiots <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>who ran the +financial and industrial world in the 1920's proved their incompetence +by the end of 1929; but their frivolous and irresponsible minds were +exposed years earlier when they began to support the power which by +its own confessed character had to destroy them. It is a pleasant +irony that ten minutes with Karl Marx or Lenin or with a parlor pink +could have shown the great tycoons that they were committing suicide.</p> + +<p>Only an enemy can really appreciate Karl Marx. The faithful have to +concentrate on the future coming of the Communists' Millenium; but the +sceptic can admire the cool analysis of the past by which Marx arrived +at his criticism of the Capitalist System. In that analysis Marx +simplifies history so:</p> + +<p>No economic system lives for ever.</p> + +<p>Each system has in it the germ of its own successor.</p> + +<p>The feudal system came to its end when Columbus broke through its +geographical walls. (Gutenburg and Leonardo and a thousand others +broke through its intellectual walls at about the same time, and +Luther through the social and religious barriers.)</p> + +<p>With these clues we can see that Democratic Capitalism is the +successor to Feudalism.</p> + +<p>From this point Marx had to go into prophecy and according to his +followers he did rather well in predicting the next stages: he saw, in +the 1860's, the kind of capitalism we enjoyed in 1914. He did not see +all its results—the enormous increase in the number of prosperous +families was not in his calculations and he might have been surprised +to see the least, not the most, industrialized country fall first into +Communism. But to the sceptic only one thing in the Marxian prophecy +is important. He says that in the later stages of Capitalism, it will +become incompetent; it will not be able to handle the tools of +production and distribution; and suddenly or gradually, it will change +into a <i>new</i> system. (According to Marx, this new system will be +Communism.)</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>There were moments under the grim eyes of Mr. Hoover when all the +parts of this prophecy seemed to have been fulfilled. There are +apparently some Americans who wish that the New Deal had not +interposed itself between the Gold Standard and the Red Flag.</p> + +<p>These are the great leaders (silenced now by war) who might have +studied Marx before flirting with the fascists. For even the +rudimentary analysis above shows that Capitalism cannot <i>grow into</i> +fascism; fascism moves <i>backward</i> from democratic capitalism, it moves +into the system which democracy destroyed—the feudal system. The +capitalist system may be headed for slow or sudden death if it goes on +as it is; it may have a long life if it can adapt itself to the world +it has itself created; but in every sense of the words, capitalism has +no future if it goes back to the past. And fascism is the discarded +past of capitalism.</p> + +<p>We think we know this now because the fasci-feudal states have +declared war on us. Now we see how natural is the alliance between the +European states who wish to restore feudalism and the Asiatic state +which never abandoned it. Now we recognize the Nazi or Fascist party +as the equivalent of feudal nobles and in "labor battalions" we see +the outlines of serfs cringing from their masters. But we do not yet +see that a feudal state cannot live in the same world as a free +state—and that we are as committed to destroy fascism as Hitler is to +destroy democracy.</p> + +<p>We strike back at Japan because Japan attacked us, and fight Germany +and Italy because they declared war on us; but we will not win the war +until we understand that the Axis had to attack us and that we must +destroy the system which made the attack inevitable.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Walled Town and Open Door</i></p> + +<p>At first glance, the feudal nature of fascism seems unimportant. In +pure logic, maybe, feudal and democratic systems cannot co-exist, but +in fact, feudal Japan did exist in 1830 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>and the United States was +enjoying Jacksonian democracy. There must be something more than +abstract hostility between the two systems.</p> + +<p>There is. Feudalism is a walled town; democracy is a ship at sea and a +covered wagon. The capitalist pioneer gaps every wall in his path and +his path is everywhere. The defender of the wall must destroy the +invader before he comes near. In commercial terms, the fascists must +conquer us in order to eliminate us as competitors for world trade. We +can understand the method if we compare fascism at peace with +democracy at war.</p> + +<p>In the first days of the war we abandoned several essential freedoms: +speech and press and radio and assembly as far as they might affect +the conduct of the war; and then, with more of a struggle, we gave up +the right to manufacture motor cars, the right to buy or sell tires; +we accepted an allotment of sugar; we abandoned the right to go into +the business of manufacturing radio sets; we allowed the government to +limit our installment buying; we neither got nor gave credit as freely +as before; we gave up, in short, the system of civil liberty and free +business enterprise—in order to win the war.</p> + +<p>Six hundred years ago, all over Europe the economy of peace was +exactly our economy of war. In the Middle Ages, the <i>right</i> to become +a watchmaker did not exist; the guild of watchmakers accepted or +rejected an applicant. By this limitation, the total number of watches +produced was roughly governed; the price was also established (and +overcharging was a grave offense in the Middle Ages). Foreign +competition was excluded; credit was for financiers, and the +installment system had not been invented.</p> + +<p>The feudalism of six hundred years ago is the peace-time fascism of +six years ago. The fascist version of feudalism is State control of +production. In Nazi Germany the liberty to work at a trade, to +manufacture a given article, to stop working, to change professions, +were all seriously limited. The supply of materials was regulated by +the State, the number <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>of radios to be exported was set by the State +in connection with the purchase of strategic imports; the State could +encourage or prevent the importation of coffee or helium or silk +stockings; it could and did force men and women to raise crops, to +make fuses, to learn flying, to stop reading. It created a feudal +state far more benighted than any in the actual Middle Ages; it was in +peace <i>totally</i> coordinated for production—far more so than we are +now, at war.</p> + +<p>The purpose of our sacrifice of liberty is to make things a thousand +times faster than before; to save raw materials we abolish the cuff on +our trousers and we use agate pots instead of aluminum; we work longer +hours and work harder; we keep machines going twenty-four hours a day, +seven days a week—all for the single purpose of maximum output.</p> + +<p>For the same purpose, the fascist state is organized <i>at peace</i>—to +out-produce and <i>under-sell</i> its competitors.</p> + +<p>The harried German people gave up their freedom in order to recover +prosperity. They became a nation of war-workers in an economic war. A +vast amount of their production went into tanks and Stukas; another +segment went into export goods to be traded for strategic materials; +and only a small amount went for food and the comforts of life. Almost +nothing went into luxuries.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Burning Books—and Underselling</i></p> + +<p>That is why the <i>internal</i> affairs of Germany became of surpassing +importance to us. Whether we knew it or not, we were in competition +with the labor battalions. When we denounced the Nazi suppression of +free speech, the jailing of religious leaders, the silencing of +Catholics, the persecution of Jews, we were as correct economically as +we were ethically; the destruction of liberty had to be accomplished +in Germany as the comfort level fell, to prevent criticism and +conflict. Because liberals were tortured and books burned and Jews and +Catholics given over to satisfy a frightful appetite for hatred, the +people of Germany were kept longer at their work, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>and got less and +less butter, and made more and more steel to undersell us in Soviet +Russia or the Argentine; they made also more and more submarines to +sink our ships if we ever came to war. Every liberty erased by Hitler +was an economic attack on us, it made slave labor a more effective +competitor to our free labor. The concentration camp and the +blackguards on the streets were all part of an <i>economic</i> policy, to +create a feudal serfdom in the place of free labor. If the policy +succeeds, we will have to break down our standard of living and give +up entirely our habits of freedom, in order to meet the competition of +slave labor.</p> + +<p>It means today that we will not have cheap motor cars and presently it +may mean that we will not have high test steel or meat every day. +Victory for the Axis system means that we work for the Germans and the +Japanese, literally, actually, on their terms, in factories bossed by +their local representatives; and anything less than complete victory +for us means that we work harder and longer for less and less, paying +for defeat by accepting a mean standard of living, not daring to fight +our way into the markets of the world which fascism has closed to us.</p> + +<p>Readers of <i>You Can't Do Business With Hitler</i> will not need to be +convinced again that the two systems—his and ours—are mutually +incompatible. Fortunately for us, they are also mutually destructive. +The basis of fascism is, as I have noted, the feudal hope of a fixed +unchangeable form of society which will last forever; the basis of +democracy is change (which we call progress). Hitler announces that +nazism will last a thousand years; the Japanese assert that their +society has lasted longer; and the voice of Mussolini, when it used to +be heard, spoke of Ancient Rome. We who are too impatient of the past, +and need to understand our tradition, are at any rate aware of one +thing—it is a tradition of change. (Jefferson to Lincoln to Theodore +Roosevelt—the acceptance of change, even of radical change, is basic +in American history.)</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>We might tolerate the tactics of fascism; the racial hatred, the false +system of education, the attack on religion, all might pass if they +weren't part of the great strategic process of the fascists, which is +our mortal enemy, as our process is theirs. They exclude and we +penetrate; they have to <i>destroy</i> liberty in order to control making +and buying and selling and using steel and bread and radios, and we +have to <i>create</i> liberty in order to create more customers for more +things. They have to suppress dissent because dissent means difference +which no feudal system can afford; we have to encourage criticism +because only free inquiry destroys error and discovers new and useful +truths.</p> + +<p>These hostile actions make us enemies because our penetration will not +accept the Axis wall thrown up around nations normally free and +friendly to us; and the Axis must make us into fascists because there +can be no exceptions in a system dedicated to conformity. The whole +world must accept a world-system.</p> + +<p>In particular, we must be eliminated because we do expose the fraud of +fascism—which is that liberty must be sacrificed to attain power. +This is an open principle of fascism, as it is of all dictatorships +and "total" states. It is very appealing to tyrants and to weaklings, +and the ruthlessness of the attack on liberty seems "realistic" even +to believers in democracy—especially during the critical moments when +action is needed and democracies seem to do nothing but talk. The +truth is that our Executive is tremendously prompt and unhampered in +war time; the appeaser of fascism does not tell the truth; he wants an +end to talk, which is dangerous, because he is always at war and the +secret fascist would have to admit that his perpetual war is against +the people of the United States. So he says only that in modern times, +liberty is too great a luxury, too easily abused; he says that a great +State is too delicately balanced to tolerate the whims and +idiosyncrasies of individuals; if the State has discovered the best +diet for all the citizens, then no citizen can "prefer" another diet, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>and no expert may cast doubt on the official rations. To cause +uncertainty is to diminish efficiency; to back "wrong" ideas is +treason.</p> + +<p>One of the best descriptions of this state of mind occurs in a page of +Arthur Koester's <i>Darkness at Noon</i>. It is fiction, but not untrue:</p> + +<div class="block"><p>"A short time ago, our leading agriculturist, B., was shot with +thirty of his collaborators because he maintained the opinion +that nitrate artificial manure was superior to potash. No. 1 is +all for potash; therefore B. and the thirty had to be +liquidated as <i>saboteurs</i>. In a nationally centralized +agriculture, the alternative of nitrate or potash is of +enormous importance: it can decide the issue of the next war. +If No. 1 was in the right, history will absolve him, and the +execution of the thirty-one men will be a mere bagatelle. If he +was wrong....</p> + +<p>"It is that alone that matters: who is objectively in the +right. The cricket-moralists are agitated by quite another +problem: whether B. was subjectively in good faith when he +recommended nitrogen. If he was not, according to their ethics +he should be shot, even if it should subsequently be shown that +nitrogen would have been better after all. If he was in good +faith, then he should be acquitted and allowed to continue +making propaganda for nitrate, even if the country should be +ruined by it....</p> + +<p>"That is, of course, complete nonsense. For us the question of +subjective good faith is of no interest. He who is in the wrong +must pay; he who is in the right will be absolved. That is the +law of historical credit; it was our law."</p></div> + +<p>Intellectual fascists are particularly liable to the error of thinking +that this sort of thing is above morality, beyond good and evil. The +"cricket-moralists" are people like ourselves and the English, who are +agitated because "innocent" men are put to death; the hard-headed ones +answer that innocence isn't important; effectiveness is what counts. +Yet the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>democratic-cricket-morality is in the long run more realistic +than the tough school which kills its enemies first and then finds out +if they were guilty. The reason we allow a scientist to cry for +nitrates after we have decided on potash is that we have to keep +scientific investigation alive; we cannot trust ourselves for too long +to the potash group. In five years, both nitrate and potash may be +discarded because we have found something better. And no scientist +will for long retain his critical pioneering spirit if an official +superior can reject his research. (An Army board rejected the research +of General William Mitchell and it took a generation for Army men to +recover initiative; and this was in an organization accustomed to +respect rank and tradition. In science, which is more sensitive, the +only practical thing is to reward the heretic and the explorer even +while one adopts the idea of the orthodox.)</p> + +<p>This question of heresy, apparently so trifling, is critical for us +because it is a clue to the weakness of Hitlerism and it provides us +with the only strategy by which Hitlerism can be destroyed.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CHAPTER II<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h2>Strategy for the Citizen</h2> +<br /> + +<p>There is a tendency at this moment to consider Hitler a master +strategist, master psychologist, master statesman. His analysis of +democracy, however, leaves something unsaid, and the nervous strong +men who admire Hitler, as well as the weaklings who need "leadership", +are doing their best to fill in the gaps. The Hitlerian concept of +totality allows no room for difference; an official bread ration and +an official biochemistry are equally to be accepted by everyone; in +democracy Hitler finds a deplorable tendency to shrink from rationing +and to encourage deviations from the established principles of +biochemistry. This, he says, weakens the State; for one thing it leads +to endless discussion. (Hitler is an orator, not a debater; dislike of +letting other people talk is natural; his passion for action on a +world-scale, immense in space, enduring for all time, has the same +terrific concentration on himself.) Hitler's admirers in a democracy +take this up with considerable pleasure; in each of his victories they +see an argument against the Bill of Rights. Then war comes; sugar is +wanting and we accept a ration card; supreme commands are established +in various fields; and the sentiment spreads that "we can only beat +Hitler by becoming a 'total' State". (No one dares say "Nazi".)</p> + +<p>Hitler, discerning in us a toleration of dissent, has driven hard into +every crevice, trying to split us apart, like cannel coal. He has +tried to turn dissent into disunion—and he has been helped by some of +the most loyal and patriotic Americans almost as much as he has been +helped by bundists.</p> + +<p>We have not known how to deal with dissent; we stopped looking for the +causes of disagreement; even when war came, we confused the areas of +human action in which difference is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>vital with the areas in which +difference is a mortal danger.</p> + +<p>The moment we saw the direction of Hitler's drive, which was to +magnify our differences, we began to encourage him by actively +intensifying all our disagreements; the greater our danger, the more +we were at odds. The results were serious enough.</p> + +<p>No policy governing production had been accepted by industry;</p> + +<p>No policy governing labor relations had been put into practise so that +it was operating smoothly;</p> + +<p>No great stock of vital raw materials was laid up;</p> + +<p>No great stock of vital war machinery had been created;</p> + +<p>No keen awareness of the significance of the war had become an +integrated part of American thought;</p> + +<p>No awareness of all the possibilities of attack had become an +integrated part of military and naval thought.</p> + +<p>To this pitch of unreadiness the technique of "divide and disturb" had +brought us—but it had, none the less, failed. For the purpose of +disruption in America was to paralyze our will, to prevent us from +entering the war, to create a dangerous internal front if we did enter +the war.</p> + +<p>What we proved was this: dissent is not a symptom of weakness, it is a +source of strength. It is the counterpart of the great scientific +methods of exploration, comparison, proof. Our dissents mean that we +continue to search; they mean that we do not rule out improvement +after we have accepted a machine or a method. (We carried this +"dissent" to an extreme in "yearly models" of motor cars and almost +daily models of lipstick; but we did manufacture in quantity, and the +error of <i>change before production</i> which stalled our aircraft program +of 1917 was not repeated.)</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Why We Can't Use Hitler</i></p> + +<p>If we "need a Hitler" to defeat Hitler, we are lost, at this moment, +irretrievably, because the <i>final</i> triumph of Hitlerism is to make us +need Hitler. The truth is we cannot use a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>Hitler, we cannot use +fascism, we cannot use any form of "total" organization except in the +one field where totality has always existed, which is war. So far as +war touches the composition of women's stockings or children's +ice-cream sodas, we need unified organization in the domestic field; +but not "total government". We have to be told (since it is not a +matter of individual taste) how many flavors of ice-cream may be +manufactured; but the regimentation of people is not required. (The +United States Army has officially declared against complete +regimentation in one of its own fields; every soldier studies the +history of this war and is encouraged to ask questions about it, +because "the War Department considers that every American soldier +should know clearly why and for what we are fighting.")</p> + +<p>We cannot use a Hitler because we lack the time. We cannot catch up +with Hitler on Hitlerism. We cannot wait ten years to re-condition the +people of America, the ten vital years which Hitler spent enslaving +the German mind were spent by us in digging the American people out +from the ruined economic system which collapsed on them in 1929. We +are conditioned by the angry and excited controversy over the New +Deal; we are opinionated, variant, prejudiced, individual, +argumentative. We cannot be changed over to the German model. Perhaps +in a quieter moment we could be captivated (if not captured) by an +American-type dictator, a Huey Long; in wartime, when people undergo +incalculable changes of habit without a murmur, the old framework and +the established forms of life must be scrupulously revered. Otherwise +people will be scared; they will not respond to encouragement. That is +why we cannot take time to learn how to love a dictator.</p> + +<p>The alternative is obvious: to re-discover the virtue which Hitler +calls a vice, to defeat totality by variety (which is the essential +substance of unity). I do not mean five admirals disputing command of +one fleet or one assembly line ordered to make three wholly different +aeroplane engines. I mean the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>combination of elements, as they are +combined in the food we eat and the water we drink; and as they are +combined in the people we are.</p> + +<p>We have lived by combining a variety of elements; we have always +allowed as much freedom to variety as we could, believing that out of +this freedom would come a steady progress, a definite betterment of +our State; so, we have been taught, the human race has progressed, not +by utter uniformity, and not by anarchy, but by an alternation of two +things—the standard and the variant.</p> + +<p>Now we face death—called totality. For us it is death; and we can not +avoid it by taking it in homeopathic doses, we can only live by +destroying whatever is deadly to us.</p> + +<p>It is hard for a layman to translate the "strategy of variety" into +terms of production or naval movement. The translation is being made +every day by men in the factories and in the field; instinctively they +follow the technique of variety because it is natural to them. All the +layman can do is to watch and make sure that out of panic we do not +betray ourselves to the enemy.</p> + +<p>It is not a matter of military technique, but of common sense that we +can only destroy our enemy out of our strength, striking at his +weakness; we can never defeat him by striking with our weakest arm +against his strongest. And our strong point is the variety, the +freedom, the independence of our thought and action. Hitler calls all +this a weakness, because he has destroyed it in his own country; and +so gives us the clue to his own weak spot.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Has Hitler a Weakness?</i></p> + +<p>In the face of the stupendous victories of Germany, it is hard to say +that Hitler's army has a weak spot; but it did not take London or +Moscow in its first attempts, nor Suez. Somewhere in this formidable +strength a weakness is to be discovered; it will not be discovered by +us if we are intimidated <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>into imitation. We have to be flexible, +feeling out our adversary, falling back when we have to, lunging +forward in another place or on another level; for this war is being +fought on several planes at once, and if we are not strong enough +today on one, we can fight on another; we are, in fact, fighting +steadily on the production front, intermittently on the V (or +foreign-propaganda) front, on the front of domestic stability, on the +financial front (in connection with the United Nations); and the war +front itself is divided into military and naval (with air in each) and +transport; our opportunity is to win by creating our own most +effective front, and keep hammering on it while we get ready to fight +on the ones our enemies have chosen.</p> + +<p>Every soldier feels the difference between his own army and any other; +every general or statesman knows that the kind of war a nation fights +rises out of the kind of nation it is. This is the form of strategy +which the layman has to understand—in self-defense against the +petrified mind which either will not change the methods of the last +war, or will scrap everything in order to imitate the enemy. The +layman knows something of warfare now, because the layman is in it. He +knows that the tank and the Stuka and the parachute troop were +separate alien inventions combined by the German High Command; but +combinations of various arms is not an exclusively German conception. +The new concept in this war is ten years old, it is the sacrifice of a +nation to its army, the creation of mass-munitions, the concentration +on offensive striking power. All of these are successful against +broken and betrayed armies in France, against small armies unsupported +by tanks and planes; they are not entirely successful against huge +armies, fighting under trusted leaders, for a civilization they love, +an army of individual heroes, supported by guerillas on one side, and +an incalculable production power on the other. Possibly the Soviet +Union has discovered one weakness in the German war-strategy; it may +not be the weakness <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>through which we can strike; we may have to find +another. We have to find the weakness of Japan, too—and we are not so +inclined to imitate them.</p> + +<p>There is a famous picture of Winston Churchill, hatless in the street, +with a napkin in his hand, looking up at the sky; it was in Antwerp in +1914 and Churchill had left his dinner to see enemy aircraft in the +sky—an omen of things to come. At Antwerp Churchill had tried to head +off the German swing to the sea, but Antwerp was a defeat and +Churchill returned to London, still looking for some way to refuse the +German system of the trench, the bombardment, and the breakthrough. He +tried it with the tank; he tried it at Gallipoli; finally the Allies +tried it, half-heartedly, at Salonika. The war, on Germany's terms, +was a stalemate and Germany might have broken through; the war ended +because the balance was dislocated when America came in and, +simultaneously, both England and America began to fight the war also +on the propaganda level. By that time Churchill was "discredited"; he +had tried to shorten the war by two years and the British forces, with +success in their hands, had failed to strike home, failed to send the +one more battleship, the one more division which would have insured +victory—because Kitchener and the War Office and the French High +Command wanted to keep on fighting the war in the German way.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Escape from Despair</i></p> + +<p>The desperation which overcomes the inexpert civilian at the thought +of fighting the military machines of Germany and Japan is justified +<i>only</i> if we propose to fight them on their terms, in the way they +propose to us. Analogies are dangerous, but there is a sense in which +war is a chess game (as chess is a war game). White opens with Queen's +pawn to Qu 3, and Black recognizes the gambit. He can accept or +decline. If he accepts, it is because he thinks he can fight well on +that basis, but Black can also reject White's plan of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>campaign. The +good player is one who can break out of the strategy which the other +tries to impose.</p> + +<p>We have felt ourselves incapable of fighting Hitler because we hate +Hitlerism and we do not want to think as he does, feel as he does, act +as he does—with more horror, more cruelty, more debasement of +humanity, in order to defeat him. And the public statements of our +leaders have necessarily concealed any new plan of attack; in fact we +have heard chiefly of super-fascist production, implying our +acceptance of the fascist tactics in the field; the best we can expect +is that soon we, not they, will take the offensive. If this were all, +it would still leave us fighting the fascist war.</p> + +<p>The civilian's totally untrained dislike of this prospect is of +considerable importance because it is a parallel to the citizen's +authoritative and decisive objection to the Hitlerian strategy of +propaganda; and if the civilian holds out, if he discovers our native +natural strategy of civil action in the war, the army will be +constantly recruiting anti-fascists, will live in an atmosphere of +inventive anti-fascism, and therefore will never completely fall under +the spell of the enemy's tactics. That is why it is important for the +citizen to know that he is right. <i>We do not have to fight Hitler in +his way</i>; that is what Hitler wants us to do, because <i>if we do we can +not win</i>. There is another way—although we may not have found it yet.</p> + +<p>In its celebrated "orientation course" the United States army explains +the strategy of the war to every one of its soldiers, not to make them +strategists, but to make them better soldiers. The civilian needs at +least as much knowledge so that he is not over-elated by a stroke of +luck or too cast down by disaster. The jokes about amateur strategists +and the High Command's justifiable resentment of ignorant criticism +are both beside the point; civilians do not need text books on +tactics; they need to know the nature of warfare. They needed +desperately to know in February, 1942, why General <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>MacArthur was +performing a useful function in Bataan and why bombers were not sent +to his aid; and this information came to them from the President. But +the President is not the only one who can tell civilians how long it +takes to transport a division and put it into action; how air and sea +power interact; what a beach action involves; and a few other facts +which would allay impatience and give the worker in the factory some +sense of the importance of his work. The civilian in war work or out +of it should know something about war, and in particular he should +know that there are several kinds of war, one of which is correct and +appropriate and effective for us.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Military Mummery</i></p> + +<p>It might be a good thing if some of the mumbo-jumbo about military +strategy were reduced to simple terms, so that the civilians, whose +lives and fortunes and sacred honor are involved, would know what is +happening to them. The military mind, aided by the military expert, +loves to use special terms; until recently the commentator on strategy +was as obscure and difficult as a music critic, and despatches from +the field as obscure as prescriptions in Latin. It is supposed that +doctors wrote in Latin not only because it was an exact and universal +language, but because it was not understood by laymen, so it gave +mystery and authority to their prescriptions. Latin is still not +understood, but the simple art of advertising has destroyed a vast +amount of business for the doctors because ads in English persuaded +the ignorant to use quack remedies and patent and proprietary +medicines, without consulting the doctor.</p> + +<p>A rebellion like this against the military mind may occur; experts are +now writing for the popular press, and talking in elementary terms to +millions by radio. They cannot teach the techniques of correlated tank +and air attack any more than music critics can teach the creation of +head tones. But they can expound the fundamentals—and so expose the +military <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>leadership to the <i>criticism it desperately needs</i> if it is +to function properly. The essentials of warfare are dreadfully +simple—the production manager of any great industrial concern deals +with most of them every day. You have to get materials and equipment; +train men to use certain tools and instruments; bring power to bear at +chosen points, in sufficient quantity, at the right time, for the +right length of time; you have to combine the various kinds of force +at your disposal, and arrange a schedule, as there is a schedule for +chassis and body work in a motor car factory, so that the right +chassis is in the right place as its body is lowered upon it; you have +to stop or go on, according to judgments based on information. The +terrifying decisions, the choice of place and time, the selection of +instruments, the allocation of power to several points, are made by +the high command on the grand scale or by a sergeant if his officer is +shot down; and the right judgments distinguish the great commander or +the good platoon leader from the second rate. The civilian, without +information, cannot decide what to do; but, as Britain's <i>civilian</i> +courts of inquiry have shown, he can tell whether the right decisions +have been made. He can tell as well as the greatest commander, that +indecision and dispersion of forces made success at the Dardanelles +impossible in 1916; or that lack of a unified plan of tank attack made +the wreck of France certain in 1940. The civilian American who has +taken a hundred detours on motor roads can understand even the purely +military elements of a flanking movement; the industrial American need +not be baffled by the problems of fire-power, coordination, or supply. +We can understand the war if the mystery is stripped away, and if we +are allowed to understand that the wrong strategy is as fatal to us as +the wrong prescription.</p> + +<p>I believe that we will have to strip the false front from +international diplomacy, from warfare, from all the inherited +"mysteries" which are still pre-Revolutionary in essence. We will have +to bring these things up to date because our lives <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>depend on them, we +can no longer depend on the strategy of Gustavus Adolphus or the +diplomacy of Metternich. Five million soldiers in khaki, with a +nation's life disrupted for their support, require a different +strategy from that of Burgoyne's hired Hessians; and a hundred and +thirty million individuals simply do not want the intrigue and +Congress-dances diplomacy which traded territory, set up kings, and +found pretexts for good wars.</p> + +<p>We have destroyed a good deal of the mummery of economics—not without +help; politics has become more familiar to us, we now know that a +thief in office is a thief, that tariffs are not made by abstract +thinkers, but by manufacturers and farmers and factory workers; we +know, with some poignancy, that taxes are paid by people like +ourselves and we are beginning to know that taxes are spent to keep +people alive and healthy and in jobs and, to a minute extent, also to +keep people cheerful, their minds alert, their spirits buoyant. The +very fact that we are now <i>all</i> critics of spending is a great +advance, because it means we are all paying; when we are all critics +of foreign policy it will mean that we are all signing contracts with +other nations; and when we are all critics of war, it will mean that +we are all fighting.</p> + +<p>As a student, I know what a layman can know about strategy; less about +tactics; as a citizen I should be of greater service to my country if +I knew more. What I have learned, from many sources, seems to hold +together and to demonstrate one thing: behind strategy in the field is +a strategy of a people in action; and victory comes to the leaders who +organize and use the national forces in keeping with the national +character.</p> + +<p>I have gone to several authorities to discover whether the "tactics of +variety" (a "natural" in propaganda) has any counterpart in the field. +I cannot pretend that it is an accepted idea; it is hardly more than a +name for an attitude of mind; but I did find authority for the feeling +that an American (or <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>United Nations) strategy need not be—and must +not be—the strategy of Hitler. So much the civilian can take to his +bosom, for comfort.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>A Variety of Strategies</i></p> + +<p>The greatest comfort to myself was in a little book published just in +time to corroborate a few guesses and immensely to widen my outlook; +it is called <i>Grand Strategy</i>; the authors are H.A. Sargeaunt, a +specialist in poison gas and tank design, a scientist and historian; +and Geoffrey West, biographer and student of politics; both British. +Although there are some difficult pages and some odd conclusions, this +book is a revelation—particularly it shows the connection between war +and the social conditions of nations making war; in the authors' own +words, "war and society condition each other"; they connect war with +progress and show how each nation can develop a strategy out of its +own resources. The hint we all got at school, that the French +revolution is responsible for vast civilian armies, is carried into a +history of the nineteenth century—and into this war.</p> + +<p>The authors have their own names for each kind of war—each is a +"solution" to the problem of victory. Each adds a special factor to +the body of strategy known at the time, and this added special factor +rises from the country which uses it—from its methods of production, +its education, its religion, its banking and commercial habits, and +its whole social organization. Napoleon's solution was based on the +revolutionary enthusiasm of the French people; he added zeal, the +intense application of force, speed of movement, repeated hammering, +throwing in reserves. All of these things demand devotion, patriotic +self-sacrifice, and these qualities had been created, for the French, +by the Republic; they were not qualities known to the mercenaries and +small standing armies of Napoleon's enemies.</p> + +<p>Against Napoleon's total use of the strategy of force, the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>British +opposed a strength based on the way they lived; it was a sea-strength +of blockade, but also on land they refused to accept the challenge of +Napoleon. They would not come out (until they were ready at Waterloo) +and let Napoleon find their weak spot for the exercise of his force. +Wellington defeated Napoleon at Waterloo, but the turning point came +years earlier at Torres Vedras in Spain; as Napoleon increased force, +Wellington increased "persistence"; it is called the "strategy of +attrition" and it means that Wellington's "aim was to wear down the +enemy troops by inducing them to attack [where Wellington] could +withdraw to take up positions and fight again."</p> + +<p>Today, getting news of a campaign like Wellington's in Spain, the +average man would repeatedly read and hear headlines of retreat; he +would get the impression of an uninterrupted series of defeats. But +the Peninsular War was actually a triumph for British arms. It was a +triumph because Wellington refused to fight in any way not natural to +the British; his masterly retreats did not disturb the "inborn +toughness and phlegm, that saving lack of imagination" which makes the +British, as these British authors say, "good at retreats". Moreover, +this war of slow retreats gave Britain time to develop a tremendous +manufacturing power, to organize the blockade of Napoleon and the +merchant fleet for supply to Spain. The whole history of modern +England, its acceptance of the factory system, its naval supremacy, +its relation to the Continent, and its internal reforms—all rise from +the kind of war Wellington made, and the kind he refused to make.</p> + +<p>For the curious, the later "solutions" are: under Bismark and Moltke, +increased training and use of equipment and material resources; under +Hitler, "synchronized timing" (connected with air-power and the +impossibility of large-scale surprise; also connected with "alertness +and intelligence" in the individual soldier, a frightening development +under a totalitarian military dictatorship); and finally, under +Churchill, "the national sandbag defense", increasing "usable <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>morale +and initiative". Sandbag defense gets its name from the battle of +London; but it refers to all sorts of defensive operations—a bullet +is shot into sand and the dislodged grains of sand form themselves +again so that the next bullet has the same depth of sand to go +through—unless the bullets come so fast in "synchronized timing" or +blitzkrieg that the sand hasn't time to close over the gap again. The +defense "demands that every person in the nation be capable of +sticking to his task even without detailed orders from others, +regardless of the odds against him and though it may mean certain +death. <i>Every</i> person—not merely the trained minority. This happened +at Dunkirk...." At Dunkirk the grains of sand were hundreds of small +yachts, motor boats, trawlers, coasting vessels, many of which were +taken to the dreadful beach by civilians virtually without orders; +some of them became ferry-boats, taking men off the shore to the +transports which could not get close enough, going back and forth, +without stop—the grains of sand reforming until an army was rescued.</p> + +<p>These examples drive home the principle that a form or style of +warfare must be found by each nation corresponding to the state of the +nation <i>at that time</i>; the "psychology" of the nation may remain +constant for a century, but the way to make war will change if the +methods of production have changed. If the nation has lost (or won) +colonies, if education has reached the poor, if child labor has ended +(so that youths of eighteen are strong enough for tank duty), if women +are without civil rights, if a wave of irreligion or political +illiberality has swept over the country—if any vital change has +occurred, the style of war must change also. Every social change +affects the kind of war we can fight, the kind we must discover for +ourselves if we are to defeat an enemy who has chosen his style and is +trying to impose it on us. The analysis of Hitler's war-style must be +left to experts; if its essence is "synchronized timing", our duty is +to find a way of upsetting the time-table, not only by months, but by +minutes. Possibly the style developed by Stalin can do both—by +pulling back <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>into the vast spaces of Russia, Stalin created a +battlefield without shape or definition, which may have prevented the +correlation of the parts of Hitler's armies; by encouraging guerillas, +he may have upset the timing of individual soldiers, tanks, and +planes. The success of the Eighth Route Army in China was based on a +totally different military style, the only completely Communist style +on record; for the army was successful because it built a Communist +society on the march, actually and literally, establishing schools, +manufacturing arms, bearing children, and fighting battles at the same +time, so that at the end of several years the army had extricated +itself from a trap, crossed and recrossed miles of enemy territory, +reformed itself with more men and arms than it had at the +beginning—and had operated as a center of living civilization for +hundreds of thousands.</p> + +<p>The operations of Chiang Kai Chek against the Japanese are another +example of rejecting the enemy's style; over the enormous terrain of +China, the defending armies could scatter and hide from aircraft; the +cities fell or were gutted by fire; but the people moved around them, +the armies remained. Japan's attack on Britain and ourselves began +with islands, where the lesson of China could not be applied; and the +islands were dependencies, not free nations like China, so the +psychology of defense was also different; in the opening phases there +was no choice and the Japanese forced us to accept their way of making +war. Their way, it appears, is appropriate to their beliefs, their +requirements in food, their capacity to imitate Europe, and dozens of +other factors, not precisely similar to ours. Their experience and +outlook in life and ideas of honor may lead to the suicide bomber; +ours do not. Our dive bombers feel no shame if they miss a target; +they have a duty which is to save their ships and return for another +try; it is against the whole natural tradition of the west that a man +should kill himself for the honor of a ruler; we would not send out an +army with orders to gain honor by death, as we prefer to gain honor by +victory. So in the true sense it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>would be suicidal for us to imitate +the Japanese; our heroism-to-the-death is the arrival, at the final +moment, of a last reserve of courage and devotion; it is not a planned +bravery, nor a communal devotion, it is as private as liberty—or +death.</p> + +<p>Our heroism rises out of our lives. Our science of victory will have +to be based on our lives, too, on the way we manufacture, play games, +read newspapers, eat and drink and bring up children. It is the +function of our high command to translate what we can do best into a +practical military strategy. The civilian's function is to provide the +physical and moral strength needed to support the forces in the field. +Here the civilian is qualified to make certain demands, because we +know where our intellectual and moral strength lies; we can work to +keep the tactics of variety operative in the field of public emotion.</p> + +<p>The next two chapters are a translation of the tactics of variety into +terms of propaganda and its objective, which is unity of action.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CHAPTER III<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h2>United...?</h2> +<br /> + +<p>When I began to write this book the unity "made in Japan" was +beginning to wear thin; when I finished people were slowly accustoming +themselves to a new question: they did not know whether an illusion of +unity was better than no unity at all.</p> + +<p>We know now that we were galvanized into common action by the shock of +attack; but to recoil from a blow, to huddle together for +self-protection, to cry for revenge—are not the signs of a national +unity. Before the war was three months old it was clear that we were +not united on any question; while we all intended to win the war, the +new appeasers had arrived—who wanted to buy themselves off the +consequences of war by not fighting it boldly; or by fighting only +Japan; or fighting Japan only at Hawaii; we disagreed about the +methods of warfare and the purpose of victory; there were those who +wanted the war won without aid from liberals and those who would +rather the war were lost than have labor contribute to victory; and +those who seemed more interested in preventing profit than in creating +munitions; it was a great chance "to put something over"—possibly the +radicals could be destroyed, possibly the rich; possibly the President +or his wife could be trapped into an error, possibly a sales tax would +prevent a new levy on corporations, possibly labor could maneuvre +itself into dominance; the requirements of war could be a good excuse +for postponing all new social legislation and slily dropping some of +the less vital projects; and the inescapable regimentation of millions +of people, the necessary propaganda among others, could be used as an +opportunity for new social experiments and indoctrination. In these +differences and in the bitterness of personal dislike, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>people +believed that the war could not be won unless their separate purposes +were also fulfilled; our activities were not designed to fit with one +another, and we were like ionized particles, held within a framework, +but each pulling away from the others.</p> + +<p>The attack on Pearl Harbor silenced the pacifists; not even the most +misguided could suggest that the President had maneuvred Japan into +the attack; the direct cause of the war, including the war which Italy +and Germany declared on us, was self-protection. We were not fighting +for England, for the Jews, for the munition makers. But did we know +what we <i>were</i> fighting for? The President had said that we did not +intend to be constantly at the mercy of aggressors; and the Atlantic +Charter provided a rough sketch of the future. But we did not know +whether we were to be allied with Britain, reconstruct Europe, raise +China to dominance in the Far East, enter a supernational system, +withdraw as we did at the end of the last war, or simply make +ourselves the rulers of the world.</p> + +<p>Matching our casual uncertainty was the dead-shot clear-minded +intention of our enemies—to conquer, to subjugate, to rule; by +forgetting all other aims, eliminating all private purposes; by +putting aside whatever the war did not require and omitting nothing +necessary for victory; by making war itself the great social +experiment, using war to destroy morals, habits and enterprises which +did not help the war, destroying, above all, the prejudices, the +rights, the character of civilized humanity as we have known them.</p> + +<p>Have we a source of unity which can oppose this totality? According to +Hitler, we have not: we are a nation of many races and people; we are +a capitalist country divided between the rich and the poor; we break +into political parties; we reject leadership; we are given up to +private satisfactions and do not understand the sacrifices which unity +demands.</p> + +<p>Therefore, in the Hitlerian prophecy, America needs only to be put +under the slightest tension and it will fall apart.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>The strains under which people live account for their strength as well +as their weakness; we are strong in another direction precisely +because we are not "unified" in the Nazi sense. Actually the Nazis +have no conception of unity; their purpose is totality, which is not +the same thing at all. A picture or a motor has unity when all the +<i>different</i> parts are arranged and combined to produce a specific +effect; but a canvas all painted the same shade of blue has no +unity—it is a totality, a total blank; there is no unity in a +thousand ball-bearings; they are <i>totally</i> alike.</p> + +<p>If the Nazi argument is not valid, why did we first thank Japan for +unity, and then discover that we had no unity? Why were we pulling +against one another, so that in the first year of the war we were +distracted and ineffective, as France had been? If outright pacifism +was our only disruptive element, why didn't we, after we were +attacked, embrace one another in mutual forgiveness, high devotion to +our country, and complete harmony of purpose? Months of disaster in +the Pacific and the grinding process of reorganizing for production at +home left us unaware of the sacrifices we had still to make, and at +the mercy of demagogues waiting only for the right moment to start a +new appeasement. Perhaps next summer, when the American people won't +get their motor trips to the mountains and the lakes; perhaps next +winter when coal and oil may not be delivered promptly; perhaps when +the first casualty lists come in....</p> + +<p>We were not a united people and were not mature enough, in war years, +to face our disunion. When we become mature we will discover that +unity means agreement as to purpose, consent as to methods, and +willingness to function. All the parts of the motor car have to do +their work, or the car will not run well; that is their unity; and our +unity will bring every one of us jobs to do for which we have to +prepare. We can remember Pearl Harbor with banners and diamond clasps, +but until we forget Pearl Harbor and do the work <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>which national unity +requires of us, we will still be children playing a war game—and +still persuading ourselves that we can't lose.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>The Background of Disunion</i></p> + +<p>In the urgency of the moment no one asked how it happened that the +United States were not a united people. No one wondered what had +happened to us in the past twenty years to make religious and racial +animosities, political heresy-hunts, and class hatreds so common that +they were used not only by demagogues, but by men responsible to the +nation. No one asked whether the unity we had always assumed was ever +a real thing, not a politician's device, for use on national holidays +only. And, when the disunion of the people's leaders began to be +apparent, and the people began to be ill-at-ease—then they were told +to remember Pearl Harbor, or that we were all united really, but were +helping our country best by constructive criticism. The fatal +circumstance of our disunity we dared not face. No one who <i>could</i> +unite the people was willing to work out the basis of unity—and +everyone left it to the President, as if in the strain of battle, a +general were compelled to orate to the troops. The President's work +was to win over our enemies; it should not have been necessary for him +to win us over, too.</p> + +<p>The situation is grave because we have no tradition of early defeat +and ultimate victory; we have no habit of national feeling, so that +when hardships fall on us we feel alone, and victimized. We do not +know what "all being in the same boat" really signifies; we will, of +course, pull together if we are shipwrecked; but the better way to win +wars is to avoid shipwrecks, not to survive them.</p> + +<p>We cannot improvise a national unity; we can only capitalize on gusts +of anger or jubilation, from day to day—these are the tactics of war +propaganda, not its grand strategy. For our basic unity we have to go +where it already exists, we <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>have to uncover a great mother-lode of +the true metal, where it has always been; we have to <i>remind</i> +ourselves of what we have been and are, so that our unity will come +from within ourselves, and not be plastered on like a false front. For +it is only the strength inside us that will win the war and create a +livable world for us when we have won it.</p> + +<p>We have this deep, internal, mother-lode of unity—in our history, our +character, and our destiny. We are awkward in approaching it, because +in the past generation we have falsified our history and corrupted our +character; the men now in training camps grew up between the Treaty of +Versailles and the crash of 1929; they lived in the atmosphere of +normalcy and debunking; of the Ku Klux Klan and Bolshevism; of boom +and charity; and it is not surprising that they were, at first, +bewildered by the sudden demands on their patriotism.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Losing a Generation</i></p> + +<p>We have to look into those twenty years before we can create an +effective national unity; what we find there is a disaster—but facing +it is a tonic to the nerves.</p> + +<p>What happened was this: for the first time since the Civil War, +progressivism—our basic habit of mind—disappeared from effective +politics. The moral fervor of the Abolitionists, the agrarian anger of +the Populists, the evangelical fervor of William J. Bryan, the +impulsive almost boyish Square Deal of Theodore Roosevelt, the +studious reformism of Woodrow Wilson, all form a continuity of +political idealism; from 1856 to 1920 a party, usually out of office, +was bringing the fervor and passion of moral righteousness into +politics. The passion was defeated, but the political value of +fighting for morally desirable ends remained high; and in the end the +wildest demands of the "anarchists" and enemies of the Republic were +satisfied by Congresses under Roosevelt and Wilson and Taft.</p> + +<p>This constant battle for progressive principles is one of the most +significant elements in American life—and we have <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>unduly neglected +it. James Bryce once wrote that there was no basic difference in the +philosophy of Democrats and Republicans, and thousands of teachers +have repeated it to millions of children; intellectuals have neglected +politics because the corruption of local battles has left little to +choose between the Vare machine in Philadelphia, the Kelly in Chicago, +the Long in Louisiana. For many years, in the general rise of our +national wealth, politics seemed relatively unimportant and "vulgar"; +and the figure of the idealist and social reformer was always +ludicrous, because the reformers almost always came from the land, +from the midwest, from the heart of America, not from its centers of +financial power and social graces.</p> + +<p>So constant—and so critical—is the continuity of reformist politics +in America, that the break, in 1920, becomes an event of extreme +significance—a symptom to be watched, analysed and compared. Why did +America suddenly break with its progressive tradition—and what was +the result?</p> + +<p>The break occurred because the reformist, comparatively radical party +was in power in 1918 when the war ended; all radicalism was +discredited by the rise of Bolshevism in Russia, with its implied +threat to the sanctity of property. Disappointment in the outcome of +the war, Wilson's maladroit handling of the League of Nations, and his +untimely illness, doomed the Democratic Party to impotence and the +Republicans to reaction, which is often worse. So there could be no +effective, respectable party agitating for reform, for a saner +distribution of the pleasures and burdens of citizenship; in the years +that followed, certain social gains were kept, some laws were passed +by the momentum gained in the past generation, but the characteristic +events were the Ohio scandals, the lowering of income taxes in the +highest brackets, the failure of the Child Labor Amendment, and the +heartfelt, complete abandonment of America to normalcy—a condition +totally abnormal in American history.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>It is interesting to note that the only reformer of this period was +the prohibitionist; the word changed meaning; a derisive echo clings +to it still. The New Deal hardly ever used the word; and the reformers +of the New Deal were called revolutionists because reform was no +longer in the common language—or perhaps because reforms delayed +<i>are</i> revolutionary when they come.</p> + +<p>The disappearance of liberalism as an active political force left a +vacuum; into it came, triumphantly, the wholly un-American normalcy of +Harding and Coolidge and, in opposition, the wholly un-American +radicalism of the Marxists; the Republicans gave us our first touch of +true plutocracy and the Reds our most effective outburst of debunking. +Between them they almost ruined the character of an entire generation.</p> + +<p>For 150 years the United States had tried to do two things: first, +allow as many people as possible to make as much money as possible and, +second, prevent the rich from acquiring complete control of the +Government. As each new source of power grew, the attempt to limit kept +pace with it; under Jackson, it was the banking power that had to be +broken; under Lincoln the manufacturing power was somewhat balanced if +not checked by the grant of free land; the Interstate Commerce +Commission regulated rates and reduced the power of the railroads; the +Sherman Act, relatively ineffective, was directed against trusts; +changes in tariff laws occasionally gave relief to the victims of +"infant industries". Under Theodore Roosevelt the railroads and the +coal mine owners were held back and a beginning made in the recognition +of organized labor; under Wilson the financial power was seriously +compromised by the Federal Reserve Act, and industrial-financial power +was balanced, a little, by special legislation for rural banking; under +Taft the Income Tax Amendment was passed and an effort made to deduct +from great fortunes a part of the cost of the Government which +protected those fortunes.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Robbers and Pharisees</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span></p> + +<p>The era of normalcy was unique in one thing, it made the encouragement +and protection of great fortunes the first concern of Government. +Nothing else counted. Through its executives and administrators, +through cabinet members and those closest to the White House, normalcy +first declared that no moral standard, no patriotism, no respect for +the dead, should stand in the way of robbing the people of the United +States; and so cynically did the rulers of America steal the public +funds, that the people returned them to power with hardly a reproach.</p> + +<p>The rectitude of Calvin Coolidge made his party respectable; his dry +worship of the money power was as complete a betrayal as Harding's. He +spoke the dialect of the New England rustic, but he was false to the +economy and to the idealism of New England; his whole career was an +encouragement to extravagance; he was ignorant or misled or +indifferent, for he watched a spiral of inflated values and a fury of +gambling, and helped it along; he refused even to admonish the people, +although he knew that the mania for speculation was drawing the +strength of the country away from its functions. Money was being +made—and he respected money; money in large enough quantities could +do no harm. Even after the crash, he could not believe that money had +erred. When he was asked to write a daily paragraph of comment on the +state of the nation, he was embarrassed; he had been the President of +prosperity and he did not want to face a long depression; he asked his +friends at Morgan and Company to advise him and they told him that the +depression would be over almost immediately, so he began his writings, +admitting that "the condition of the country is not good"; but the +depression outlasted his writing and his life. By the usual process of +immediate history, this singularly loquacious, narrow-minded, +ignorant, and financially destructive President stands in public +memory as the typical laconic Yankee <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>who preached thrift and probably +would have prevented the depression if we had followed his advice.</p> + +<p>His successor was a reformed idealist. He had fed the Belgians, looked +after the commercial interests of American businessmen, and promised +two cars in every American garage. At last plutocracy was to pay off +in comfort—but it was too late. Not enough Americans had garages, not +enough cars could be bought by the speculators on Wall Street, to make +up for the lack of sales among the disinherited.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>No More Ideals</i></p> + +<p>Normalcy was a debasement of the normal instincts of the average +American; it deprived us of political morality, not only because it +began in corruption, but because it ended with indifference; normalcy +destroyed idealism, particularly the simple faith in ideals of the +common man, the somewhat uncritical belief that one ought "to have +ideals" which intellectuals find so absurd.</p> + +<p>In the attack on American idealism, our relations with Europe changed +and this reacted corrosively on the great foundations of American +life, on freedom of conscience and freedom of worship, on the +political equality of man. By the anti-American policy of Harding and +Coolidge we lost the great opportunity of resuming communication with +Europe; a generation grew up not only hostile to the nations of Europe +("quarrelsome defaulters" who "hired the money") but suspicious of +Europeans who had become Americans. The Ku Klux Klan, Ford's and +Coughlin's attacks on the Jews, Pelley's attacks on the Jews and the +Catholics, and a hundred others—were reflections in domestic life of +our withdrawal from foreign affairs.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Left Deviation</i></p> + +<p>Parallel to normalcy ran the stream of radicalism, its enemy. Broken +from political moorings by the collapse of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>Wilsonian democracy, +progressives and liberals drifted to the left and presently a line was +thrown to them from the only established haven of radicalism +functioning in the world: Moscow. Not all American liberals tied +themselves to the party line; but few found any other attachment. The +Progressive Party of LaFollette vanished; the liberal intellectuals +were unable to work into the Democratic Party; and, in fact, when +Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected and called his election a +victory for liberals, no one was more impressed than the liberals +themselves. That the new President was soon to appear as a +revolutionary radical was unthinkable.</p> + +<p>What had happened to the constant American liberal tradition? What had +rendered sterile the ancient fruitful heritage of American radicalism? +The apoplectic committees investigating Bolshevism cried aloud that +Moscow gold had bought out the American intellectuals, which was a +silly lie; but why was Moscow gold more potent than American gold, of +which much more was available? (American gold, it turned out, was busy +trying to subsidize college professors and ministers of God, to +propagandize against public ownership of public utilities.)</p> + +<p>It was not the gold of Moscow, but the iron determination of Lenin +that captivated the American radical. At home the last trace of +idealism was being destroyed and in Russia a new world was being +created with all the harshness and elation of a revolutionary action. +The direction in America was, officially, <i>back</i> (to normalcy; against +the American pioneering tradition of forward movement); the direction +of Russia was forward—to the unknown.</p> + +<p>Few reached Moscow; few were acceptable to the stern hierarchy of +Communism; but all American liberal intellectuals were drawn out of +their natural orbit by the attraction of the new economic planet. Most +of them remained suspended between the two worlds—and in that unhappy +state they tried to solace their homelessness by jeering at their +homeland.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>The American radical's turn against America was a new thing, as new as +the normalcy which provoked it. In the 19th century a few painters and +poets had fled from America; the politicians and critics stayed home, +to fight. They fought for America, passionately convinced that it was +worth fighting for. The Populists and later the muck-rakers and +finally the Progressives were violent, opinionated, cross-grained and +their "lunatic fringe" was dangerous, but none of them despised +America; they despised only the betrayers of America: the railroads, +the bankers, the oil monopolies, the speculators in Wall Street, the +corrupt men in City Hall, the bribed men in Congress. It was not the +time for nice judgments, not the moment to distinguish between a +plunderer like Gould and a builder like Hill. What Rockefeller had +done to <i>save</i> the oil industry wasn't seen until long after he had +destroyed a dozen competitors; what the trusts were doing to prepare +for large-scale production and mass-distribution wasn't to be +discovered until the trusts themselves were a memory.</p> + +<p>So the radicals of 1880 and 1900 were unfair; they usually wanted easy +money in a country which was getting rich with hard money; they wanted +the farmer to rule as he had ruled in Jefferson's day, but they did +not want to give up the cotton gin and the machine loom and the reaper +and the railroads which were transferring power to the city and the +factory. The radical seemed often to be as selfish and greedy as the +fat Republicans who sat in Congress and in bankers' offices and +juggled rates of interest and passed tariffs to make industrial +infants fat also.</p> + +<p>Yet the liberal-radical until 1920 was a man who loved America and +wanted only that America should fulfill its destiny, should be always +more American, giving our special quality of freedom and prosperity to +more and more men; whereas the radical-critic of the 1920's wept +because America was too American and wanted her to become as like +Europe as we could—and not a living Europe, of course. The Europe +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>held before America as an ideal in the 1920's was the Europe which +died in the first World War.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Working Both Sides of the Street</i></p> + +<p>The radical attack on America completed the destruction begun by the +plutocrats; they played into each other's hands like crooked gamblers. +The plutocrat and the politician made patriotism sickening by using it +to blackjack those who saw skullduggery corrupting our country; and +the radical critic made patriotism ridiculous by belittling the +nation's past and denying its future. The politicians supported +committees to make lists of heretics, and tried to deny civil rights +to citizens in minority parties; and the intellectuals pretended that +the Ku Klux Klan was the true spirit of America; the plutocrats and +the politicians murdered Sacco and Vanzetti and the radicals acted as +if no man had ever suffered for his beliefs in France or England or +Germany or Spain. The debasement of American life was rapid and +ugly—and instead of fighting, the radical critic rejoiced, because he +did not care for the America that had been; it was not Communist and +not civilized in the European sense—why bother to save it?</p> + +<p>In 1936 I summed up years of disagreement with the fashionable +attitude under the (borrowed) caption, <i>The Treason of the +Intellectuals</i>. Looking back at it now, I find a conspicuous error—I +failed to bracket the politician with the debunker, the plutocrat with +the radical. I was for the average man against both his enemies, but I +did not see how the reactionary and the radical were combining to +create a vacuum in American social and political life.</p> + +<p>The people of the United States were—and are—"materialistic" and in +love with the things that money can buy; but the ascendancy of +speculative wealth in the 1920's was not altogether satisfying. More +people than ever before gambled in Wall Street; but considering the +stakes, the steady upswing of prices, the constant stories of success, +the open boasting of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>our great industrialists and the benign, tacit +assent of Calvin Coolidge—considering all these, the miracle is that +eight out of ten capable citizens did not speculate. The chance to +make money was part of the American tradition—for which millions of +Europeans had come to America; but it did not fulfill all the +requirements of a purpose in life. It wasn't good enough by any +standard; it allowed a class of disinherited to rise in America, a +fatal error because our wealth depended on customers and the penniless +are not good risks; and the riches-system could not protect itself +from external shock. Europe began to shiver with premonitions of +disaster, a bank in Austria fell, and America loyally responded with +the greatest panic in history.</p> + +<p>Long before the money-ideal crashed, it had been rejected by some of +the American people. It would have been scorned by more if anything +else had been offered to them, anything remotely acceptable to them. +The longest tradition of American life was cooperative effort; the +great traditions of hardship and experiment and progressive liberalism +and the mingling of races and the creation of free communities—all +these were still in our blood. But when the plutocrat and politician +tried to destroy them by neglect or persecution, the intellectual did +not rebuild them; he told us that the traditions had always been a +false front for greed, and asked us to be content with laughing at the +past; or he told us that nothing was good in the future of the world +except the Russian version of Karl Marx.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>We L'arn the Furriner</i></p> + +<p>The crushing double-grip of the anti-Americans of the Right and Left +was most effective in foreign affairs. Normalcy wanted back the money +which Europe had hired, as President Coolidge said; and normalcy +wanted to hear nothing more of Europe. At the same time the radical +was basically internationalist; the true believer in Lenin was also +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>revolutionist. Sheer isolationism didn't work; we were constantly on +the side lines of the League of Nations; we stepped in to save Germany +and presumably to help all Europe; we trooped to the deathbed of old +Europe (with the exchange in our favor); the sickness made us uneasy +at last—but we could not break from isolation because normalcy and +radicalism together had destroyed the common, and acceptable, American +basis of friendly independent relations with Europe.</p> + +<p>Internationalism, with a communistic tinge, was equally unthinkable; +and presently we began to think that a treaty of commerce might +somehow be "internationalist". Europe, meanwhile, broke into three +parts, fascist, communist, and the victims of both, the helpless ones +we called our friends, the "democracies". By 1932 economics had +destroyed isolation and Hitler began to destroy internationalism. The +American people had for twelve years shrunk from both, now found that +it had no shell to shrink into—America had repudiated all duty to the +world; it had tried to make the League of Nations unnecessary by a few +pacts and treaties; it had flared up over China and, rebuffed by +England, sunk back into apathy. It was uninformed, without habit or +tradition or will in foreign affairs; without any ideal around which +all the people of America could gather; and with nothing to do in the +world.</p> + +<p>The New Deal repaired some of the destruction of normalcy, but it +could not allay the mischief and unite the country at the same time. +Loyalty to the Gold Standard and devotion to the principle of letting +people starve were both abandoned; the shaming moral weakness of the +Hoover regime, the resignation to defeat, were overcome. The direct +beneficiaries of the New Deal were comparatively few; the indirect +were the middle and upper income classes. They saw President Roosevelt +save them from a dizzy drop into revolution; a few years later the +danger was over, and when the rich and well-born saw that the +President was not going to turn <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>conservative, they regretted being +saved—thinking that perhaps the revolution of 1933 might have turned +fascist, and in their favor.</p> + +<p>These were extremists. The superior common man was not a reactionary +when he voted for Landon or Willkie. After the Blue Eagle was killed +by the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court was saved by resignations, +the average American could accept ninety percent of the objectives of +FDR—and ask only for superior efficiency from the Republican Party.</p> + +<p>The newspapers of the country were violent; Martin Dies was violent; +John L. Lewis was violent; but labor and radicals and people were +<i>not</i> violent. We were approaching some unity of belief in America's +national future when the war broke out.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Quarterback vs. Pedagogue</i></p> + +<p>The New Deal had no visible foreign policy, but President Roosevelt +made up for it by having several, one developing out of the other, +each a natural consequence of events abroad in relation to the state +of public opinion at home. To a great extent this policy was based on +the President's dislike of tyranny and his love for the Navy, a +fortunate combination for the people of the United States, for it +allied us with the Atlantic democracies and compeled us to face the +prospect of war in the Pacific. So far as we were at all prepared to +defend ourselves, we are indebted to the President's recognition of +our position as a naval power requiring a friend at the farther end of +each ocean, Britain in the Atlantic, Russia and China in the Pacific.</p> + +<p>The President's policy, singularly correct, was not the people's +policy. It was not part of the New Deal; it was not tied into domestic +policies; it subsisted in a dreadful void. Mr. Roosevelt, who once +called himself the nation's quarterback, never had the patient almost +pedantic desire to teach the American people which was so useful to +Wilson. The notes to Germany, scorned at the time, were an education +in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>international law for the American people; by 1917 the people were +aware of the war and beginning to discover a part in it for +themselves. Mr. Roosevelt's methods were more spectacular, but not as +patient, so that he sometimes alienated people, and he faced a wilier +enemy at home; Wilson overcame ignorance and Roosevelt had to overcome +deliberate malice, organized hostility to our system of government, +and a true pacificism which has always been native to America. Racial, +religious, and national prejudices were all practised upon to prevent +the creation of unity; it was not remarked at the time that class +prejudice did not arise.</p> + +<p>The defect of Roosevelt's method led to this: the American people did +not understand their own position in the world. The President had +appealed to their moral sense when he asked for a quarantine of the +aggressors; he appealed to fear when he cited the distances between +Dakar and Des Moines; but he had no unified body of opinion behind +him. The Republican Party might easily have nominated an isolationist +as a matter of politics if not of principle; and it was a stroke of +luck that politics (not international principles) gave the opportunity +to Wendell Willkie. Yet the boldest move made by Mr. Roosevelt, the +exchange of destroyers for bases, had to be an accomplished fact, and +a good bargain, before it could be announced. Even Mr. Willkie's +refusal to play politics with the fate of Britain did not assure the +President of a country willing to understand its new dangers and its +new opportunities.</p> + +<p>Nothing in the past twenty years had prepared America; and the +isolationists picked up the weapons of both the plutocrat and the +debunker to prevent our understanding our function in a fascist world. +The grossest appeal to self-interest and the most cynical imputation +of self-interest in others, went together. There were faithful +pacifists who disliked armaments and disliked the sale of armaments +even more; but there were also those who wanted the profit of selling +without the risk; there were the alarming fellow travelers who <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>wished +America to be destroyed until they discovered the USSR wanted American +guns. There were snide businessmen who wanted Hitler even more than +they wanted peace, and a mob, united by nothing—except a passion for +the cruelty and the success of the Nazis.</p> + +<p>The spectacle of America arguing war in 1941 was painful and ludicrous +and one sensed changes ahead; but it had one great redeeming quality, +it was in our tradition of public discussion and a vast deal of the +discussion was honest and fair.</p> + +<p>The war did not change Americans over night. The argument had not +united us; but in the first days we dared not admit this; we began a +dangerous game of hypnotizing ourselves.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CHAPTER IV<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h2>"The Strategy of Truth"</h2> +<br /> + +<p>The consequences of building on a unity which does not exist are +serious. We have discovered that all war is total war; we have also +found that while our enemies lie to us, they do not lie to their High +Commands.</p> + +<p>Total war requires total effort from the civilian and we have assumed +that, in America, this means enthusiasm for our cause, understanding +of our danger, willingness to sacrifice, confidence in our leaders, +faith in ultimate victory. We may be wrong; total effort in Germany is +based more on compulsion and promise than on understanding. But we +cannot immediately alter the atmosphere in which we are living. If we +could, if our leaders believed that total effort could be achieved +more quickly by lies than by truth, it would be their obligation to +lie to us. In total war there is no alternative to the most effective +weapon. Only the weapon must be effective over a sufficient length of +time; the advantage of a lie must be measured against the loss when +the lie is shown up; if the balance is greater, over a period of time, +than the value of the truth, the lie still must be told. If we are a +people able to recognize a lie too fast for it to be effective, the +lie must not be used; if we react "correctly" to certain forms of +persuasion (as, say, magazine ads and radio commercials), the +psychological counterparts of these should be used, at least until a +new technique develops.</p> + +<p>This is a basis for "the strategy of truth" which Archibald MacLeish +set in opposition to the Nazi "strategy of terror". The opposition is +not perfect because the Nazis have used the truth plentifully in +spreading terror, especially by the use of moving pictures. Their +strategy, ethically, is a mixture of truth and lies, in combination; +practically speaking, this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>strategy is on the highest ethical plane +because it saves Nazi lives, brings quick victory, protects the State +and the people. It is, however, ill-suited to our purposes.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Ethics of Lying</i></p> + +<p>Mr. MacLeish is being an excellent propagandist in the very use of the +phrase, "strategy of truth", which corresponds to the President's +"solemn pact of truth between government and the people"; there are a +hundred psychological advantages in telling us that we are getting the +truth; but propaganda has no right to use the truth if the truth +ceases to be effective. Lies are easier to tell, but harder to handle; +in a democracy they are tricky and dangerous because the conditions +for making lies effective have not been created; such conditions were +created in Germany; they came easily in other countries where no +direct relations between people and government existed.</p> + +<p>Before propaganda can lie to us, safely and for our own preservation, +honorably and desirably, it must persuade us to give up our whole +system of communication, our political habits, our tradition of free +criticism. This could be done; but it would be difficult; no +propagandist now working in America is cunning and brutal enough to +destroy our civil liberties without a struggle which would cost more +(in terms of united effort) than it would be worth. We cannot stop in +the middle of a war to break down one system of persuasion and create +another; the frame of mind which advertising men call "consumer +acceptance" is, as they know, induced by a touch of newness in a +familiar framework; the new element catches attention but it has to +become familiar before it is effective.</p> + +<p>Our propagandists, therefore, must use the truth, as they incline to +do, but they have to learn its uses. We gain prestige by advertising +the truth, even though the use of truth is forced upon us; but we have +not yet won approval of the suppression of truth. It is good to use +truth as flattery ("You are brave enough to know the truth") but truth +also creates <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>fear which (advertisers again know this) is a potent +incentive to action. Finally, the use of truth requires the +canalization of propaganda; it is too dangerous to be handled by +everyone.</p> + +<p>The propagandists of our cause include everyone who speaks to the +people, sells a bond, writes, broadcasts, publishes, by executive +order or private will; they vary in skill and in detailed purpose; +they blurt out prejudices and conceal information useful to the +citizen. They have not, so far as any one has discovered, lied to the +people of America, contenting themselves at first with concealing the +extent, or belittling the significance, of our reverses; presently the +same sources began to abuse the American people for not being aware of +the danger threatening them; and no one officially recognized the +connection between ignorance and concealment.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Maxims for Propagandists</i></p> + +<p>It is easy to mark down the detailed errors of propaganda. The more +difficult work is to create a positive program; and it is possible +that we have been going through an experimental period, while such a +program is being worked out in Washington. A few of the requirements +are obvious.</p> + +<p><i>Propaganda must be used.</i> Our government has no more right to deprive +us of propaganda than it has to deprive us of pursuit planes or +bombers or anti-aircraft guns or antitoxin. Propaganda is the great +offensive-defensive weapon of the home front; if we do not get it, we +should demand it. If what we get is defective, we should protest as we +would protest against defective bombsights.</p> + +<p><i>Propaganda must be organized.</i> Otherwise it becomes a diffused babel +of opinion.</p> + +<p><i>Propaganda must be unscrupulous.</i> It has one duty—to the State.</p> + +<p><i>Propaganda must not be confused with policy.</i> If at a given moment +the Grand Strategy of the war absolutely requires us to offer a +separate peace to Italy or to make war on Rumania, propaganda must +show this need in its happiest light; if the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>reverse is required, +propaganda's job does not alter. Policy should not be made by +propagandists and propagandists should have no policy.</p> + +<p><i>Propaganda must interact with policy.</i> If at a given moment, the +Grand Strategy has a free choice between recognizing or rejecting a +Danish Government-in-exile, the action which propaganda can use to +best advantage is the better.</p> + +<p><i>Propaganda must have continuity.</i> The general principles of +propaganda have to be worked out, and followed. The principle, in +regard to direct war news, may be to tell all, to tell nothing, or to +alter the dosage according to the temper of the people. The choice of +one of these principles is of the gravest importance; it must be done, +or approved, by the President. After the choice is made, sticking to +one principle is the only way to build confidence. Except for details +of naval losses, the British official announcements are prompt and +accurate; the British people generally do not go about in the fear of +hidden catastrophe. The Italian system differs and may be suited to +the temper of the people; the Russian communiques are exactly adapted +to Stalin's concept of the war: the Red soldier is cited for heroism, +in small actions, the Germans are always identified as fascists, the +vast actions of the entire front are passed over in a formal opening +sentence. The German method has its source in Hitler; the +announcements of action are rhetorical, contemptuous, and sometimes +threatening; the oratory which accompanies the official statements +has, for the first time, had a setback, since the destruction of the +Russian Army was announced in the autumn of 1941, but no one has +discovered any serious reaction as a result. The German people have +been conditioned by action; and action has worked with propaganda for +this result. The concentration camp, the death of free inquiry, and +the triumph of Munich have been as potent as Goebbels' lies to prepare +the German people for total war; so that they have not reacted against +Hitler when a prediction has failed or a promise gone sour.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>Each of these methods has been consistently followed. Our +propagandists on the home front began with the knowledge that a great +part of the country did not want a war; a rather grim choice was +presented: to frighten the people, or to baby them. The early +waverings about Pearl Harbor reflected the dilemma; the anger roused +by Pearl Harbor gave time to the propagandist to plan ahead. The +result has been some excellent and some fumbling propaganda; but no +principle has yet come to light.</p> + +<p><i>Propaganda must supply positive symbols.</i> The symbol, the slogan, the +picture, which unites the citizen, and inspires to action, can be +created by an individual, but can only be made effective by correct +propaganda. The swastika is a positive symbol, a mark of unity +(because it was once a mark of the revolutionary outcast); we have no +such symbol. Uncle Sam is a cartoonists' fiction, too often appearing +in comic guises, too often used in advertising, no longer +corresponding even to the actuality of the American physique. The +Minute-man has an antique flavor but is not sufficiently generalized; +he is a brilliant defensive symbol and corresponded precisely to the +phase of the militia, an "armed citizenry" leaping to the defense of +the country. With my prejudice it is natural that I should suggest the +Liberty Bell as a positive symbol of the thing we fight for. It is +possible to draw its form on a wall—not to ward off evil, but to +inspire fortitude.</p> + +<p><i>Propaganda must be independent.</i> It is a fighting arm; it has (or +should have) special techniques; it is based on researches, +measurements, comparisons, all approaching a scientific method. It +should therefore be recognized as a separate function; Mr. Gorham +Munson, preceded by Mr. Edward L. Bernays in 1928, has proposed a +Secretary for Propaganda in the Cabinet, which would make the direct +line of authority from the Executive to the administrators of policy, +without interference. The conflicts of publicity (aircraft versus Navy +for priorities, for instance) will eventually force some <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>organization +of propaganda. The confusion of departmental interests is a constant +drawback to propaganda, even if there is no direct conflict.</p> + +<p><i>Propaganda must be popular.</i> Since the first World War several new +ways of approaching the American people have been developed. These +have been chiefly commercial, as the radio and the popular illustrated +magazine; the documentary moving picture has never been popular, +except for the March of Time, but it has been tolerated; in the past +two years a new type, the patriotic short, has been skilfully +developed. The full length picture has hardly ever been used for +direct communication; it is a "morale builder", not a propaganda +weapon.</p> + +<p><i>Propaganda must be measured.</i> At the same time the method of the +selective poll has been developed in several forms and a quick, +dependable survey of public sentiment can be used to check the +effectiveness of any propaganda. Recent refinements in the techniques +promise even greater usefulness; the polls "weight" themselves, and, +in effect, tell how important their returns should be considered. The +objections to the polling methods are familiar; but until something +better comes along, the reports on opinion, and notably on the +fluctuations of opinion, are not to be sneered away. To my mind this +is one of the basic operations of propaganda; and although I have no +evidence, I assume that it is constantly being done.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Who Can Do It?</i></p> + +<p>An effective use of the instruments is now possible. We may blunder in +our intentions, but technical blunders need not occur; the people who +have used radio or print or pictures are skilled in their trade and +they can use it for the nation as they used it for toothpaste or +gasoline. And the people of America are accustomed to forms of +publicity and persuasion which need not be significantly altered. +Moreover, we can measure the tightness of our methods in the field, +not by rejoicing over "mail response", or newspaper comment, but by +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>discovering exactly how far we have created the attitude of mind and +the temper of spirit at which we aim.</p> + +<p>The advertising agency and the sampler of public opinion can supply +the groundwork of a flexible propaganda method. They cannot do +everything, because certain objectives have always escaped them. But +they are the people who have persuaded most effectively and reported +most accurately the results of persuasion. They cannot create policy, +not even the policy of propaganda; but they can propagandize.</p> + +<p>All of this refers to propaganda at home. It need not be called +propaganda, but it must <i>be</i> propaganda—the organized use of all +means of communication to create specific attitudes, leading to—or +from—specific action.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>What Is Morale's Pulse?</i></p> + +<p>This is, of course, another way of saying that morale is affected by +propaganda. I avoid the word "morale" because it has unhappily fallen +into a phrase, "boosting morale", or "keeping morale at a high level." +We have it on military authority that morale is an essential of +victory, but no authority has told us how to create it, nor exactly to +what high level morale should be "boosted". The concept of morale +constantly supercharged by propaganda is fatally wrong; it confuses +morale with cheerfulness and leads to the dangerous fluctuations of +public emotion on which our enemies have always capitalized.</p> + +<p>Morale should be defined as a desirable and effective attitude toward +events. As despair and defeatism are undesirable, they break up +morale; as cheerfulness leads at times to ineffectiveness, it is bad +for morale. To induce cheerfulness in the week of Singapore, the +burning of the Normandie, and the escape of the German battleships +from Brest, would have been the worst kind of morale-boosting; to +prevent elation over a substantial victory would have been not quite +so bad, but bad enough.</p> + +<p>There is a "classic example" of the effect of belittling a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>victory. +The British public first got details of the Battle of Jutland from the +German announcement of a naval victory, including names and number of +British vessels sunk. The first British communique was no more subdued +than usual, but coming <i>after</i> the German claims and making no +assertions of victory, taking scrupulous care to list <i>all</i> British +losses and only positively observed German losses, the announcement +pulled morale down—not because it gave bad news, but because it put a +bad light on good news; it did not allow morale to be level with +events. The best opinion of the time considered Jutland a victory +lacking finality, but with tremendous consequences; and Churchill was +called in as a special writer to do the Admiralty's propaganda on the +battle after the mischief was done. The time element was against him +for a belated explanation is never as effective as a quick capture of +the field by bold assertion and proof. Mr. Churchill was himself +belated, a generation later, when he first defended the Navy for +letting the Gneisenau and Scharnhorst escape and then, a day later, +asserted that the ships had been compelled to leave Brest and that +their removal was a gain for the British. The point is the same in +both cases: the truth or an effective substitute may be used; but it +has to correspond to actuality. The Admiralty underplayed its +statement at Jutland. Churchill over-explained the situation at Brest. +Both were bad for morale.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>The Hypodermic Technique</i></p> + +<p>The "shot-in-the-arm" theory of morale is a confession of incompetence +in propaganda. For the healthy human being does not need sudden +injections of drugs, not even for exceptional labors; and the +objective of propaganda is to create an atmosphere in which the +average citizen will work harder and bear more discomfort and live +through more anxiety and suffer greater unhappiness <i>without +considering his situation exceptional or abnormal</i>.</p> + +<p>To "boost morale", to give the public a shot of good news <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>(or even a +shot of bad news), is an attempt to make us live above our normal +temperature, to speed up our heart-beat and our metabolism. War itself +raises the level; and all we have to do for morale is to stay on the +new level.</p> + +<p>The principle that the citizen must not consider his situation +exceptional is one of the few accepted by democratic and autocratic +States alike. Hitler announces that until the war is over he will wear +a simple soldier's uniform; Churchill refuses to accept a hoard of +cigars; the President buys a bond. In every case the conspicuous head +of a nation does what the average citizen has to do; and because each +citizen is like his leader, all citizens are like one another. A unity +is created.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Re-Uniting America</i></p> + +<p>This completes the circle which began with our need for unity, and +proceeded through propaganda to morale. For the foundation of our war +effort has to be unity and the base of good morale is the feeling of +one-ness in the privations and in the triumphs of war. We can now +proceed to some of the reasons for the breaks in unity, which +propaganda has not seen, nor mended.</p> + +<p>First, the propagandists have rejected certain large groups of +Americans because of pre-war pacifism; second, they have failed to +recognize the use to which isolationism can be put; third, they have +not thought out the principles of free criticism in a democracy at +war. To rehearse all the other forms of separatist action would be to +recall angers and frustrations dormant now, just below the level of +conscious action. Moreover, a list of the causes of separation, with a +remedy for each, would repeat the error of civilian propaganda in the +early phases of the war—it would still be negative, and the need now +is to set in motion the positive forces of unity, which have always +been available to us.</p> + +<p><i>The accord we need is for free and complete and effective action, for +sweating in the heat and crying in the night when disaster strikes, +for changing the face of our private world, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>for losing what we have +labored to build, for learning to be afraid and to suffer and to +fight; it is an accord on the things that are vital because they are +our life: what have we been, what shall we do, what do we want—past, +present, future; history, character, destiny.</i></p> + +<p>The propaganda of the first six months of the war was not directed to +the creation of unity in this sense; it was not concerned with +anything but the immediate daily feeling of Americans toward the day's +news; the civilian propagandists insisted that "disunity is ended" +because all Americans knew what they were fighting for, so that it +became faintly disloyal to point out that reiteration was not proof +and that disunity could end, leaving mere chaos, a dispersed +indifferent emotion, in its place. The end of dissension was not +enough; unity had to be created, a fellow-feeling called up from the +memory of the people, binding them to one another because it bound +them to our soil and our heroes and our myths and our realities; and +the act of creation of unity automatically destroyed disunion; when +the gods arrive, not only the half-gods, but the devils also, depart.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Myth and Money</i></p> + +<p>Faintly one felt a lack of conviction in the propagandists themselves. +They were afraid of the debunkers, under whose shadow they had grown +up. They did not venture to create an effective myth. Myth to them was +Washington's Cherry Tree, and Lincoln's boyish oath against slavery +and Theodore Roosevelt's Wild West; so they could not, with rhetoric +to lift the hearts of harried men and women, recall the truth-myth of +America, the loyalty which triumphed over desertion at Valley Forge, +the psychological miracle of Lincoln's recovery from self-abasement to +create his destiny and shape the destiny of the New World; the health +and humor and humanity of the west as Roosevelt remembered it. At +every point in our history the reality had something in it to touch +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>the imagination, the heart, to make one feel how complex and fortunate +is the past we carry in us if we are Americans.</p> + +<p>The propagandists were also afraid of the plutocrats—as they were +afraid of the myth, they were afraid of reality. They did not dare to +say that America was an imperfect democracy whose greatness lay in the +chance it gave to all men to work for perfection; they did not dare to +say that the war itself must create democracy over again, they did not +dare to proclaim liberty to this land or to all lands; in the name of +unity they could not offend the enemies of human freedom.</p> + +<p>Moreover, the propagandists for unity had to defend the +Administration. The rancor of politics had never actually disappeared +in America, during wars; it was barely sweetened by a trace of +patriotism three months after the war began. As a good fight needs two +sides, defenders of the President were as happy as his opponents to +call names, play politics, and distress the country. The groundwork +for defeating the nation's aims in war was laid before those aims had +been expressed; and one reason why we could make no proclamation of +our purpose was that our purpose was clouded over; we had not yet gone +back to the source of our national strength; and we had not yet begun +to use our strength to accomplish a national purpose.</p> + +<p>We were effecting a combination of individual capacities—not a unity +of will. We were adding one individual to another, a slow process: we +needed to multiply one by the other—which can only be done in +complete union of purpose.</p> + +<p>Some of the weakness of propaganda rose from its mixed intentions: to +make us hate the enemy, to make us understand our Allies, to harden us +for disaster, to defend the conduct of the war, to make us pay, to +assure us that production was terrific, and then to make us pay more +because production was inadequate; to silence the critics of the +Administration, to appease the men of violence crying for Vichy's +scalp or the men of violence crying for formulation of war aims. All +these <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>things <i>had</i> to be done, promptly and effectively. They would +have to be done no matter how unified in feeling we were; and they +could not be done at all unless unity came first.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Call Back the Pacifists</i></p> + +<p>Small purposes were put first because the propagandists suffered from +their own success. They had gone ahead of all and had brilliantly been +teaching the American people the meaning of the European war; they +were among the President's most potent allies and they deserve well of +the country; the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies and +the other active interventionist groups were a rallying point for the +enemies of Hitler, and a strong point for attack by all the pacifists. +But the moment the aim of these committees was accomplished and war +was declared, the first objective must have been the re-incorporation +of the pacifist 40% of our population into the functioning national +group. The actual enemies of the country soon declared themselves; the +hidden ones could be discovered. The millions who did not want to go +to war had to be persuaded first of all that <i>we</i> understood why +<i>they</i> had been pacifists; we could not treat them as cowards, or +pro-Germans, or Reds, or idiots. We needed the best of them to unite +the country, and all of them to fight for it.</p> + +<p>Our propagandists did not know how to turn to their advantage the +constant, native, completely sensible pacifism of the American people, +especially of the Midwestern Americans. If the history of the United +States has meaning, the pacifism of the Midwest is bound to become +dominant; our part in the first World War achieved grandeur because +the people of the Middle West, at least, meant it to be a war to end +war, a war to end pacifism also, because there would be no need for +it. The people of the Middle West want our position in the world to +keep us out of the wars of other nations; they saw no wars into which +we could be drawn. They were wrong—but their instincts were not +wrong. They do not believe that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>the wars of the United States have +been like the wars of other nations; nor that the United States must +now look forward to such a series of wars as every nation of Europe +has fought for domination or survival. This may be naive, as to the +past and the future; but it is a naivete we cannot brush aside. It +rises from too many natural causes. And the people of the Middle West +may, if need be, fight to make their dream of peace come true; they +will have to fight the American imperialists, whom they have fought +before; and this time they will have new allies; for the pacifist of +the Midwest will be joined by the pacifists of the industrial cities; +and the great hope of the future is that the pacifists of America will +help to organize the world after the war.</p> + +<p><i>They will not help if they remain isolationists; and they will remain +isolationist, in the middle of a global war, until they are certain +that a world-order they can join is to be the outcome of the war.</i> +Again, our propagandists have to understand isolationism, an historic +American tradition in one sense, a falsehood in another. Our dual +relation to Europe is expressed in two phrases:</p> + +<p class="noin" style="margin-left: 5%;">We <i>came from</i> Europe.<br /> +We <i>went away from</i> Europe.</p> + +<p>For a time we were anti-European; now we are non-Europe; if Europe +changes, we may become pro-European; but we can never be part of +Europe. Isolation is half our story; communication the other. On the +foundation of half the truth, the isolationist built the fairy tale of +physical separation; the interventionist, on the basis of our +communication with Europe, built more strongly—the positive overbore +the negative. Yet the whole structure of our relation to Europe has to +be built on both truths, we have to balance one strength with the +other. We cannot make war or make peace without the help of the +isolationists; and to jeer at them because they failed to understand +the mathematics of air power and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>sea-bases is not to reconcile them +to us; nor, for that matter, is it peculiarly honest. For few of those +who wanted us to go to war against England's enemy warned us that we +should have to fight Japan also; and none, so far as I know, told us +that the task of a two-ocean war might be for several years a burden +of losses and defeat.</p> + +<p>The defeat of pacifist isolationism was not accomplished by the +interventionists, but by Japan. The interventionists, because they +were better prophets, gained the appearance of being truer patriots; +they were actually more intelligent observers of the war in Europe and +more passionately aware of its meaning. But they can be trusted with +propaganda only if they recognize the positive value of their former +enemies, and do not try to create a caste of ex-pacifist +"untouchables." That is the method of totality; it is Hitler declaring +that liberals cannot take part in ruling Germany, and Communists +cannot be Germans. Unity does not require us to destroy those who have +differed with us, it requires total agreement as to aims, and +temporary assent as to methods; we cannot tolerate the action of those +who want Hitler to defeat us, just as the body cannot tolerate cells +which proliferate in disharmony with other cells, and cause cancer. We +cannot afford the time to answer every argument before we take any +action, so temporary assent is needed (the Executive in war time +automatically has it because he orders action without argument). In +democratic countries we add critical examination after the event, and +free discussion of future policy as correctives to error. None of +these break into unity; none requires the isolation of any group +except the enemies of the State.</p> + +<p>The purpose of unity is effective action—more tanks and planes, +delivered more promptly; more pilots, better trained; more people +helping one another in the readjustments of war. It is part of the +groundwork of morale; in a democracy it is based on reconciliation, +not on revenge.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>The Limits of Criticism</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span></p> + +<p>The pacifists and the isolationists are being punished for their +errors if their legitimate emotions are not recognized as part of the +natural composition of the American mind. Criticism presents a problem +more irritating because it is constantly changing its form and because +no principle of action has been evolved.</p> + +<p>At one of the grimmest moments of the war, a correspondent of the <i>New +York Times</i> wrote that "for a while not politics but the war effort +appeared to have undergone an 'adjournment'". At another, the +President remarked that he did not care whether Democrats or +Republicans were elected, provided Congress prosecuted the war +energetically, and comment on this was that the President wanted to +smash the two-party system, in order to have a non-critical Congress +under him as he had had in 1933.</p> + +<p>Both of these items suggest, that propaganda has not yet taught us how +to criticize our government in war time. The desirable limits of +criticism have not been made clear. Every attack on the Administration +has been handled as if it were treason; and there has been a faint +suggestion of party pride in the achievements of our factories and of +our bombers. Neither the war nor criticism of the war can be a +party-matter; and no party-matter can be tolerated in the path of the +war effort. All Americans know this, but the special application of +this loyalty to our present situation has to be clarified. It has been +left obscure.</p> + +<p>For the question of criticism is connected with the problem of unity +in the simplest and most satisfying way. The moment we have unity, we +can allow all criticism which rises from any large group of people. +Off-center criticism, from small groups, is dangerous. It does not ask +questions in the public mind, and its tendency is to divert energies, +not to combine them; small groups, if they are not disloyal, are the +price we pay for freedom of expression in war time; it is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>doubtful +whether, at present, any American group can do much harm; it is even a +matter of doubt whether Eugene V. Debs or several opposition senators +were a graver danger to the armies of the United States in 1917. Small +groups may be tolerated or, under law, suppressed; large groups never +expose themselves to prosecution, but their criticism is serious and +unless it is turned to advantage, it may be dangerous.</p> + +<p>The tendency of any executive, in war time, is to consider any +criticism as a check on war effort. It is. If a commanding officer has +to take five minutes to explain an order, five minutes are lost; if +the President, or the head of OPM, has to defend an action or reply to +a critic, energy is used up, time is lost. But time and energy may be +lost a hundred times more wastefully if the explanation is not given, +if the criticism is not uttered and grows internally and becomes +suspicion and fear. Freedom of criticism is, in our country, a +positive lever for bringing morale into logical relation to events. +The victims of criticism can use it positively, their answers can +create confidence; and best of all, it can be anticipated, so that it +can do no harm.</p> + +<p>But this is true only if the right to criticize is subtly transformed +into a duty; if, in doing his duty, the citizen refuses to criticize +until he is fully informed; if the State makes available to the +citizen enough information on which criticism can be based. Then the +substance and the intention of criticism become positive factors in +our fight for freedom.</p> + +<p>Since it is freedom we are fighting for.</p> + +<p>Freedom, nothing else, is the source of unity—our purpose in the war, +our reason for fighting. On a low level of survival we have forgotten +some of our differences and combined our forces to fight because we +were attacked; on the high level which makes us a nation we are united +to fight for freedom, and this unites us to one another because it +unites us with every American who ever fought for freedom. Most +particularly our battle today unites us with those who first +proclaimed liberty throughout the land.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CHAPTER V<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h2>The Forgotten Document</h2> +<br /> + +<p>To distract attention, to put people's minds on useless or bewildering +projects is a bit of sabotage, in a total war. It is well enough to +divert people, for a moment, so that they are refreshed; but no one +has the right to confuse a clear issue or to start inessential +projects or to ask people to look at anything except the job in hand.</p> + +<p>For five minutes, I propose a look at the Declaration of Independence, +because it is the one document essential to our military and moral +success; it is the standard by which we can judge the necessity of all +projects; and although our destiny, and the means to fulfill it, are +written into it, the Declaration is the forgotten document of American +history. We remember the phrases too often repeated by politicians and +dreamers; we do not study the hard realistic plan of national action +embodied in every paragraph of the instrument.</p> + +<p>The famous phrases at the beginning give the moral, and revolutionary, +reason for action; the magnificent ground plan of the character and +history of the American people is explained in the forgotten details +of the Declaration; and nothing in the conservative Constitution could +do more than delay the unfolding of the plan or divide its fruits a +little unevenly.</p> + +<p>I suggest that the Declaration supplies the <i>motive</i> of action for +today; the moment we understand it, we have a definition of America, a +specific blueprint of what we have been, what we are, and what we can +become—and the action necessary for our future evolves from this; +moreover the unnecessary action is likewise defined. Our course before +we were attacked and our plans for the world after the war may seem +the mere play of prejudice and chance; but the destiny of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>America +will be determined not by the affections of one group or the fears of +another, nor by hysteria and passion; our fate will be determined by +the whole course of our history—and by our decision to continue its +direction or to reverse it.</p> + +<p>The rest of this book flows out of this belief in the decisive role of +the Declaration, but it does not attempt to indicate a course of +action in detail. For the sake of illustration I cite these instances.</p> + +<p><i>Q.</i> Should the U.S. try to democratize the Germans or accept the view +that the Germans are a race incapable of self-government?</p> + +<p><i>A.</i> The history of immigration, based on the Declaration, proves that +Germans are capable of being good and great democratic citizens.</p> + +<p><i>Q.</i> Can the U.S. unite permanently with any single nation or any +exclusive group of nations?</p> + +<p><i>A.</i> Our history, under the Declaration, makes it impossible.</p> + +<p><i>Q.</i> Can the U.S. join a world federation regulating specific economic +problems, such as access to raw materials, tariffs, etc.?</p> + +<p><i>A.</i> Nothing in the Declaration is against, everything in our history +is for, such a move.</p> + +<p><i>Q.</i> Can the U.S. fight the war successfully without accepting the +active principles of the Totalitarian States?</p> + +<p><i>A.</i> If our history is any guide, the only way we can <i>lose</i> the war +is by failing to fight it in our own way.</p> + +<p>I have already indicated the possibility that our whole military grand +plan must be based on variety, which is the characteristic of America +created by specific passages in the Declaration; I am sure that the +whole grand plan of civilian unity (the plan of morale and propaganda) +has to return to the leading lines of our history, if we want to act +quickly, harmoniously and effectively; and the peace we make will be +another Versailles, with another Article X in the Covenant, if we make +it without returning to the sources of our strength.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>So, if we want to win in the field and at home, win the war and the +peace, we must be aware of our history and of the principles laid down +in 1776 and never, in the long run, betrayed.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>To Whom It May Concern</i></p> + +<p>The Declaration is in four parts and all of them have some bearing on +the present.</p> + +<p>The first explains why the Declaration is issued. The words are so +familiar that their significance is gone; but if we remember that days +were spent in revision and the effect of every word was calculated, we +can assume that there are no accidents, that the Declaration is +precise and says what it means. Here is the passage:</p> + +<div class="block"><p>"<i>When, in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for +one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected +them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, +the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and +of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions +of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which +impel them to the separation.</i>"</p></div> + +<p>The first official utterance of America is based on <i>human +necessity</i>—not the necessity of princes or powers.</p> + +<p>It is the utterance of a people, not a nation. It invokes first Nature +and then Nature's God as lawgivers.</p> + +<p>It asks independence and equality—in the same phrase; the habit of +nations, to enslave or be enslaved, is not to be observed in the New +World.</p> + +<p>And finally "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind"; the first +utterance of America is addressed not to the nations of the world, but +to the men and women who inhabit them.</p> + +<p><i>Human—people—Nature—Nature's God—mankind.</i></p> + +<p>These are the words boldly written across the map of America. A +century and a half of change have not robbed one of them of their +power—because they were not fad-words, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>not the catchwords of a +revolution; they were words with cold clear meanings—and they +destroyed feudalism in Europe for a hundred and sixty years.</p> + +<p>The practical application of the preamble is this: whenever we have +spoken to the people of other nations, as we did in the Declaration, +we have been successful; we have failed only when we have addressed +ourselves to governments. The time is rapidly coming when our only +communication with Europe must be over the heads of its rulers, to the +people. It does not seem practical; but we shall see later that, for +us, it has always been good politics.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>The Logic of Freedom</i></p> + +<p>The next passage in the Declaration is the one with all the +quotations. There can be little harm in reprinting it:</p> + +<div class="block"><p>"<i>We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are +created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with +certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty +and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, +Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just +powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form +of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the +Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute +new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and +organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most +likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, +will dictate that Governments long established should not be +changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all +experiences hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to +suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by +abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a +long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the +same object, evidence a design to reduce them under absolute +Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>throw off +such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future +security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these +Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them +to alter their former System of Government The history of the +present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries +and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment +of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let +Facts be submitted to a candid world.</i>"</p></div> + +<p>Starting off with a rhetorical device—the pretense that its heresies +are acceptable commonplaces, this long paragraph builds a philosophy +of government on the unproved and inflammatory assumptions which it +calls "self-evident". The self-evident truths are, in effect, <i>the +terms agreed upon by the signers</i>. These signers now appear for the +first time, they say "<i>we</i> hold", they say that, to themselves, +certain truths are self-evident. The first three of "these truths" are +some general statements about "all men"; the fourth and fifth tell why +governments are established and why they should be overthrown. These +two are the objective of the first three; but they have been neglected +in favor of adolescent disputation over the equality of men at birth, +and they have been forgotten in our adult pursuit of happiness which +has often made us forget that life and liberty, no less than large +incomes, are among our inalienable rights.</p> + +<p>The historians of the Declaration always remind us of John Locke's +principle that governments exist only to protect property; when States +fail they cease to be legitimate, they can be overthrown; and Locke is +taken to be, more than Rousseau, the inspiration of the Declaration. +The Declaration, it happens, never mentions the right to own property; +but the argument for revolution is essentially the same: when a +government ceases to function, it should be overthrown. The critical +point is the definition of the chief duty of a government. The +Colonists, in the Declaration, said it is to secure <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>certain rights to +all men; not to guarantee privileges granted by the State, but to +protect rights which are born when men are born, in them, with +them—inalienably theirs.</p> + +<p>So the Declaration sets us for ever in opposition to the totalitarian +State—for that State has all the inalienable rights, and the people +exist only to protect the State.</p> + +<p>The catalogue of rights is comparatively unimportant; once we agree +that the State exists to secure inherent rights, the great +revolutionary stride has been taken; and immediately we see that our +historic opposition to Old Europe is of a piece with our present +opposition to Hitler. The purpose of our State is not the purpose of +the European States; we might work with them, side by side, but a +chemical union would result only in an explosion.</p> + +<p>There is one word artfully placed in the description of the State; the +Declaration does not say that governments derive their powers from the +consent of the governed. It says that governments instituted among men +to protect their rights "derive their <i>just</i> powers from the consent of +the governed". Always realistic, the Declaration recognizes the +tendency of governors to reach out for power and to absorb whatever the +people fail to hold. The idea of consent is also revolutionary—but the +moment "inalienability" is granted, consent to be governed <i>must</i> +follow. The fascist state recognizes <i>no</i> inalienable right, and needs +no consent from its people.</p> + +<p>It is "self-evident", I think, that we have given wrong values to the +three elements involved. We have talked about the "pursuit of +happiness"; we have been impressed by the idea of any right being ours +"for keeps", inalienable; and we have never thought much about the +fundamental radicalism of the Declaration: that it makes government +our servant, instructed <i>by us</i> to protect our rights. The chain of +reasoning, as the Declaration sets it forth, leads to a practical +issue:</p> + +<div class="block3"><p class="hang">All men are created equal—their equality lies in their having +rights;</p> + +<p class="hang">these rights cannot be alienated;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></p> + +<p class="hang">governments are set up to prevent alienation;</p> + +<p class="hang">power to secure the rights of the people is given by the people +to the government;</p> + +<p class="hang">and if one government fails, the people give the power to +another.</p></div> + +<p>So in the first three hundred words of the Declaration the purpose of +our government is logically developed.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Blueprint of America</i></p> + +<p>There follows first a general and then a particular condemnation of +the King of England. This is the longest section of the Declaration. +It is the section no one bothers to read; the statute of limitations +has by this time outlawed our bill of complaint against George the +Third. But the grievances of the Colonials were not high-pitched +trifles; every complaint rises out of a definite desire to live under +a decent government; and the whole list is like a picture, seen in +negative, of the actual government the Colonists intended to set up; +and the basic habits of American life, its great traditions, its good +fortune and its deficiencies are all foreshadowed in this middle +section. Here—for the sake of completeness—is the section:</p> + +<p>"<i>He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary +for the public good.</i></p> + +<p>"<i>He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and +pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his +Assent should be obtained, and when so suspended, he has utterly +neglected to attend them.</i></p> + +<p>"<i>He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large +districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of +Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and +formidable to tyrants only.</i></p> + +<p>"<i>He has called together legislative bodies at places, unusual, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public +Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with +his measures.</i></p> + +<p>"<i>He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with +manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.</i></p> + +<p>"<i>He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause +others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of +Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; +the State remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of +invasion from without, and convulsions within.</i></p> + +<p>Here I omit one "count", reserved for separate consideration.</p> + +<p>"<i>He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his +Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.</i></p> + +<p>"<i>He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of +their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.</i></p> + +<p>"<i>He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of +Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.</i></p> + +<p>"<i>He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies, without +the Consent of our legislatures.</i></p> + +<p>"<i>He has affected to render the Military Independent of and superior +to the Civil power.</i></p> + +<p>"<i>He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign +to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent +to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For quartering large bodies of +armed troops among us: For protecting them by a mock Trial from +punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants +of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the +world: For depriving us in many cases of the benefits of Trial by +jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended +offenses: For abolishing the free System of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>English Laws in a +neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, +and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and +fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these +Colonies: For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable +Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For +suspending our own Legislatures and declaring themselves invested with +power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.</i></p> + +<p>"<i>He has abdicated Government here by declaring us out of his +Protection and waging War against us.</i></p> + +<p>"<i>He has plundered our seas, ravished our Coasts, burnt our towns, and +destroyed the lives of our people.</i></p> + +<p>"<i>He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries +to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun +with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the +most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized +nation.</i></p> + +<p>"<i>He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high +Seas to bear Arms against friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves +by their Hands.</i></p> + +<p>"<i>He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored +to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian +Savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction +of all ages, sexes and conditions. In every stage of these Oppressions +We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms. Our repeated +Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose +character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is +unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We been wanting in +attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to +time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable +jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of +our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native +justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our +common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably +interrupt our <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf +to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, +acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our Separation, and hold +them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace +Friends.</i>"</p> + +<p>The eighteen paragraphs of denunciation fall into seven general +sections:</p> + +<div class="block3"><p class="hang">The King has thwarted representative government;</p> + +<p class="hang">he has obstructed justice;</p> + +<p class="hang">he has placed military above civil power;</p> + +<p class="hang">he has imposed taxes without the consent of the taxed;</p> + +<p class="hang">he has abolished the rule of Law;</p> + +<p class="hang">he has placed obstacles in the way of the growth and prosperity +of the Colonies;</p> + +<p class="hang">he has, in effect, ceased to rule them, because he is making war +on them.</p></div> + +<p>So the bill of complaint signifies these things about the Founders of +our Country:</p> + +<div class="block3"><p class="hang">They demanded government with the consent, by the +representatives, of the governed.</p> + +<p class="hang">They cherished civil rights, respect for law, and would not +tolerate any power superior to law—whether royal or military.</p> + +<p class="hang">They wished for a minimum of civil duties, hated bureaucrats, +wanted to adjust their own taxes, and were afraid of the +establishment of any tyranny on nearby soil.</p> + +<p class="hang">They wanted free trade with the rest of the world, and no +restraints on commerce and industry.</p> + +<p class="hang">They intended to be prosperous.</p> + +<p class="hang">They considered themselves freemen and proposed to remain so.</p></div> + +<p>These were the rights to which lovers of human freedom aspired in +England or France; they were the practical <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>application of Locke and +Rousseau and the Encyclopedists and the Roundheads. Little in the +whole list reflects the special conditions of life in the colonies; +troops had been quartered in Ireland, trial by jury suspended in +England, tyrants then as now created their Praetorian guard or Storm +Troops and placed military above civil rights, and colonies from early +time had been considered as tributaries of the Mother Country.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>The Practical "Dream"</i></p> + +<p>The American Colonists were about to break the traditions of European +settlement, and with it the traditions of European government. And, +with profound insight into the material conditions of their existence, +they foreshadowed the entire history of our country in the one +specification which had never been made before, and <i>could</i> never have +been made before:</p> + +<p>"<i>He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for +that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; +refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and +raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.</i>"</p> + +<p>This amazing paragraph is placed directly after the sections on +representative government; it is so important that it comes before the +items on trial by jury, taxation, and trade. It is a critical factor +in the history of America; if we understand it, we can go forward to +understand our situation today. The other complaints point toward our +systems of law, our militia, our constant rebellion against taxes, our +mild appreciation of civil duties, our unswerving insistence upon the +act of choosing representatives; all these are details; but this +unique item indicates how the nation was to be built and what its +basic social, economic, and psychological factors were to be.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>This brief paragraph condemns the Crown for obstructing the two +processes by which America was made:</p> + +<p class="noin" style="margin-left: 5%;">Immigration<br /> +Pioneering</p> + +<p>With absolute clairvoyance the Declaration sets Naturalization, which +means political equality, in between the two other factors. +Naturalization is the formal recognition of the deep underlying truth, +the new thing in the new world, that one could <i>become</i> what one +willed and worked to become—one could, regardless of birth or race or +creed, <i>become an American</i>.</p> + +<p>So long as the colonies were held by the Crown, the process of +populating the country by immigration was checked. The Colonists had +no "dream" of a great American people combining racial bloods and the +habits of all the European nations. They wanted only to secure their +prosperity by growing; they constantly were sending agents to +Westphalia and the Palatinate to induce good Germans to come to +America, one colony competing with another, issuing pamphlets in +Platt-Deutsch, promising not Utopia with rivers of milk and honey, not +a dream, but something grander and greater—citizenship, equality +under the law, and land. Across this traffic the King and his +ministers threw the dam of Royal Prerogative; they meant to keep the +colonies, and they knew they could not keep them if men from many +lands came in as citizens; and they meant to keep the virgin lands +from the Appalachians to the Mississippi—or as much of it as they +could take from the Spaniards and the French. So as far back as 1763, +the Crown took over <i>all</i> title to the 250,000 square miles of land +which are now Indiana and Illinois and Michigan and Minnesota, the +best land lying beyond the Alleghenies. Into this territory no man +could enter; none could settle; no squatters' right was recognized; no +common law ran. Suddenly the natural activity of America, +uninterrupted since <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>1620, stopped. The right of Americans to move +westward and to take land, the right of non-Americans to become +Americans, both were denied. The outcry from the highlands and the +forest clearing was loud; presently the seaboard saw that America was +one country, its true prosperity lay within its own borders, not +across the ocean. And to make the unity clear, the Crown which had +taken the land, now took the sea; the trade of the Colonies was +broken; they were cut off from Europe, forbidden to bring over its +men, forbidden to send over their goods. For the first time America +was isolated from Europe.</p> + +<p>So the British Crown touched every focal spot—and bruised it. The +outward movement, to and from Europe, always fruitful for America, was +stopped; the inward movement, across the land, was stopped. The +energies of America had always expressed themselves in movement; when +an artificial brake on movements was applied, friction followed; then +the explosion of forces we call the Revolution.</p> + +<p>And nothing that happened afterward could effectively destroy what the +Revolution created. The thing that people afterward chose to call "the +American dream" was no dream; it was then, and it remained, the +substantial fabric of American life—a systematic linking of free +land, free trade, free citizenship, in a free society.</p> + +<p>A grim version of our history implies that the pure idealism of the +Declaration was corrupted by the rich and well-born who framed the +Constitution. As Charles Beard is often made the authority for this +economic interpretation, his own account of the economic effects of +the Declaration may be cited in evidence:</p> + +<div class="block3"><p class="hang">the great estates were broken up;</p> + +<p class="hang">the hold of the first-born and of the dead-hand were equally +broken;</p> + +<p class="hang">in the New States, the property qualification was never accepted +and it disappeared steadily from the old.</p></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>And the Ordnance of 1787, last great act of the Continental Congress, +inspired by the Declaration, created the Northwest Territory, the +heart of America for a hundred years, in a spirit of love and +intelligence which the Constitution in all its wisdom did not surpass.</p> + +<p>That is what the Declaration accomplished. It set in action <i>all</i> the +forces that ultimately made America. The action rose out of the final +section, in which, naming themselves for the first time as +"Representatives of the United States of America", the signers declare +that "these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and +Independent States...." In this clear insight, the Declaration says +that the things separating one people from another have already +happened—differences in experiences, desires, habits—and that the +life of the Colonies is already so independent of Britain that the +purely political bond must be dissolved.</p> + +<div class="block"><p>"<i>WE, THEREFORE, the Representatives of the United States of America, +in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the +world for the rectitude of our intentions do, in the Name, and by +authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and +declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, +Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all +Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection +between them and the State of Great Britain is and ought to be totally +dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full +Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish +Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States +may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm +reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to +each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.</i>"</p></div> + +<p>So finally, as a unity of free and independent States, the new nation +arrogates to itself four specific powers:</p> + +<p style="margin-left: 2em;">To levy war<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">conclude peace</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">contract alliances</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">establish commerce.</span></p> + +<p>Only these four powers, by name; the rest were lumped together, a +vast, significant et cetera; but these were so much more significant +that they had to be separately written down; three of +them—war—peace—alliances—are wholly international; the fourth, +commerce, at least partly so. The signers of the Declaration made no +mistake; they wished to be independent; and in order to remain +independent, they were fighting <i>against</i> isolation.</p> + +<p>The error we must not make about the Declaration is to think of it as +a purely domestic document, dealing with taxes and election of +representatives and Redcoats in our midst; it is the beginning of our +national, domestic life, but only because it takes the rule of our +life out of English hands; and the moment this is done, the +Declaration sets us up as an independent nation among other nations, +and places us in relation, above all, to the nations of Europe.</p> + +<p>At this moment our intercourse with the nations of Europe is a matter +of life and death—death to the destroyer of free Europe or death to +ourselves; but if we live, life for all Europe, also. Like parachute +troops, our address to Europe must precede our armies; we have to know +what to say to Europe, to whom to say, how to say it. And the answer +was provided by the Declaration which let all Europe come to us—but +held us independent of all Europe.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CHAPTER VI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h2>"The Population of These States"</h2> +<br /> + +<p>In the back of our minds we have an image labeled "the immigrant"; and +it is never like ourselves. The image has changed from generation to +generation, but it has never been accurate, because in each generation +it is a political cartoon, an exaggeration of certain features to +prove a point. We have to tear up the cartoon; then we can get back to +the picture it distorts.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>English-Speaking Aliens</i></p> + +<p>The immigrant-cartoon since 1910 has been the South-European: Slavic, +Jewish, Italian; usually a woman with a shawl over her head, her +husband standing beside her, with slavic cheekbones or a graying +beard; and eager children around them. This is not a particularly +false picture of several million immigrants; among them some of the +most valuable this country has had. But it erases from our mind the +bare statistical fact that the largest single language group, nearly +<i>one third of all</i> the immigrants to the United States, were +English-speaking. For several decades, the bulk of all immigration was +from Great Britain and Ireland. If one takes the three principal +sources of immigration for every decade between 1820 and 1930, one +finds that Germany and Ireland were among the leaders for sixty years; +Italy for forty; Russia only thirty; the great Scandinavian movement +to the middle west lasted a single decade; but Great Britain was one +of the chief sources of immigration for seventy years, and probably +was the principal source for thirty years more—from 1790 until +1820—during which time no official figures were kept.</p> + +<p>Out of thirty-eight million arrivals in this country, about <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>twelve +spoke the dominant tongue, and most of them were aware of the +tradition of Anglo-Saxon self-government; some had suffered from +British domination, more had enjoyed the fruits of liberty; but all +knew what liberty and respect for law meant. Many of these millions +fled from poverty; but most were not refugees from religious or +political persecution. Many millions came to relatives and friends +already established; and began instantly to add to the wealth of the +country; many millions were already educated. The cost of their +upbringing had been borne abroad; they came here grown, trained, and +willing to work. They fell quickly into the American system, without +causing friction; they helped to continue the dominance of the +national groups which had fought the Revolution and created the new +nation.</p> + +<p>It is important to remember that they were, none the less, immigrants; +they made themselves into Americans and helped to make America; they +helped to make us what we are by keeping some of their habits, by +abandoning others. For this is essential: the British immigrant, even +when he came to a country predominantly Anglo-Saxon, did not remain +British and did not make the country Anglo-Saxon. The process of +change affected the dominant group as deeply as it affected the +minorities. It was a little easier for a Kentish man to become an +American than it was for a Serbian; but it was just as hard for the +man from Kent to remain a Briton as it was for the Serbian to remain a +Serb. Both became Americans. Neither of them tried to remake America +in the mold of his old country.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Who Asked Them to Come?</i></p> + +<p>The next image in our minds is a bad one for us to hold because it +makes us feel smug and benevolent. It is the image of America, the +foster-mother of the world, receiving first the unfortunate and later +the scum of the old world. It is true that the oppressed came to +America, and that in the forty million arrivals there were criminals +as well as saints. The picture <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>is false not only in perspective, but +in basic values. For in many generations, at the beginning, in the +middle, and at the end of the great inrush of Europeans, the United +States actively desired and solicited immigration.</p> + +<p>Obviously when people were eager to emigrate, the solicitation fell +off; Irish famine and German reaction sent us floods of immigrants who +had not been individually urged to come. But their fathers and elder +brothers had been invited. The Colonies and the States in their first +years wanted settlers and, as noted, wrote their need for new citizens +into the Declaration; between two eras of hard times we built the +railroads of the country and imported Irish and Chinese to help the +Civil War veterans lay the ties and dig the tunnels; in the gilded age +and again at the turn of the century, we were enormously expanding and +again agents were busy abroad, agents for land companies, agents for +shipping, agents for great industries which required unskilled labor.</p> + +<p>Moreover, the Congress of the United States refused to place any +restrictions upon immigration. The vested interest of labor might +demand restrictions; but heavy industry loved the unhappy foreigner +(the nearest thing to coolie labor we would tolerate) and made it a +fixed policy of the United States not to discourage immigration. The +only restriction was a technical one about contract labor. It did not +lower the totals.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>America Was Fulfilment!</i></p> + +<p>The moment we have corrected the cartoon we can go back to fact +without self-righteousness. The fact is that arrival in America was +the end toward which whole generations of Europeans aspired. It did +not mean instant wealth and high position; but it did mean an end to +the only poverty which is degrading—the poverty which is accepted as +permanent and inevitable. The shock of reality in the strike-ridden +mills around Pittsburgh, on the blizzard-swept plains of the Dakotas, +brought dismay to many after the gaudy promises <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>made by steamship +agents and labor bosses. But in one thing America never failed its +immigrants—the promise and hope of better things for their children. +America was not only promises; America was fulfilment.</p> + +<p>No one has measured the exact dollar-and-cents value of believing that +the next generation will have a chance to live better, in greater +comfort and freedom. In America this belief in the future was only a +projection of the parallel belief in the present; it was a reaction +against the European habit of assuming that the children would, with +luck, be able to live where their parents lived, on the same income, +in the same way. The elder son was fairly assured of this; war and +disease and colonies and luck would have to take care of the others. +The less fortunate, the oppressed, could not even hope for this much. +At various times the Jew in Russia, the liberal in Germany, the +Sicilian sulphur-miner, the landless Irish, and families in a dozen +other countries could only expect a worse lot for their children; they +had to uproot themselves and if they themselves did not stand +transplanting, they were sure their children would take root in the +new world.</p> + +<p>And this confidence—which was always justified—became as much a part +of the atmosphere of America as our inherited parliamentary system, +our original town-meetings, our casual belief in civil freedom, our +passion for wealth, our habits of movement, and all the other +essential qualities which describe and define us and set us apart from +all other nations.</p> + +<p>The immigrant knew his children would be born Americans; for himself +there was a more difficult and in some ways more satisfying fate: he +could <i>become</i> an American. It was not a cant phrase; it had absolute +specific meaning. The immigrant became in essence one of the people of +the country.</p> + +<p>As soon as he was admitted, he had the same civil rights as the +native; within a few years he could acquire all the basic political +rights; and neither the habits of the people nor the laws of the +government placed anything in the way of social equality; the +immigrant's life was his own to make.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>This did not mean that the immigrant instantly ceased to be a Slav or +Saxon or Latin any more than it meant that he ceased to be freckled or +brunette. The immigrant became a part of American life because the +life of America was prepared to receive him and could not, for six +generations, get along without him.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>America Is Various</i></p> + +<p>During the years in which big business solicited immigration and +organized labor attacked it, the argument about the immigrant took an +unfortunate shift. The question was whether the melting pot was +"working", whether immigrants could be Americanized. There were people +who worried if an immigrant wore a shawl, when "old Americans" were +wearing capes; (the "old Americans" wore shawls when they arrived, +forty years earlier); it was "unfortunate" if new arrivals spoke with +an "accent" different from the particular American speech developed at +the moment. There were others who worried if an immigrant too quickly +foreswore the costume or customs of his native land. Employers of +unskilled labor liked to prevent superficial Americanization; +sometimes immigrants were kept in company villages, deliberately +isolated from earlier arrivals and native Americans; wages could be +kept low so long as the newcomers remained at their own level of +comfort, not at ours. Others felt the danger (foreseen by Franklin and +Jefferson) of established groups, solidified by common memories, +living outside the circle of common interests. The actual danger to +the American system was that it wouldn't work, that immigrants coming +in vast numbers would form separate bodies, associated not with +America but with their homeland. (This is precisely what happened in +Argentina, by the deliberate action of the German government, and it +is not an invention of Hitler's. Thomas Beer reports that "in 1892 ... +a German imperialist invited the Reichstag to secure the ... +dismemberment of the United States by planting colonies of civilized +Europeans" <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>within our borders, colonies with their own religious +leaders, speaking their own language; German leaders never could +accept the American idea of change; in Hitler's mind a mystic "blood" +difference makes changing of nationality impossible.)</p> + +<p>The first World War proved that the "new immigrants", the masses from +South Europe, as well as the Germans, could keep their ancient customs +and be good Americans; then observers saw that their worries over +"assimilation" were beside the point; because the essence of America's +existence was to create a unity in which almost all variety could find +a place—not to create a totality brooking no variation, demanding +uniformity. In the flush of the young century William James, as +typical of America as Edison or Theodore Roosevelt, looking about him, +seeing an America made up of many combining into one, made our variety +the base of his religious outlook. He had studied "the varieties of +religious experience", and he began, experimentally, to think of a +universe not necessarily totalitarian. He saw us building a country +out of diverse elements and found approval in philosophy. He saw +infinite change; "it would have depressed him," said a cynical and +admiring friend, "if he had had to confess that any important action +was finally settled"; just as it would have depressed America to admit +that the important action of creating America had come to an end. +James "felt the call of the future"; he believed that the future +"could be far better, totally other than the past". He was living in +an atmosphere of transformation, seeing men and women becoming "far +better, totally other" than they had been. He looked to a better +world; he helped by assuring us that we need never have one King, one +ruler, one fixed and unalterable fate. He said that there was no proof +of the one single Truth. He threw out all the old totalitarians, and +cast his vote for a pluralistic universe. We were building it +politically every day; without knowing it, James helped to fortify us +against the totalitarians who were yet to come.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>This was, to be sure, not Americanization. It was the far more +practical thing: becoming American. Americanization was something +celebrated on "days"; it implied something to be done <i>to</i> the +foreigners. The truth was that the immigrant needed only one thing, to +be allowed to experience America; then slowly, partially, but +consistently, he became an American. The immigrant of 1880 did not +become an American of the type of 1845; he became an American as +Americans were in his time; in every generation the mutual experience +of the immigrant, naturalized citizens and native born, created the +America of the next generation. And in every generation, the native +born and the older immigrants wept because <i>their</i> America and their +way of becoming American had been outmoded. The process passed them +by; America had to be reborn.</p> + +<p>So long as the immigrant thought of "taking out citizen papers" and +the native born was annoyed by accents, odd customs, beards and +prolific parenthood, the process of becoming American was not +observed, and the process of Americanization seemed obvious and +relatively unimportant.</p> + +<p>The tremendous revolution in human affairs was hidden under social +discords and economic pressures. People began to think it was time to +slacken the flow of immigrants until we had absorbed what we had. Good +land was scarce; foreigners in factions began to join unions; +second-generation children grew up to be great tennis players and took +scholarships; the pure costless joy of having immigrants do the dirty +work was gone. The practical people believed something had to be done.</p> + +<p>But the practical people forgot the great practical side—which is +also the mystical side—of our immigration. For the first time since +the bright days of primitive Christianity, a great thing was made +possible to all men: they could become what they wished to become. As +Peter said to the Romans, and Paul to the Athenians, that through +faith and desire and grace they could become Christians, equal, in the +eyes of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>God, to all other Christians, so the apostles of Freedom +spoke to the second son of an English Lord, to the ten sons of a +Russian serf, to old and young, ignorant and wise, befriended or +alone, and said that their will, their ambition, their work, and their +faith could make of them true Americans.</p> + +<p>The instant practical consequences of this new element in human +history are incalculable. They are like the practical consequences of +early Christianity, which can be measured in terms of Empires and +explorations and Crusades. The transformation of millions of Europeans +into Americans was like the conversion of millions of pagans to +Christianity; it was accompanied by an outburst of confidence and +energy. The same phenomena occurred in the Renaissance and +Reformation, a period of conversion accompanied by a great surge of +trade, invention, exploration, wealth, and vast human satisfaction.</p> + +<p>This idea of becoming American, as personal as religion, as mystical +as conversion, as practical as a contract, was in fact a foundation +stone of the growth and prosperity of the United States. It was a +practical result of the exact kind of equality which the Declaration +invoked; it allowed men to regain their birthright of equality, +snatched from them by tyrants. It persuaded them that they could enjoy +life—and allowed them to produce and to consume. In that way it was +as favorable to prosperity as our land and our climate. And it had +other consequences. For, as it stemmed from equality, it went deep +under the roots of the European system—and loosened them so that a +tremor could shake the system entirely.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Change and Status</i></p> + +<p>For the European system stood against <i>becoming</i>; its objective was to +remain, to be still, to stand. Its ancient greatness and the tone of +time which made it lovely, both came from this faith in the steady +long-abiding changelessness of human institutions. All that it +possessed was built to endure for ever; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>its cathedrals, its prisons, +its symbols, its systems—including the symbols and the systems by +which it denied freedom to its people. Each national-racial-religious +complex of Europe was a triple anchor against change; it prevented men +from drifting as the great winds of revolution and reform swept over +Europe. Nor were men permitted to change, as they pleased. Nations +waged war and won land, but neither the Czars nor the German Emperors +thought of the Poles as their own people; the Poles were irrevocably +Poles, excluded from the nobler society of Russians, Austrians and +Germans. Religious societies made converts, but looked with fear or +hatred or suspicion against the very people from whom the converts +came—the Jew was irretrievably a Jew, the Catholic a Catholic. In +each country one religion was uppermost, the rest tolerated. In each +country one folk-group was dominant, the rest tolerated or persecuted. +And in each country one class—the same class—ruled, and all other +classes served.</p> + +<p>By ones or twos, men and women might be accepted into the established +church, marry into the dominant race, rise to the governing class; but +the exceptions proved nothing. The European believed in his <i>station</i> +in life, his civil <i>status</i>, the <i>standing</i> of his family in the +financial or social world. The Englishman settling in Timbuctoo +remained an Englishman because the Englishman at home remained a +middle-class bank clerk or "not a gentleman" or a marquess; and while +an alien could become a subject of the King, he never for a moment +imagined that he could become an Englishman—any more than a Scot. The +English knew that names change; men do not.</p> + +<p><i>Only when they came to America, they did.</i></p> + +<p>They did because the basic American system, the dynamics of becoming +American, rejected the racialism of Europe; it rejected aggressive +nationalism by building a new nation; it rejected an established +religion; and almost in passing it destroyed the class-system.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>To the familiar European systems of damnation—by original sin, by economic +determinism, by pre-natal influence—has been added a new one—damnation by +racial inferiority; the Chamberlain-Wagner-Nietzsche-Rosenberg-Hitler myth +of the superior race-nation means in practise that whoever is not born +German is damned to serve Germany; there is no escape because the +inferiority is inherent. This is the European class-system carried to +its loftiest point.</p> + +<p>We say that this system is inhuman, unscientific, probably suicidal. +The poverty-system on which Europe "prospered" for generations and +into which we almost fell, was also inhuman, unscientific and probably +suicidal; there is no logic in the British aristocratic system coupled +with a financial-industrial overlordship and universal suffrage; there +is little logic even in our own setup of vast organizations of labor, +huge combinations of money, unplumbed technical skill hampered by both +capital and labor, and some forty million underfed and half sick human +beings in the most productive land in the world. It is not logic we +look for in the framework of human society; we look for operations. +What does it do? For all its failures, our system works toward human +liberty; for all its success, the Nazi system works against human +liberty. We tend to give more and more people an opportunity to change +and improve; their system is based on the impossibility of change. Our +system is a nation built out of many races; theirs is a nation +excluding all but one race. Our system has lapses, we do not grant +citizenship to certain Orientals nor social equality to Negroes; but +we do not write racial inferiority into our laws, we do not teach it +in <i>our</i> schools (it may be taught in sectional schools we tolerate, +but do not support); and this is important. So long as we accept the +ideal of political equality, hope lives for every man. The moment we +abandon it, we nazify ourselves—and destroy the foundation of the +Republic.</p> + + +<p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span><i>Americans All</i><br /> +</p> + +<p>Turning from the brutal leveling and uniformity of the Nazis, good +Americans have begun to wish that more of the folk qualities of our +settlers had been preserved. At every point America is the enemy of +fasci-feudalism, and this is no exception. Our music, our dancing, the +language we speak, the foods we eat, all incorporate elements brought +from Europe; but we have not deliberately encouraged the second +generation to preserve clothes and cooking any more than we have +encouraged the preservation of political habits. There has been a loss +in variety and color; and now, while there is still time, efforts are +being made to create a general American interest in the separate +cultures combined here. It has to be carefully done, so that we do not +lose sight of the total American civilization in our enthusiasm for +the contributing parts. There is always the chance that descendants of +Norwegians, proud and desperate as they consider the plight of their +country, will become nationalistic here; and that they will not be +interested in the music or the art of Ukrainians in America; and that +Americans of Italian descent may be the only ones concerned in adding +to the Italian contribution to American life. This is the constant +danger of all work concerned with immigrant groups; and the +supersensitiveness of all these groups, in a period of intense +100%-ism, tends to defeat the purpose of assaying what each has done +to help all the others.</p> + +<p>Yet some success is possible. In 1938 I worked with the Office of +Education on a series of broadcasts which drew its title from the +President's remark to the Daughters of the American Revolution, that +we are all the descendants of immigrants. (The President also added +"and revolutionaries", but this was not essential in our broadcasts.) +Everything I now feel about the focal position of the immigrant in +American life is developed from the work done on the Immigrants All +series and, especially, from the difficulties <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>encountered, as well as +from one special element of success.</p> + +<p>I set down some basic principles: that the programs would not +<i>glorify</i> one national group after another; that the interrelation of +each arriving group to the ones already here would be noted; the vast +obligation of every immigrant to those who had prepared the way would +be stressed; cooperation between groups would be dramatically rendered +if possible; the immigrants' contribution to America would be +paralleled by America's contribution to the immigrant; and the making +of America, by its natives and its immigrants, would overshadow the +special contribution of any single group.</p> + +<p>These were principles. In practise, some disappeared, but none was +knowingly violated. From time to time, enthusiasts for a given group +would complain that another had been more warmly treated; more serious +was the indifference of many leaders of national and folk groups to +the general problem of the immigrant, to any group outside their own. +We were, by that time, in a period of sharpened national +sensibilities; but this did not entirely account for an apparently +ingrained habit of considering immigrant problems as problems of one's +own group, only. Suspicion of other groups went with this neglect of +the problem as a whole; the natives born with longer American +backgrounds were the ones who showed a clearer grasp of the whole +problem; they were not bothered by jealousies and they were interested +in America.</p> + +<p>On the other side, the series had an almost spectacular success. More +than half of the letters after each weekly broadcast came from men and +women who were <i>not</i> descendants of the national group presented that +week. After the program on the Irish, some 48% of the letters were +from Irish immigrants or native-born descendants of the Irish; the +other 52% came from children of Serbs and FFV's and Jews and +Portuguese, from Sicilians and Germans and Scots, Scandinavians and +Englishmen and Greeks. It was so for all of the programs; the defects +of the scripts were forgotten, because the people who heard them were +so much better Americans <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>than anyone had dared predict. Of a hundred +thousand letters, almost all were American, not sectarian in spirit; +the bitterness of the cheap fascist movements had not affected even a +fringe of the listeners. All in all, we were encouraged; it seemed to +us that the immigrant was accepted as the co-maker of America.</p> + +<p>Much of our future depends on the exact place we give to the +immigrant. It has been taken for granted that immigration is over and +that the proportions of racial strains in America today are fixed for +ever. It is not likely that vast immigration will head for the United +States in the next decade; but the principle of "becoming American" +will operate for the quotas and the refugees; and it is now of greater +significance than ever because the great fascist countries have laid +down the principle of unchangeable nationality. The Nazi government +has pretended a right to call German-born American citizens to the +colors; and a regular practise of that government is to plant +"colonies" as spies.</p> + +<p>If we do not re-assert the principle of change of nationality (the +legal counterpart to the process of becoming American) we will be lost +in the aggressive nationalism of the Nazis, and we will no longer be +safe from racialism. Preposterous as it will seem to scholars, +degrading as it will be to men of sense, racialism can establish +itself in America by the re-assertion of Anglo-Saxonism (with +variations).</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Are We Anglo-Saxon?</i></p> + +<p>At this point the direct political implications of "becoming American" +become evident. Toward the end of this book there are some questions +about union with Britain; the point to note here is that so far as +Union-now (or any variant thereof) is based emotionally on the +Anglo-Saxonism of the United States of America, it is based on a myth +and is politically an impossible combination; if we plan union with +Britain, let it be based on the actuality of the American status, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>not +on a snobbish desire. We cannot falsify our history, not even in favor +of those who did most for our history.</p> + +<p>There is a way, however, of imputing Anglo-Saxonism to America, which +is by starting with the great truth: the English and the Scots—and the +Scots-Irish—founded the first colonies (some time after the Spaniards +to be sure, but that is "a detail"); they established here certain +basic forms of law and cultivated the appetite for freedom; they were +good law-abiding citizens, and accustomed to self-discipline; they were +great pioneers in the wilderness; they suffered for religious liberty +and more than any other national or racial group, they fought the War +of Independence.</p> + +<p>Can we say these men created the true, the original America; and +everything since then has been a corruption of its 100% goodness and +purity? This would allow us to rejoice in Andrew Carnegie, but not in +George W. Goethals; in Hearst but not in Pulitzer; in Cyrus McCormick +but not in Eleuthère Dupont; in the Wright Brothers, but not in Boeing +and Bellanca; in Edison (partly as he was not all Scot) but not in his +associate Berliner; in Bell who invented the telephone but not in +Pupin who created long distance. We should have to denounce as +un-American the civil service work of Carl Schurz and Bela Schick's +test for diphtheria and Goldberger's work on pellagra (which was +destroying the pure descendants of the good Americans); we would have +to say that America would be better off without Audubon and Agassiz +and Thoreau; or Boas and Luther Burbank; or John Philip Sousa and Paul +Robeson and Jonas Lie.</p> + +<p>When we have denied all these their place in America, we can begin to +belittle the contribution of still others to our national life. For +the later immigrants had less to give to transportation and basic +manufactures and to building the nation. These things were done by the +earlier immigrants. The later ones gave their sweat and blood, and +presently they and their children were troubling about education, or +civil <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>service, or conservation of forests, or the right of free +association, or art or music or philanthropy. If our own special +fascists lay their hands on our traditions, the burning of books will +be only a trifle; for they will tear down the museums and the +settlement houses, the kindergartens and the labor temples—and when +they are done they will say, with some truth, that they have purged +America of its foreign influence. All reform, all culture will be +destroyed by the New Klansmen, and they will re-write history to make +us believe that wave after wave of corruption came from Europe +(especially from Catholic and Greek Orthodox and Jewish Europe) to +destroy the simple purity of Anglo-Saxon America.</p> + +<p>That is why, now, when we can still assess the truth, when we need the +help of every American, we must declare the truth, that there never +was a purely Anglo-Saxon United States. Frenchmen and Swedes and +Spaniards and Negroes and Walloons and Hollanders and Portuguese and +Finns and Germans and German Swiss were here before 1700; Quakers, +Catholics, Freethinkers and Jews fought side by side with Huguenots, +Episcopalians, Calvinists and Lutherans in the wars with the Indians. +In the colony of Georgia, in the year Washington was born, men of six +nations had settled: German Lutherans, Italian Protestants, Scots, +Swiss, Portuguese, Jews and English. In 1750 four times as many +Germans arrived in Pennsylvania as English and Irish together.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>The Creative Anglo-Saxon</i></p> + +<p>The greatness of the Anglo-Saxon contribution to America—the gift +greater than all their other great gifts—was the conception of a +state making over the people who came here, and made over by them. By +the end of the Revolution, power and prestige were in the hands of the +Anglo-Saxon majority; and in three successive instruments they +destroyed the idea of Anglo-Saxon superiority: the Declaration of +Independence, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>the Ordnance of 1787, the Constitution. "Becoming" was +not an ideal and it was not the base of Anglo-Saxon society in +England; the concept of change and "becoming" was based on actuality; +on what was happening all over the colonial dominion. People were +becoming American, even before a new nation was born.</p> + +<p>All that followed—the vast complexity of creating America, would have +been impossible without that first supreme act of creative +self-sacrifice. When the statesmen of our Revolutionary period +established the principles of statehood and naturalization and +citizenship in terms of absolute equality, they knew the risk they +ran. In Pennsylvania the official minutes were printed in both English +and German; in Maryland the Catholics were dominant; there were still +some influential Dutch along the upper Hudson who might secede from +New York. On the western boundary, unsettled, uneasy, lay the +Spaniards and the French. There was danger of division, everywhere; +but the great descendants of the English immigrants did not withdraw. +Their principle was equality; since men were born free, they could +<i>become</i> equal if artificial barriers were removed. The statesmen of +that day declared for America; they knew that men did not, in this +country, remain Dutch or Portuguese; but grew into something else. +With their own eyes they had seen it happen. They pledged their lives +and sacred honor that it would happen again.</p> + +<p>So, if ever we re-write history to prove that all the other nations +contributed nothing and failed to become Americans, we will also have +to write it down that the Anglo-Saxons failed more miserably than the +others. For the great idea, the practical dynamics of equality, was +theirs; they set it in motion, guarded it, and saw it triumph.</p> + +<p>In the next ten years it will be impossible to extemporize an +immigration policy for the United States. The world economy will +change all around us; the dreadful alternations <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>of plenty and +starvation may be adjusted and controlled; we may enter a world order +in which we will be responsible for a given number of souls, and some +of these may be admitted to our country. By that time we will have +learned that nationalist fascism and international communism are +powerless here; and no one but professional haters of America will be +left to bait the foreigners and persecute the alien.</p> + +<p>But above all, by that time we will have had time to reassert the +great practical idea behind immigration and naturalization—the idea +of men making themselves over—as for a century and a half they have +made themselves into Americans.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>An Experiment in Evolution</i></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Note</span>: I have used the phrase "becoming American" and defined +it as it defined itself; legally, in the customs of the country, it +seems to mean becoming a citizen; experimentally "becoming" has +happened to us, we have seen it happen, it means that we recognize an +essential affinity between an immigrant and Americans, living or dead.</p> + +<p>Yet to many people the words may be vague; to others they may seem a +particularly dangerous lie. Those who are interested in certain +foreign groups, less promptly "Americanized", will protest that for +all this "becoming", some are not accepted as American; those who are +basically haters of all foreigners will say that the <i>law</i> accepts +citizens, but no power on earth can make them Americans.</p> + +<p>It is my experience that the phrases created by poets, politicians and +people are often the truest words about America; and one of the +profound satisfactions of life is to see the wild imagery of the poet +or the lush oratory of the politician come true, literally and exactly +true, scientifically demonstrated and proved.</p> + +<p>In this particular case, absolute proof is still lacking, because we +are dealing with human beings, we cannot make controlled experiments. +We can observe and compare. Under <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>the inspiration of the eminent +anthropologist Dr. Franz Boas, the research has been made; so far as +it goes it proves that the children of foreigners do become Americans. +Specifically, their gestures, the way they stand and the way they +walk, their metabolism and their susceptibility to disease, all tend +to become American. In all of these aspects, there is an American norm +or standard; and the children of immigrants forsaking the norm or +standard of the fatherland, grow to that of America.</p> + +<p>The most entertaining of these researches was in the field of gesture. +The observers took candid movie shots of groups of Italians and of +Jews; they differ from one another and both differ from the American +mode (which is a composite, with probably an Anglo-Saxon dominant). +The observers found that the extreme gesture of the foreign-born Jew +is one in which a speaker gesticulates with one hand while with the +other he holds his opponent's arm, to prevent a rival movement; and +one case was noted in which the speaker actually gesticulated with the +other man's arm. To the American of native stock this is "foreign"; +and research proves that the American is right; such gestures are +foreign even to the American-born children of the foreigner himself. +The typical foreign gesture disappears and the typical American +gesture takes its place.</p> + +<p>And this is not merely imitation; it is not an "accent" disappearing +in a new land. Because metabolism and susceptibility to disease are as +certainly altered as gait and posture. The vital physical nature +changes in the atmosphere of liberty—as the mind and the spirit +change.</p> + +<p>The frightened lie of racial doom which has fascinated the German mind +(under its meaner guise of racial superiority) was never needed in +America. Seeing men become Americans, the fathers of our freedom +declared that nothing should prevent them; they were not afraid of any +race because they knew that the men of all races would become +Americans. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>Their faith of 1776 begins to be scientifically proved +today; a hundred and sixty-six years of creative America proved it in +action.</p> + +<p>It is on the basis of what Europeans became in America, that we now +have to consider our relations with the Europeans who remained in +Europe.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CHAPTER VII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h2>Address to Europe</h2> +<br /> + +<p>The communications of America and Europe have always run in two +channels: our fumbling, foolish diplomacy, our direct, candid, +successful dealings with the people.</p> + +<p>Our first word was to the people of Europe; the Declaration of +Independence tried to incite the British people against their own +Parliament; and the "decent respect to the opinions of mankind" refers +to citizens, not to chancelleries. The Declaration was addressed to +the world; it was heard in Paris and later in a dozen provinces of +Germany, and in Savoy and in Manchester, and presently along the +Nevski and the Yellow River. Since 1776, the people of the world have +always listened to us, and answered. We have never failed when we have +spoken to the people.</p> + +<p>After the Declaration, the American people spoke to all the people of +Europe in the most direct way: they invited Europeans to come here, +offering them land, wages, freedom; presently our railroads and +steamship lines solicited larger numbers; and the policy of the +government added inducements. Free immigration, and free movement, +demanded in the Declaration, made possible by laws under the +Constitution, were creating America. In domestic life we saw it at +once; but the effects of immigration on our dealings with Europe were +not immediate.</p> + +<p>We need only remember that for a hundred and twenty years the peoples +of Europe and the people of the United States were constantly writing +to one another; not merely doing business together, but exchanging +ideas, mingling in marriage, coming together as dispersed families +come together. Whatever went on in the Mississippi Valley was known +along the fjords and in the Volga basin and by the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>Danube; if sulphur +was discovered in Louisiana it first impoverished Sicily—then brought +Sicilians to Louisiana; Greeks knew that sponges were to be found off +Tampa. And more and more people in America knew what was happening in +Europe—a famine, a revolution, a brief era of peace, a repressive +ministry, a reform bill. The constant interaction of Europe and +America was one beat of our existence—it was in counterpoint to the +tramp of the pioneer moving Westward; immigration and migration meshed +together.</p> + +<p>Our government from time to time spoke to the governments of Europe. A +tone of sharp reproof was heard at times, a warm word for +revolutionaries was coupled with indignation against tyrants: Turkey, +the Dual Monarchy, the Tsar, all felt the lash—or Congress hoped they +felt it; in the Boer War, England was the victim of semi-official +criticism; and whenever possible, we were the first to recognize +republics, even if they failed to maintain themselves on the ruins of +monarchy. We fluttered official papers and were embarrassed by +protocol, not believing in it anyhow, and were outwitted or +out-charmed by second-rate diplomatists of Europe.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>People and Protocol</i></p> + +<p>The campaign platforms always demanded a "firm, vigorous, dignified" +diplomacy; the diplomacy of Europe was outwardly correct, inwardly +devious, shifting, flexible, and in our opinion corrupt. But our +address to the <i>people</i> of Europe was, in all this time, so candid, so +persuasive, that we destroyed the chancelleries and recaptured our +losses. The first great communication, after 1776, was made by +Lincoln—it was not a single speech or letter, it was a constant +appeal to the conscience of the British people, begging them, as the +Declaration had done, to override the will of their rulers. And this +appeal also was successful; few events in our relations with England +are more moving than the action of the starving Midlanders. Their +government, like their men of wealth and birth, like their press and +parliament, were eager <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>to see America split, and willing to see +slavery upheld in order to destroy democracy. But the men and women of +Manchester, starved by the Northern blockade of cotton, still begged +their government not to interfere with the blockade—and sent word to +Lincoln to assure him that the <i>people</i> of Britain were on the side of +liberty, imploring him "not to faint in your providential mission. +While your enthusiasm is aflame, and the tide of events runs high, let +the work be finished effectually. Leave no root of bitterness to +spring up and work fresh misery to your children." Nor did Lincoln +fail to respond; Americans who could interest Britain in the northern +cause were unofficial ambassadors to the people; and our minister, +Charles Francis Adams labored with all sorts and conditions of men to +make the government of Britain accept the will of the British people. +The Emancipation Proclamation was a final step in the domestic +statesmanship of the war; it was also a step in the diplomacy of the +war, for it insured us the good will of the British people; and that +good will was vital to the success of the Union. The North was coming +close to war with the <i>government</i> of Britain, and the people's open +prejudice in favor of Lincoln and freedom kept England from sufficient +aid to the Confederacy.</p> + +<p>The next address of the United States to the people of Europe is a +long tragedy, its consequences so dreadful today that we can barely +analyze the steps by which the great work for human freedom was +destroyed.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Wilson to the World</i></p> + +<p>Following the precedent of the Declaration, Woodrow Wilson began in +1916 to address himself to the people of the nations at war in Europe. +To ministries, German and British both, Wilson was sending +expostulations on U-boats and embargos; to the peoples of Europe he +addressed those speeches which were made at home; presently he wrote +inquiries to the ministers which they were compelled to make public +(since publication in neutral countries was certain). <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>Then, after the +Soviets of Russia had gone over the heads of the Foreign Offices, to +appeal to the workers of the world, Wilson carried his own method to +its necessary point and, after we entered the war, began the masterly +series of addresses to the German people which were so effective in +creating the atmosphere of defeat.</p> + +<p>They created at the same time the purposes of allied victory. The war +ended and one of the magnificent spectacles of modern times occurred: +the people of Europe were for a moment united, and they were united by +an American declaring the objectives of American life. The moment was +so brief that few knew all it meant until it had passed; in the +excitement of spectacles and events, of plots and processions, this +moment when Europe trembled with a new hope passed unnoticed.</p> + +<p>What happened later to Woodrow Wilson is tragic enough; but nothing +can take away from America this great moment in European history—to +which every observer bears testimony, even the most cynical. The +defeated people of Germany saw in America their only defence against +the rapacity of Clemenceau, the irresponsible, volatile opportunism of +Lloyd George, the crafty merchandising of Orlando; the first "liberal" +leader, Prince Max, had deliberately pretended acceptance of the +fourteen points in order to embarrass Wilson; but he spoke the truth +when he said that Wilson's ideals were cherished by the overwhelming +majority of the German <i>people</i>; and quite correctly the Germans saw +that nothing but American idealism stood between them and a peace of +vengeance. The enthusiasm of the victorious peoples was less selfish, +but it was equally great; a profound distrust of their leaders had +grown in the minds of realistic Frenchmen and Britons, they sensed the +incapacity of their leaders to raise the objectives of the war above +the level of the "knockout blow" or the <i>revanche</i>. As the Germans +cried to be protected in their defeat, the victorious people asked to +be protected from such fruits of victory as Europe had known for a +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>thousand years. The demagogues still shouted hoarsely for a noose for +the Kaiser and the old order in Germany began to plan for the next +time—but the people of Europe were united; they had gone through the +same war and, for the first time in their history, they wanted the +same peace. It was the first time that an American peace was proposed +to them.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>How Wilson Was Trapped</i></p> + +<p>Woodrow Wilson made a triumphal tour of the allied capitals and by the +time he returned to Paris for the actual business of the peace, he had +become the spiritual leader of the world. He was not, however, the +political leader of his own country—he had lost the Congressional +elections and he allowed the diplomats of Europe to make use of this +defeat. They began to cut him off from the people of Europe; he fell +into the ancient traps of statesmanship, the secret sessions, the +quarrels and departures; once he recovered control, ordered steam up +in the George Washington to take him home; but in the end he was +outguessed—in the smart word, he was outsmarted. He had imagined that +he could defeat the old Europe by refusing to recognize its intrigues. +He had, in effect, declared that secret treaties and all commitments +preceding the fourteen points couldn't exist; he had hoped that they +would be cancelled to conform to his pious pretence of ignorance. And +Clemenceau and Lloyd George kept him quarreling over a mile of +boundary or a religious enclave within a racial minority; they stirred +passions; they starved German children by an embargo; they rumored +reparations; they promised to hang the Kaiser; they drew Wilson deeper +into smaller conferences; they promised him a League about which their +cynicism was boundless, and he let them have war guilt and reparations +and the betrayal of the Russian revolution and the old European system +triumphant. They had fretted him and tried him and they had made their +own people forget the passionate faith Wilson had inspired; they made +Wilson the agent of disillusion for all <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>that was generous and hopeful +in Europe. They could do it because the moment Wilson began to talk to +the premiers, he stopped talking to the people. From the moment he +allowed the theme of exclusive war guilt to be announced, he cut +himself off from all Germany; he did not know the temper of the +working class in Europe, and he refused to listen to the men he +himself had sent to report on Russia, which did not help him with the +radical trade unions in France or the liberals in England. One by one +the nations fell back into their ancient groove, the Italians sullenly +nursing a grievance, the French whipping up a drama of revenge and +memory in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, the British "isolating" +themselves in virtual control of the Continent, everybody frightened +of Russia—and everyone still listening for another word of honest +truth from Wilson, who was silent; for America was starting on a long +era of isolation from Europe (the first in a century), an aberration +in American life, against all its actual traditions, in keeping only +with its vulgar oratory.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>The Excommunication of Europe</i></p> + +<p>The United States had no obligations to the nations which emerged out +of the Treaty of Versailles, only a human obligation to their people +to keep faith with them. The people of Germany believed in all fervor +that they had gained an armistice and sought peace on the basis of the +fourteen points; the people of France and England believed that their +own governments had accepted the same points. And the same people +might have been stirred to insist on a peace of reconciliation—not +with princes and ministers, but with peoples—if Wilson and the +Americans had continued to communicate with them.</p> + +<p>We withdrew into a stuffy silence. Just as we played a queer game of +protocol and refused to "recognize" the USSR, so we sulked because the +old bitch Europe wasn't being a gentleman—the only communication we +made to Europe was when we dunned her for money. We have seen how the +years of Harding and Coolidge affected our domestic life; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>they were +not only a reaction against the fervor of the war months; they were a +carefully calculated reaction against basic American policy at home +and abroad; they betrayed American enterprise, delivered industry into +the hands of finance, degraded government, laughed at corruption, and +under the guise of "a return to normalcy" attempted to revive the dead +conservatism of McKinley and Penrose in American politics.</p> + +<p>In this period, it is no wonder that we failed to utter one kind word +to help the first democratic government in Germany, that we trembled +with fear of the Reds, sneered at British labor until it became +respectable enough to send us a Prime Minister, and excluded more and +more rigorously the people of Europe whose blood had created our own.</p> + +<p>Slowly, as the depression of 1929-32 squeezed us, we began to see that +our miseries connected us with Europe; it was a Republican president +who first attempted to address Europe; but Mr. Hoover's temperament +makes it difficult for him to speak freely to anyone; the talks with +Ramsay MacDonald were pleasurable; the offer of a moratorium was the +first kindness to Europe in a generation of studied American +indifference. It failed (because France still preferred to avenge +herself on Germany); and thereafter we had too many unpleasant things +to do at home.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>One Good Deed</i></p> + +<p>We had, in the interval, spoken once to all the world. On the day the +Japanese moved into Manchuria we had, in effect, notified the British +that we chose not to accept the destruction or dismemberment of a +friendly nation. The cynical indifference of Sir John Simon was the +first intimation of the way Europe felt about American "idealism". It +was also the first step toward "non-intervention" in Spain and the +destruction of Europe at the hands of Adolf Hitler. When we were +rebuffed by Downing Street, we sulked; we did not attempt to speak to +the people of Asia, or try to win the British <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>public to our side. We +had lost the habit. We were not even candid in our talks with the +Chinese whose cause we favored because we had Japan (and American +dealers in oil and scrap iron) to appease.</p> + +<p>In 1933 Adolf Hitler was elected leader of a Germany which had been +out of communication with us for a generation. The United States which +had been in the minds of generations of Germans, was forgotten by the +people. In a few years Hitler had overthrown the power of France on +the Continent, challenged Communism as an international force, and +frightened the British Empire into an ignoble flutter of appeasement.</p> + +<p>To that dreary end our failure of communication had tended. We were +the one power which might have held Europe together—in a League, in a +mere hope of friendship and peace between nations, in the matrix of +the fourteen points if nothing more. The moment we withdrew from +Europe, its nations fell apart, not merely into victors and +vanquished, but into querulous, distrustful, and angry people, each +whipped into hysteria by demagogues or soothed to complaisance by +frightened ministers.</p> + +<p>The obligation to address Europe is no longer a moral one. For our own +security, for the cohesion of our own people, for victory over every +element that works to break America into hostile parts—now we have +the golden opportunity again, to speak to Europe, and to ask Europe to +answer. As we look back on our ancient triumphs with the peoples of +Europe and the sour end to which we let them come, this new chance is +heaven-sent, undeserved, as if we could live our lives over again. And +it is nearly so—for if we want to have a life to live in the future, +if it is still to be the confident, secure life of a United America, +we must speak now to Europe.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CHAPTER VIII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h2>The Science of Short Wave</h2> +<br /> + +<p>What we say to Europe is to be an incitement to revolution, a promise +of liberation, a hope of a decent, orderly, comfortable living, in +freedom; but it must be as hard and real and un-dreamlike as the +Declaration, which was our first word to the people of the world.</p> + +<p>We have to begin by telling all the peoples of Europe, our friends and +our enemies, what they have done for America, and what America has +done for them. We have to destroy the slander that the Italians were +kept at digging ditches, the Yugoslavs in the mills, the Hungarians +and Poles and Czechs in the mines and at the boilers, the Greeks at +the fruit stands; we must destroy the great lie that all the "lesser +races" whom Hitler now enslaves were first slaves to our economic +system. We can begin by reading the roster of the great names, the men +who came to America and were liberated from poverty and prejudice, and +made themselves fame or wealth, and deserved well of the Republic, and +were honored.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>38 Million Freemen</i></p> + +<p>Directly after the great names, we have to tell the story of the +nameless ones, the thirty-eight million who came here and suffered the +pains of transportation, but took root and grew, understanding freedom +as it came to them, making their way in the world, becoming part of +America, deprived of no civil rights, fighting against exploitation +with other Americans, free to fight against oppression, and with a +fair chance of winning.</p> + +<p>There is no need to prettify the record; the record, as it stands, in +all its crude natural colors, is good enough. The immigrant was +exploited, greedily and brutally; and twenty <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>years later he or his +sons exploited other immigrants in turn, as greedily and brutally as +the law allowed.</p> + +<p>The ancient passions of race and ritual were not dead in America; but +they were never embodied into law, nor entirely accepted by custom; +and as the unity of America was enriched by the blood of more races +and nations, prejudice had to be organized, it had to be whipped up +and put on a profit basis, as the Klan did, or it would have died +away.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>The New World was New</i></p> + +<p>For nearly a hundred and fifty years the peoples of Europe wanted to +come to America; they knew, from those who were already here, what the +plight of the foreigner was in Pittsburgh or in Tontitown, on Buzzards +Bay or Puget Sound. They knew that outlanders were sometimes mocked +and often cheated; that work was hard in a new land; that those who +came before had chosen the best farms and worked themselves into the +best jobs; they knew that for a time life would be strange, and even +its pleasures would be alien to them. They knew, in short, that +America was not the New Eden; but they also knew that it <i>was</i> the New +World, which was enough. We have no apologies to make to the +immigrant; except for those incivilities which people often show to +strangers. Our law showed them nothing but honor and equity. The +errors we made were grave enough; but as a nation we never committed +the sin of considering an immigrant as an alien first, and then as a +man. The economic disadvantages he suffered were the common +misfortunes of alien and native alike. We could have gained more from +our immigrants if we and they were not in such haste to slough off the +culture they brought us. But we can face Europe with a clear +conscience.</p> + +<p>What we have to say to Europe is not only that "we are all the +descendants of immigrants"; we go forward and say that the hunkie, the +wop, the bohunk, the big dumb Swede, the yid, the Polack, and all the +later immigrants, created <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>billions of our wealth, built our railroads +and pipe lines and generators and motor cars and highways and +telephone systems; and that we are getting our laws, our movies, our +dentistry, our poems, our news stories, our truck gardening, and a +thousand other necessities of life, from immigrants and from first +generation descendants of immigrants; and that they are respected and +rewarded, as richly as a child of the DAR or the FFV's would be in the +same honored and needed professions; we have to give to Europeans +statistical proof of their fellow-countrymen's value to us, and cite +the high places they occupy, the high incomes they enjoy, the high +honors we give them; all these things are true and have to be said, so +that Europe knows why America understands her people, why we can, +without smugness or arrogance, talk to all the people of Europe.</p> + +<p>And when that is said, we have to say one thing, harder to say +honorably and modestly and persuasively:</p> + +<p><i>That all these great things were done because the Europeans who did +them were free of Europe, because they had ceased to be Europeans and +become Americans.</i></p> +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>The Soil of Liberty</i></p> + +<p>This is the true incitement to revolution. Not that nations need +Americanize themselves; the image of Freedom has many aspects, and the +customs in which freedom expresses itself in France need not be the +same as those in Britain or Germany. But the base of freedom is +unmistakable—we know freedom as we know pure air, by our instincts, +not by formula or definition. And it was the freedom of America which +made it possible for forty million men and women to flourish, so that +often the Russian and the Irish, the Bulgar and the Sicilian, the +Croatian and the Lett, expressed the genius of their country more +completely in America than their contemporaries at home; because on +the free soil of America, they were not alien, they were not in exile. +One can ask what was contributed to medicine by any Japanese who +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>remained at home, comparable to the work of Noguchi or Takamine in +America; or whether any Spaniard has surpassed the clarity of a +Santayana; any Czech the scrupulous research of a Hrdlicka; any +Hungarian the brilliant, courageous journalism of a Pulitzer; any Serb +the achievements of Michael Pupin. The lives of all peoples, all over +the world, are incalculably enriched by men set free to work when they +came to America, And, it seems, only to America. The warm hospitality +of France to men of genius did not always work out; Americans and +Russians and Spaniards and English flocked to Paris and became +precious, or disgruntled; they felt expatriated; in America men from +all over the world felt repatriated, it was here they became normal, +and natural, and great.</p> + +<p>Beyond this—which deals with great men and is flattering to national +pride—we have to say to the men and women of Europe that their own +people have created democracy, proving that no European need be a +slave. The great lie Hitler is spreading over the world is that there +are "countries which love order", and that they are by nature the +enemies of the Anglo-Saxon democracies. It is a lie because our +democracy was created by all these "order-loving" peoples; America is +Anglo-Saxon only in its origin; the answer to Hitler is in what all +the people of Europe have created here.</p> + +<p>They have also annihilated the myth of race by which Hitler's Germany +creates a propaganda of hatred. <i>All</i> the peoples of Europe have lived +together in amity in America, all have intermarried. Nothing in +America—not even its crimes—can be ascribed to one group, nation, or +race. Even the KKK, one suspects, was not 100% Aryan.</p> + +<p>As the world has seen the German people, for the second time in twenty +years, support with enthusiasm a regime of brutal militarism, a +sinister retrogression into the bestiality of the Dark Ages, people +have wondered whether the German people themselves may not be +incapable of civilization. Their eagerness to serve any master +sufficiently ignorant, if <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>they can brutalize people weaker than +themselves, is a pathological strain. Their quick abandonment of the +effort at self-government is sub-adolescent. So it seems.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Germans As Freemen</i></p> + +<p>If it is so, then the great triumph of America is that in America even +the Germans have become good citizens, lovers of liberty, quick to +resent dictation. They have fought for good government from the time +of Carl Schurz; for freedom of the press since the days of Zenger; +they have hated tyranny and corruption since the time of Thomas Nast; +they have fought for the oppressed since the time of Altgeld. Of the +six million Germans who emigrated, the vast majority were capable of +living peaceably and serviceably with their fellowmen. Of these six, +one million fled from reactionary governments after the democratic +revolution of 1848 had failed, millions of others came to escape the +harsh imperialism of victorious Germany after 1870. To them, the +Germany of the Kaiser was undesirable, the Germany of Hitler +unthinkable. Yet their countrymen, left behind, tolerated one and +embraced the other with sickening adulation. It is as if America had +drawn off the six million Germans capable of understanding and taking +part in a democratic civilization, leaving the materials for Hitlerism +behind.</p> + +<p>In any case, the Germans in America have proved that Hitler lies to +the Germans; they are neither a superior race nor a people incapable +of self-government; they will not rule the world, nor be a nation of +slaves.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>The Brotherhood of the Oppressed</i></p> + +<p>We can say this to the Germans, destroying their illusions and their +fears at one stroke. How much more we can say to the great patient +peoples whom Germany now enslaves! They have seen the German conquest +of Continental Europe; the ascendancy of the Teutonic-Aryan is +complete. What can the Norwegian or the Bulgar or the Rumanian +believe, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>except that there is a superior race—and it is not his own?</p> + +<p>Fortunately for us, the European has never ceased to believe in +America, in us. Not as a military race, not as a race at all; but as +people of incredible good fortune in the world. And we can say to +every man who has bowed his head, but kept his heart bitter against +Hitler, that we have the proof of the equal dignity of every man's +soul, a proof which Hitlerism can never destroy. We can say to the +Greeks who see the swastika over the Parthenon and the Norwegian whose +bed is stripped of its comforters, and to the Serb still fighting in +the mountain passes, the one thing Hitler dares not let them +believe—that they are as good as other men. We have the proof that +under liberty Croats and Finns and Catalans and Norwegians are as good +as Germans—because they are men, because under liberty there is no +end to what they and their children may accomplish.</p> + +<p>If we ever again think that this is oratory, we shall lose our +greatest hope of a free world. The orators were too often promising +too much because they were betraying America on the side; still they +could not falsify the truth which the practical men and the poets both +had discovered: <i>America means opportunity</i>. Now we can see the vast +implications of the simple assertion. Because America meant +opportunity, we can incite riot against Hitler in the streets of Oslo +and Prague and even in Vienna; we have proved that given opportunity, +freed of artificial impediments, men walk erect, do their work, +collaborate to rule over and be ruled by their fellowmen; and that +there is no master race, no master class.</p> + +<p>This is our address to the people of Europe—that we believe in them, +because we know them. We know they can free themselves because they +have shown the instincts of free men here; we know they are destined +to create a free Europe.</p> + +<p>The people of Europe have to know that we are their friends. It will +be hard for us to make some of them believe it—as the French did not +believe it when we failed to break the British blockade in their +favor. But we must persuade <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>them—we have their brothers and mothers +and sons here to speak for us.</p> + +<p>It was not easy for Woodrow Wilson to speak to the Germans and the +Austrians. He had no radio; his facilities for pamphleteering were +limited. But he succeeded. Our task is formidable enough; because the +radio is so guarded, it may be harder for us to reach the captured +populations. But it can be done and will be, as soon as we see how +necessary the job is.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Our First Effective Front</i></p> + +<p>We have a job with Germans and Italians, too. Not with Germany and +Italy, which must be defeated; not with their rulers who must be +annihilated; but with the people, the simple, ignorant masses of +people, the day laborers and the housewives; and with the intelligent +section of the middle class which resisted fascism too little and too +late, but never accepted it. We have to revive the spirit of moderate +liberation which fell so ignominiously between Communism and fascism; +and we have to restore communication with the Socialists in Dachau, +the Communist cells in Italy and Germany.</p> + +<p>I am not trying to predict the form of our propaganda. We shall +probably try to scare our enemies and to cajole them; to prove them +misled; to promise them security if they revolt. None of these things +will be of much use if we forget to tell <i>the people</i> that their +brothers are here with us—and that we are not enemies. It has seemed +to us in the past year that we have a quarrel with more of the German +people than we had in 1918; we are contemptuous of the Italians; but +it is still our business to distinguish between the Storm Troopers and +their unfortunate victims, between the lackeys of fascism and the +easy-going Italian peasant who never knew what had hit him. There are +millions of Germans and Italians in America, who were once exactly +like the Germans and Italians in Europe; they have undergone the +experience of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>liberty while their brothers have been enslaved; but we +must be hard-headed enough to know that our greatest potential allies, +next to the embittered captives of the Nazi regime, are the Italians +and Germans who could not come to America in the past twenty years.</p> + +<p>The golden opportunity of talking to the people of Europe before we +went to war has been missed. Now it is harder for us, but it is not +impossible. We have to counter the despair of Europe with the hope of +America. The desperation of the occupied territories rises from the +belief that the Germans are invincible and that they themselves are +doomed to servility; to that we reply with the argument of war—but in +the first part of our war, the argument will be hard to follow; we +shall be pushed back, as the British were, because we are not yet +ready for the offensive; so for a year perhaps our very entrance into +the war will tend to increase the prestige of our enemies. Therefore, +in this time, we must use other powers, our other front, to touch +sources of despair: our counter-propaganda must rebuild the +self-respect of the Europeans, of those who resisted and were +conquered and even of those who failed to resist. We can send them the +record of heroism of their fellow-countrymen in our armies; if we can +reach them, we should smuggle a sack of flour for every act of +sabotage they commit; and we should send them at once a rough sketch, +if not a blueprint, of a post-war world in which they will have a +part—with our plans for recovering what was stolen from them, +rebuilding what was destroyed, and restoring the liberty which in +their hearts they never surrendered.</p> + +<p>And there is a special reason why we must speak promptly. We have to +declare our unity to Europe in order to destroy the antagonisms which +our enemies will incite at home. It will be good fascist propaganda to +lead us to attack Americans of German and Italian birth or parentage; +our enemies will say that the unity of America is a fraud, that we +have only welcomed Italians and Germans to make them support <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>the +Anglo-Saxon upper classes—and that "good Europeans" can never become +good Americans. The moment we give any pretext for this propaganda, +our communication with <i>all</i> of Europe is lost.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Short Wave to Ourselves</i></p> + +<p>We cannot afford to lose our only immediate weapon. We have to +anticipate the Italo-German blow at our national unity by our own +attack, led by Italians and Germans who are Americans. We have to +remain united so that we can deal effectively with Europe and every +time we speak to Europe, we can reinforce the foundations of unity at +home. We have not achieved a perfect balance of national elements, and +in the past few years we have tolerated fascist enemies, we have seen +good Americans being turned into fascists and bundists while our +leaders made loans to Mussolini or dined with Goering and came back to +talk of peace. It is possible that a true fifth column exists and, +more serious, that a deep disaffection has touched many Americans of +European birth. We have to watch the dangerous ones; the others have +to be re-absorbed into our common society—and we can best take them +in by the honesty and the friendliness of our relation with their +fellowmen abroad. We have to tell the Italians here what we are saying +to the Umbrian peasant and the factory worker in Milan and the clerk +in a Roman bank whose movements are watched by a German soldier; the +Germans, too. And what we say has to be confident and clear and +consistent. For months the quarrel about short wave has continued and +Americans returning from Europe have wept at the frivolity and +changeableness and lack of imagination in our communications to men +who risk their lives to hear what we have to say; it was incredible to +them that this vital arm of our attack on Hitler should have been left +so long unused, that anyone who could pay could say something to +someone in Europe, within the limits of safety, to be sure, but not +within the limits of a coordinated policy. One could <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>advise the +Swedes to declare war or assure them that we understood why they did +not; one could do almost as much for France.</p> + +<p>Short wave to Europe is a mystery to the average citizen; he does not +pick it up, and would be only mildly interested if he did. In his +mind, that sort of propaganda should be left to the experts; as it is +in other lands. But in our case, there are re-echoes at home. Not a +"government in exile" speaks from America, but we have here part of +many nations, emigrated and transformed, but still with understanding +of all that was left behind. We have to think of the Norwegians in +Minnesota when we speak to the Norwegians in the Lofotens; the Germans +in Yorkville and the Poles in Pittsburgh should know what we say to +Berlin and to Warsaw. Our words have to help win the war, and to begin +the reconciliation of Europe without which we are not safe. That +reconciliation we have turned into a positive thing, a cooperative +life which has made us strong; we have to tell Europe what we have +done, how Europe has lived in us. We may have to promise and to +threaten, too; but mostly we will want to destroy the myth of +America-Against-Europe by showing the reality of Europe-in-America; we +will want to destroy the lie of an Anglo-Saxon America by letting all +the voices be heard of an American America; we will want to destroy +the rumor of a disunited America by uniting all the voices in one +declaration of ultimate freedom—for Europe and for ourselves.</p> + +<p>Europe will ask, if it can reach us, what freedom will mean, how we +will organize it, how far we mean to go. If we want to answer +honestly, we will have to take stock quickly of what we have—and can +offer.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CHAPTER IX<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h2>Definition of America</h2> +<br /> + +<p>We have two prodigious victories to gain—the war and the world after +the war. The chatter about not "defining war aims" because specific +aims are bound to disturb us, is dangerously beside the point, because +the kind of world we will create depends largely on the kind of war we +wage. If we nazify ourselves to win, we will win a nazified world; if +we communize ourselves, we will probably share a modified Marxian +world with the Soviets; and if we win by intensification of our +democracy, we will create the only kind of world in which we can live. +And, as noted in discussing the strategy of the war, the chances are +that we can only win if we divine the essential nature of our people +and create a corresponding strategy.</p> + +<p>In addition to the direct military need for knowing what kind of +people we are, there is the propaganda need, so that we can create a +national unity and put aside the constant irritation of partisanship, +the fear of "incidents", the wastage of emotional energy in quarrels +among ourselves. And there is a third reason for an exact and candid +review of what we are: it is our future.</p> + +<p>When this war ends we will make, in one form or another, solemn +agreements with the nations of the world, our allies and what is left +of our enemies. We know almost nothing about any of them—we, the +American people. Our State Department knows little enough; what it +knows, it has not communicated to us; and we have never been +interested enough to make discoveries of our own. We are about to +commit a huge international polygamy, with forty picture brides, each +one in a different national costume.</p> + +<p>Some conditions of this mass marriage are the subject of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>the next +section of this book. Here I am concerned with the one thing we can do +to make the preliminary steps intelligent. We cannot learn all we need +to know about all the other nations of the world; but we can reflect +on some things within ourselves, we can know ourselves better; and on +this knowledge we can erect the framework into which the other nations +will fit; or out of which they will remain if they choose not to fit. +We can, by knowing a few vital things about ourselves, learn a lot +about South America and Europe and Asia and Australia; what <i>we</i> are +will determine whom we will marry, whom reject, and whom we will set +up, if agreeable, in an unsanctified situation. The laws of man, in +many states, require certificates of eligibility to marry, the +services of the church inquire if an obstacle exists. Before we enter +into compacts full of tragic and noble possibilities, we might also +make inquiries. Something in us shies away from the pomp of the old +diplomacy—what is that something? We used to like revolutionaries and +never understood colonial exploitation—how do these things affect us +now? Are we prepared to deal with a government in one country and a +people in another? Is it possible for us to ally ourselves to +Communists, reformed fascists, variously incomplete democracies, +cooperative democratic monarchies, and centralized empires, all at the +same time? Is there anything in us which requires us to make terms +with Britain about India, with Russia about propaganda, with Sweden +about exports, before we make a new world with all of them? Can we, +honorably, enter any agreement, with any state or with all states, +while they are ignorant of our character—as ignorant, possibly, as we +are of theirs?</p> + +<p>The difficulty we are in is nicely doubled, because introspection is +no happy habit and we say that we <i>know</i> all about America, or we say +that America cannot be known—it is too big, too varied, too +complicated. And these two opposite statements are in themselves a +beginning of a definition. America, by this testimony, is a country, +large, varied, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>complex, inhabited by people who either understand +their country perfectly or will not make an effort to understand it. I +would not care to rest on this definition—but it shows the need of +definition.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Mathematics of Character</i></p> + +<p>By "definition of America" I mean neither epigrams nor statistics; we +are defined by everything which separates and distinguishes us from +others. We are, for instance, the only country lying between the +Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and 25° 35' and 49° north latitude. This +definition is exact and complete; it is neither a boast nor a +criticism; it establishes no superiority or inferiority; it is a fact, +the consequences of which are tremendously significant (our varied +climate, our resources, our bigness with <i>its</i> consequences in the +temper of the people, all go back to this mathematical <i>fact</i>.)</p> + +<p>Not all the distinguishing marks of our country can be expressed in +mathematical terms; if they could be, we would avoid the danger of +jingo pride, the logical error of making every difference into a +superiority. Moreover, if we had mathematics, we should be able to put +on one side what we have in common with other countries, on the other +what is exclusively ours—and make a comparison, a guide to +international conduct "on scientific principles". We would know how +far our likeness joined us to others, so that we could lay a firm +basis for action; and how far our differences required compromises or +made compromise impossible.</p> + +<p>We lack mathematics; our physical boundaries are fixed, but our social +boundaries are fluid, our national "genius" escapes definition. Yet we +can describe these imponderables even if we cannot force them into a +diagram, and their vital significance is as great as any statistics +can be. It is a fact that millions of people came to America in the +hope of a better life—the number who came can be written down, the +intensity of hope can be guessed; and only a compassionate imagination +can say what this country gained by the hopes fulfilled <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>or lost by +those which ended in despair. Yet the elation and the disillusion of +men and women are both reflected in our laws and customs; and so far +as they did not occur in other lands, they are factors in defining the +great complex of our national character.</p> + +<p>We are defined by events—immigration was an event. But immigrants +came to other countries as well, to Canada and Brazil and England. +When they came and in what numbers becomes the defining mark for us. +It is self-evident that we are different from all other nations both +absolutely and relatively; no other nation lies within our boundaries +or has all our habits, because none has had our history—that is the +base of absolute difference; all other nations share something with +us, but we differ from each relatively—in some degree. This would not +be worth mentioning if chauvinism did not insist that we differed (and +were superior) in all things, while a base cosmopolitanism insisted +that we were alike in all things and should be made more so. The +corrective for each of these errors is to see what we are.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>The Revolution in Property</i></p> + +<p>When this country was settled the ownership of land was the most +important economic factor in the lives of all Western peoples. The +ruling class in Europe was a "landed aristocracy"; the poor had become +poorer because they had usually been gradually driven off the land (as +in England) or forced to pay outrageous rents (as in France). In the +thirteen original colonies alone we had almost as many square miles of +land as France and England together and this seemingly immeasurable +area was only the fringe, the shore line, of Continental America; the +Mississippi Valley had been explored, and the Southwest, so that the +French and Spanish people shared, to an extent, in the hopes which +unlimited land offered to the dispossessed.</p> + +<p>Before the Declaration of Independence had been uttered, a revolution +in the deepest instincts of man had taken <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>place—land became a +commodity of less permanence than a man's musket or horse. In Europe, +land was to be built upon (literally and symbolically; ducal or royal +Houses were founded on land); land was <i>real</i> estate, everything else +was by comparison trifling; land was guarded by laws, property laws, +laws of inheritance, laws of trespass, laws governing rents and +foreclosures; far above laws governing human life was the law +governing property, and the greatest property was land; title to +property often carried with it what we call "a title" today; count and +marquis, their names signify "counties" and "marches" of land; and the +Prince (or <i>Princeps</i>) was often the first man in the land because he +was the first owner of the land. Land was the one universal permanent +thing; upon it men were born; over it they slaved or rode in grandeur; +in it they were buried.</p> + +<p>The American pioneer began to abandon his land, his farm in the +clearing of the wilderness, before 1776. He moved away, westward, and +complained against King George's legal fence around the land beyond +the Alleghenies. The European transplanted to America often founded a +House, notably in the aristocratic tradition of the Virginia +tidewater; but most of the colonists lacked money or inclination to +buy land in quantities; they went inland and took what they needed +(often legally, often by squatters' right—which is the right of work, +not of law); and then, for a number of reasons, they left the land and +went further into the wilderness and made another clearing.</p> + +<p>There is something magnificent and mysterious about this mania to move +which overtook men when they came to America. Perhaps the primal +instinct of man, to wander with his arrow or with his flock, +reasserted itself after generations of the hemmed-in life of European +cities; perhaps it was some uneasiness, some insecurity in +themselves—or some spirit of adventure which could not be satisfied +so long as a river or a forest or a plain lay unexplored. Romance has +beglamored the pioneer and he has been called rude names for his +"rape <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>of a continent". I have once before quoted Lewis Mumford's +positively Puritan rage at the pioneer who did not heed Wordsworth's +advice to seek Nature "in a wise passiveness"—advice based on the +poet's love for the English Lake district, about as uncivilized then +as Northern Vermont is today. The raging pioneer, says Mumford, "raped +his new mistress in a blind fury of obstreperous passion". Our more +familiar figure of the pioneer in a coonskin cap, leading the way for +wife and children, is the romantic counterpart of this grim raper who +wasn't aware of the fact that Rousseau and Wordsworth didn't like what +he was doing.</p> + +<p>He was doing more to undermine the old order than Rousseau ever did. +The moment land ceased to be universally the foundation of wealth and +position, the way was open for wealth based on the machine—which is +wealth made by hand, not inherited, wealth made by the <i>industry</i> of +one man or group of men; it was wealth made by things in motion, not +by land which stands still. The whole concept of aristocracy began to +alter—for the worse. If wealth could be made, then wealth became a +criterion; presently the money-lender (on a large scale) became +respectable; presently money itself became respectable. It was +divorced from land, from power, and from responsibility; a few +generations later the new money bought up land to be respectable—but +not responsible.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>The Consequences of Free Land</i></p> + +<p>This was the revolution in which America led the way and it had +astounding consequences. The American pioneer did not care for the +land—in two senses, for he neither loved it nor took care of it. The +European peasant had to nourish the soil before it would, in turn, +nourish him and his family; the American did not; he exhausted the +soil and left it, as a man unchivalrously leaves an aging wife for a +younger; there was so much land available that only an obstinate +unadventurous man would not try a hazard of new fortunes. This <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>may be +morally reprehensible, but politically it had a satisfactory result: +the American farmer exhausted the soil, but did not let the soil +exhaust him; so that we established the tradition of waste, but +escaped the worse tradition of a stingy, frightened, miserly, peasant +class. The more aesthetic American critics of America never quite +forgave us for not having peasant arts and crafts, the peasant +virtues, the peasant sturdiness and all the rest of the good qualities +which go with slavery to the soil.</p> + +<p>So the physical definition of America leads to these opening social +definitions:</p> + +<div class="block"><p class="hang">we first destroyed the land-basis of wealth, position and +power;</p> + +<p class="hang">we were the first nation to exhaust and abandon the soil;</p> + +<p class="hang">we were supremely the great wasters of the world;</p> + +<p class="hang">we were the first great nation to exist without a peasant class.</p></div> + +<p>From this beginning we can go on to other effects:</p> + +<div class="block"><p class="hang">our myths grew out of conquest of the land, not out of war +against neighboring states;</p> + +<p class="hang">we created no special rights for the eldest son (as the younger +could find more and better land);</p> + +<p class="hang">the national center of gravity was constantly changing as +population moved to take up new land;</p> + +<p class="hang">we remained relatively unsophisticated because we were +constantly opening new frontiers;</p> + +<p class="hang">our society, for the same reason, was relatively unstable;</p> + +<p class="hang">we lived at half a dozen social levels (of comfort and +education, for instance) at the same time;</p> + +<p class="hang">we created a "various" nation, and when the conditions of owning +and working land changed, we were plunged into a new kind of +political revolution, known then as the Populist movement.</p></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>The effects of a century of fairly free land are still the dominant +psychological factor in America; the obvious effects are that the land +invited the immigrant and rewarded the pioneer—who between them +created the forms of society and established half a dozen norms of +character. In addition, the opportunities offered kept us ambitious at +home and peaceful abroad. Once we felt secure within our territorial +limits, we became basically pacifist, and it took the "atrocities" of +the Spaniards in Cuba to bring us into our first war against a +European nation since 1814. This pacifism was more intense in the more +agricultural states and was fed by the settlement there of pacific +Scandinavians whose country's record of avoiding wars was better than +ours. Pacifism was constantly fed by other immigrants, from Germany +and Russia and minor states, who fled from compulsory military service +(for their children, if not for themselves). In revenge for this +un-European pacifism we created a purely American lawlessness—and a +toleration of it which is the amazement of Nazi Germany, where the +leaders prefer the sanctions of law for their murders; civilized +Europe, having lived through duels and massacres, is still shocked by +our constant disregard of law, which began with the absence of law in +pioneering days, and was met, later, by our failure to educate new +citizens to obedience or adapt our laws to their customs.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>America on the Move</i></p> + +<p>One more thing, directly, the land did: it made us a mobile people and +all the changes of three hundred years (since the first settlers +struck inland from Plymouth and upland from Jamestown) have not +altered us. The voyage which brought us here often lost momentum for a +generation; but the pioneer in the Conestoga wagon was moving into the +Northwest Territory as soon as the Revolution was over; then New +England began to move to the west; the covered wagon followed trails +broken by outriders to the western ocean; the Gold Rush pulled men +through the wintry passes or around <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>the Horn, and by then our passion +for moving swiftly over great distances had given us the Clipper ship; +after the Civil War the Homestead Act started a new move to the West, +and the railroads began to make movement less romantic, but regular +and abundant. If the 1870's were not marked by great migrations of +men, they were scored into the earth by the tremendous drives of +cattle, north from Texas in the summer, south from Wyoming as winter +threatened, hundreds of thousands of them, herded across state lines +and prairies and riverbeds, back and forth, until the last drive to +the railheads at Abilene or Kansas City. We were moving a bit more +slowly, chiefly from the country to the cities, but the far northwest +was beginning to grow; then, when it seemed that we could move no +more, the motor car, which had been a luxury for the few in Europe, +developed as a common tool for the average family, and America was +mobile again, first with naive pleasure in movement (and a +satisfaction in the tool itself), then in an extraordinary outburst of +activity which has not been sufficiently studied—the tin can tourist, +the first middle-class-on-the-march in history. This search for the +sun, with its effects on Florida and California, broke the established +habits of the middle-class and of the middle-aged; it wrote a new +ending to the life of the prudent, industrious American, it required +initiative and if it ended in the rather ugly tourist camp, that was +only a new beginning.</p> + +<p>The great migration of Negroes to the north followed the first World +War; since then the mobility of Americans is the familiar, almost +tragic, story of a civilization allowing itself to be tied almost +entirely to one industry, and not providing for the security of that +one. Every aspect of American life was altered by the quantity-production +of motor cars; the method of production itself caused minor +mass-movements, small armies of unemployed marching on key cities, +small armies marching back; and the universal dependence on trucks, +busses and cars, which bankrupted railroads, shifted populations away +from cities, slaughtered tens of thousands <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>annually, altered the +conditions of crime and pursuit, and, in passing, made the country +known to its inhabitants; moreover, the motor car which created only a +small number of anti-social millionaires, made some twenty million +Americans feel equal to the richest and the poorest man on the road. +Mobility which in the pioneer days had created the forms of democracy +came back to the new democracy of the filling station and the roadside +cabin.</p> + +<p>"Everybody" had a car in America, but there was no "peoples' car"; +that was left for dictators to promise—without fulfilment. The cars +made in America were wasteful; they were artificially aged by "new +models" and the sales pressure distracted millions of Americans from a +more intelligent allocation of their incomes; these were the errors, +widely remarked. That the motor car could be used—was being used—as +a civilizing agent, escaped the general attention until the war +threatened to put a new car into the old barn, beside the buggy which +had rested there for thirty years—but might still be good for +transport.</p> + +<p>In one field America seemed to lag: aviation. Because the near +frontiers of Europe made aircraft essential, all European +<i>governments</i> subsidized production; the commercial possibilities were +not so apparent to Americans; no way existed for doing two +things—making planes in mass production, and getting millions of +people to use them. The present war has anticipated normal progress in +methods of production by a generation; it may start the motor car on a +downward path, as the motor car dislodged the trolley and the train; +but this will only happen if the aeroplane fits into the basic +American pattern of machines for mobility.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2">"<i>The Richest Nation on Earth</i>"</p> + +<p>From free land to free air, movement and change have produced a vast +amount of wealth in America. Because land could not be the exclusive +base of riches, wealth in America began to take on many meanings and, +for the first time in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>history, a wealthy people began to emerge, +instead of a wealthy nation.</p> + +<p>We were, in the economist's sense, always a wealthy nation. The +overpowering statistics of our share of all the world's commodities +are often published because we are not afraid of the envy of the gods; +of coal and iron and most of the rarer metals used to make steel, we +have an impressive plenty; of food and the materials for shelter and +clothing, we can always have enough; from South America, we can get +foods we cannot raise but have become accustomed to use; of a few +strategic materials in the present war economy, we have nothing; +except for these, we are copiously supplied; but we should still be +poor if we lacked ability and knack and desire to make the raw +materials serviceable to all of us. So that our power to work, our way +of inventing a machine, our habit of letting nearly everybody in on +the good things of life, is specifically a part of our wealth.</p> + +<p>We have a tradition about wealth, too. The Government, to some degree, +has always tried to rectify the worst inequalities of fortune; and the +people have done their share: they have not long tolerated any +artificial bar to enterprise.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2">"<i>Rugged Individuals</i>"</p> + +<p>Government's care of the less fortunate struck some twenty million +Americans as something new and dangerous in the early days of the +Hoover depression, and in the sudden upward spiral of the first New +Deal. Perhaps the most hackneyed remark was that "real Americans" +would reject Federal aid—a pious hope usually bracketed with remarks +about Valley Forge. It was forgotten that the men who froze and swore +at Valley Forge demanded direct Government aid the moment the Republic +was established; and that the Cumberland Road, the artery from +Fredericksburg, Maryland to Uniontown, Pennsylvania, was built by the +Government of the United States for its citizens. Government gave +bounties and free land; Government gave enormous sums of money <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>to +industry by way of tariff, and gave 200 million acres of land to +railroads. There was never a time when the Federal Government was not +giving aid, in one form or another, to some of the citizens. The +outcry when Government attempted to save <i>all</i> the citizens indicated +an incomplete knowledge of our history. In particular, the steady +reduction of the price of land was a subsidy to the poor, a chance for +them to start again. The country, for all its obedience to financial +power, never accepted the theory of inevitable poverty. After the era +of normalcy, when the New Deal declared that one-third of a nation was +ill clothed and ill fed, the other two-thirds were astonished—and not +pleased; the fact that two-thirds had escaped poverty—the almost +universal condition of man throughout the world—was not enough for +America.</p> + +<p>It is an evil thing that we have not conquered poverty or the +stupidity and greed which cause poverty; but our distinguishing mark +in this field is the expectation of success. We are the first large +nation reasonably planning to abolish poverty without also abolishing +wealth. The Axis countries may precede us; on the lowest level it is +possible that Hitler has already succeeded, for like the +Administration in 1931, Hitler can say that no one dies of starvation. +Our intention has always been a little different; it is to make sure +that no one lacks the essentials of life, not too narrowly conceived, +and that the opportunity to add to these essentials will remain. This +may betray a low liking for riches—but it has its good points also. +It has helped to keep us free, which is something.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2">"<i>Ye Shall Live in Plenty</i>"</p> + +<p>Wealth—and the prospect of wealth—are positive elements in the +American makeup. We differ from large sections of Europe because we +take a positive pleasure in working to make money, and because we +spend money less daintily, having a tendency to let our women do that +for us; this evens things up somewhat, for if men become too engrossed +in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>business, women make the balance good by undervaluing business and +spending its proceeds on art, or amenity, or foolishness.</p> + +<p>The tradition that we could all become millionaires never had much to +do with forming the American character, because no one took it too +seriously; the serious thing was that Americans all believed they +could prosper. Those who did not, suffered a double odium—they were +disgraced because they had failed to make good and they had betrayed +the American legend. The legend existed because it corresponded to +some of the facts of American life; only it persisted long after the +facts had been changed by industrialism and the closing of the +frontiers and our coming of age as a financial power had changed the +facts. We were heading toward normalcy and the last effort to preserve +equality of opportunity was choked off when Wilson had to abandon +domestic reform to concentrate on the war.</p> + +<p>Social security, a possible eighty dollars a month after the age of +sixty-five, are poor substitutes for a nation of spend-thrifts; we +accept the new prospect grimly, because the general standard of living +and the expectation of improvement are still high in most parts of +America. In spite of setbacks, the general belief is still, as Herbert +Croly said it was in 1919, "that Americans are not destined to +renounce, but to enjoy".</p> + +<p>Normal as enjoyment seems to us, it is not universal. There have been +people happier than ours, no doubt, with a fraction of our material +goods; religious people, simple races, people born to hardship, have +their special kinds of contentment in life. But with minor variations, +most Western people, since the industrial revolution, are trying to +get a share of the basic pleasures of life; in a great part of the +world it is certain that most people will get very little; in America +it is assumed that all will get a great deal.</p> + +<p>The struggle for wealth is so ingrained in us that we hate the thought +of giving it up; we are submitting reluctantly to rules which are +intended to equalize opportunity, if opportunity comes again.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>America Invented Prosperity</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span></p> + +<p>In this new organization of our lives, money becomes purely a device +of calculation, since the costs of the war exhaust all we have; we can +now look back on America's "money-madness" with some detachment; +without balancing the good and evil done to our souls by the effort to +become rich, we should estimate how powerful the incentive still +is—and then use it, or defeat it, for the best social advantage. For +it has its advantages, if we know how to use them, and fear of money +is not the beginning of a sound economy. People occasionally talk as +if the desire for money is an American invention; actually our +invention is the satisfaction of the desire, which we call prosperity.</p> + +<p>For prosperity is the truth of which wealth is the legend, prosperity +is the substantial fact and wealth the distorted shadow on the wall.</p> + +<p>The economics implied in the Declaration of Independence and the +Constitution alike indicate a new intent in the world, to create a +prosperous people. The great men who proclaimed liberty in 1776 have +often been blamed because they did not create "economic freedom" to +run beside their political freedom. Actually they did not create +either, leaving it to the separate States to say whether one man with +one vote was the true symbol of equality, whether he who paid ten +times the average tax should have ten times the voice in spending it. +As for economic equality, which is what later critics really want, it +would have been inappropriate to the undeveloped resources of the +country and impossible in the political climate of the time. The +people of the new nation had suffered from centralized government; +they would not have tolerated the only practical way of establishing +economic controls—a highly concentrated government over a single, not +a federated, nation. The men who fought the war of Independence did +not even set up an executive, only a committee of thirteen to act +while Congress was not in session; they erected no <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>system of national +courts; and Congress, with the duty of creating an army and navy, +could not draft men to either, nor pay them if they volunteered. When +this system of Confederation broke down, the Constitution was +carefully built up, to prevent Government from regulating the lives of +the people; and the people, who were confident that they could make +their own way, wanted only to be secure against interference. They did +not ask Government to equalize anything but opportunity.</p> + +<p>The "rich and well-born" managed to turn the Constitution to their own +advantage; their opportunities were greater than the immediate chances +of the poor farmer and the city rabble; but government by the men of +property was never made permanent, and the most critical historian of +the Constitution is the one who says that "in the long reach of time +... the fair prophecy of the Revolutionary era was surprisingly +fulfilled."</p> + +<p>The intention, so commonplace to us, was wildly radical in its time; +poets and philosophers had imagined a world freed from want (usually +also a world peopled by ascetics); the promise of the United States +was a reasonable gratification of the desires of all men. That was the +reason for giving land to migrants, and citizenship to foreigners, and +Statehood to territories. When the French Revolution began to settle +down, the people had acquired rights, they had been freed of +intolerable taxes, the great estates had been cut up; but the +expectation of steadily improving conditions of life did not become a +<i>constant</i> in the French character; nor did the upheaval in England in +1832 and under the Chartists leave a permanent hope for better things +in the mind of the lower classes. The idea of class and the idea of a +"station in life", a "lot" with which one must be content, persisted +after <i>all</i> the Revolutions in Europe in the 19th century. Only in +America the Revolution set out to—and did—destroy the principle of +natural inevitable poverty. We have not actually destroyed poverty, +and this gap between our intent and our <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>achievement has been +publicized. But what we intended to do and what we accomplished and +what we still have power to do are more significant than the part we +failed to do. We created for the first time in history a nation which +did not accept poverty as inevitable.</p> + +<p>This had profound effects on ourselves and on the rest of the world. +We became restless and infected Europe with our instability. We became +optimistic and Europe rather deplored our lack of philosophy. We +enjoyed many things and became "materialistic", and Europe sent us +preachers of renunciation and the simple life. It became clear that, +for good and evil, our character was departing from any European mold, +and parts of Europe were tempted to join the Confederacy in 1861 or +Spain in 1898 in the hope of destroying us.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Our Fifty Years of Class War</i></p> + +<p>From about 1880 to 1930 we were moving into a new system of +government; in the Midwest the children of New England and the +children of Scandinavia agreed to call this system plutocracy—the +system of great wealth which is based on poverty; it threatened to +displace the system of almost equally great wealth which is based on +prosperity.</p> + +<p>The constant radicalism of America, based on free land, frequent +movement, and belief in the future, flared up in the 1880's and for +generations this country was engaged in a class war between the rich +and the poor (as it had been in Shays' time and in Jackson's). Our +political education was won in this time, but Populism died under the +combined effects of a war against Spain and a new process of +extracting gold; it was revived under Theodore Roosevelt, under +Woodrow Wilson, and under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, all of whom tried +to shift the base of wealth without cracking the structure itself. +Wealth had come into conflict with some other American desires, it had +begun to <i>limit</i> enterprise and, in its bad spots, was creating a +peasantry and a proletariat. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>With some feeling that Europe must not +repeat itself in America, the people on three occasions chose liberal +Presidents and these men built on the "wild" ideas of the 1880's the +safeguards of economic democracy which seemed needed at the time.</p> + +<p>We are a nation in which the Continental European class system has not +become rooted; it is socially negated and politically checked; we are +a democracy tempered by the special influence of wealth and, more +important, by the special position of working-wealth; (inherited money +counts so little that the great inheritors of our time fight their way +back into production or politics, with a dosage of liberal +principles). According to radicals we are still governed by massed and +concentrated finance-capital, and according to certain Congressmen we +are living under a labor-dictatorship. Very little perspective is +required to see that we are living as we always have lived, our +purposes not fully realized, our errors a little too glaring, our +capacity to change and improve not yet impaired.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Labor Troubles</i></p> + +<p>The reason we seem to be particularly unsure of ourselves now is that +we are creating a national labor policy forty years late. We are +hurried and immature; the depression drained our vitality because we +were told that change in our institutions meant death to our "way of +life"; the traditional American eagerness to abandon whatever he had +exhausted, died down; the investment was too great and the interests +were too complex. So the changes we had to make all seemed +revolutionary if not vengeful, and men whose fathers had lived through +the Populist rebellion often seriously felt that the recognition of +organized labor was the beginning of class warfare in America.</p> + +<p>The forty year lag in the labor situation had evil effects on all +concerned: the Government was too often uncertain, and the leaders of +labor too often unfit. Like other organized <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>groups, labor unions did +not always consult the public good and criminals were found among +them; but organized labor should be compared with organized production +or organized banking or medicine or law; all of these have long +traditions, all have the active support of the public; yet their +ethics are quite as often dubious, they act out of basic +self-interest, and the criminals among them, utility magnates stealing +from stockholders, doctors splitting fees, manufacturers bribing +legislators, are as shocking as the grafters and racketeers of the +labor unions.</p> + +<p>The temporary dismay over labor's advances and obstinacy will pass, +the laws will finally be written; but we will still be a country +backward in the <i>habits</i> of organized dealing between management and +labor. The advantage lies in the past; we did not create a basic +hostile relationship because the laborer was always on the point of +becoming a foreman or thought he would start his own shop; or a new +wave of high wages "settled" strikes without any settled +principles—to the dismay of the few statesmen among labor leaders.</p> + +<p>Firm relations imply some permanence. The employer expected to retain +his business; the worker expected to better it. Consequently, the +basic American labor policy is not grounded in despair; it does not +represent endless poverty, or cruelty, or a desire to revenge ancient +wrongs. Nor does it represent fear. The disgraces of Memorial Day in +Chicago and of Gate Four in Detroit will come again if the laws we +create do not correspond to the facts; but the habits of Americans +have not created two sullen armies, of capital with its bullies, of +labor with its demagogues. These exist on the frontiers, where border +clashes occur. The main bodies are not hostile armies, but forces +capable of coordinated effort. Theodore Roosevelt was prepared to send +the troops of the United States to take over the Pennsylvania coal +mines, because the mine owners (with "Divine Right" Baer to guide +them) refused to deal with the unions under John Mitchell; as soon as +that was known, the possibility of creating a labor <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>policy became +bright, because Roosevelt was, in effect, restoring the balance lost +when Cleveland sent troops to Pullman. The position of Government as +the impartial but decisive third party was sketched, and some forty +years later we are beginning to see a labor policy in which the +Government protects both parties and provides the machinery for the +settlement of all disputes.</p> + +<p>Our immaturity and peevishness about an established routine for labor +disputes has to be counted on as a factor in our character, chiefly +because we shall remain for some time behind the other great +industrial countries in the smoothness of operation. In normal times a +British contractor did not have to allow for strikes, an American did; +and our present war effort, our propaganda, and our plans for the +future, all have to take this element into consideration. The false +unity of December, 1941, resulted in a serious pledge of "no strikes, +no lockouts"; but within three months the National Labor Relations +Board was admitting that it needed guidance to create a policy, and +worse than sporadic trouble was in the wind. So much the more did we +have to know what we were like in labor affairs, and without +self-imposture, act accordingly. The war gave an opportunity for +statesmen to make a new amalgam of the elements in the labor +situation; but the war also made people hysterical about unrealities, +and the labor situation was treated in two equally bad ways: as if we +could have maximum production without any policy, or as if no policy +could be evolved, and we would have to fight the Axis while the +Administration destroyed capital and Congress destroyed labor.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>The Danger of Godlessness</i></p> + +<p>I am listing certain actualities of American life, with notes on their +sources, as a guide to conduct—particularly the conduct of the war +(which should be built on our character) and the conduct of civilian +propaganda which must, at times, effect temporary alterations in our +habits. I have, so far, named <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>those aspects of our total outlook +which come from the size and many-sided wealth of the country, and +from our confident, unskilled attempts to deal with wealth and labor +and the shifts of power which are bound to occur in a democracy. I +come now to items which are no less potent because they are +impalpable. Any effort which counts on bringing the whole strength of +America into play must count also on these.</p> + +<p>We are a profoundly irreligious people. We are highly sectarian and we +are a church-going people; but in the sense that religion rises from +our relation to a higher power, we are irreligious. We are not +constantly aware of any duty: to the state, to our fellowmen, to +Mankind, to the Universal Principle, to God. We live unaware even of a +connection between ourselves and anything we do not instantly touch or +see or hear; we have grown out of asking for help or protection, and +disasters fall on us heavily because we are separated from our +fellowmen, having no common needs, or faith.</p> + +<p>The coming together, in freedom, of many faiths, and the rise of +material happiness in the great era of scepticism, left us without a +functioning state religion; the emancipation of each individual man +from political tyranny and economic degradation left us without any +sense of the universal; we have been able to gratify so many private +purposes, that we are unaware of any great purpose beyond. As for the +mystic's faith, it never makes itself felt, and the name "mystic" +itself, far from connoting a deeper insight into the nature of God, is +now associated with flummery and hoax.</p> + +<p>We are irreligious because we have set out to conquer the physical +world and deliver a part of the spoils to every man. In our good +intention to create and to distribute wealth, creating democracy in +our stride, we approach a new relation to others. We are capable of +cooperation; but religious people do not cooperate with God; they seek +his will and bow to it. We exalt our own will.</p> + +<p>This has to be taken into account, because it makes the creation of a +practical unity difficult. If we had felt ourselves <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>linked through +God with one another, it would have been easier to join hands in any +job we had to do. I do not know whether any of the western democratic +countries had a remnant of this mystical religion; but the appeal to +the "blood" and the "race" of both Japan and Germany, the appeal to +universal brotherhood in both China and Soviet Russia, indicate what a +deep source of strength can be found in man if he can be persuaded to +abandon himself. And as this is the fundamental demand of the State in +war time, means must be found to compensate for the absence of deep +universally shared feeling in America. We shall not find a substitute +for religion and we will do well to concentrate on the non-religious +actions and emotions which bring men together. Common fears we already +have and we may rediscover our common hopes; common pleasures we are +enjoying and preparing to sacrifice them for the common good. (Fear +and hope and sacrifice and the common good all lie on the periphery of +religious feeling; and point toward the center.) But I doubt whether +the American people would accept "a great wave of religious feeling" +which would be artificially induced to persuade us that all our past +was a mistake and that our childish pleasure in good things was as +vain as our hope for better.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>The Alger Factor</i></p> + +<p>The end result of all the separate elements, the land, the people, the +departure from Europe, the struggle for wealth, the fight against +wealth, was to make us a people of unbounding optimism, which was our +Horatio Alger substitute for religious faith. The cool realistic +appraisal of man's fate which an average Frenchman makes, the trust of +the Englishman that he will "muddle through", the ancient indifference +of the Russian peasant, the resignation of the Orient, are matched in +America by an intense and confident appeal to <i>action</i>, in the faith +that action will bring far better things than have been known. The +vulgar side of this is bustle and activity for its own sake and a +childish confusion between what is better and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>what is merely bigger +or newer or more expensive or cheaper; we have to accept all this +because on the other side our faith in action has broken the vise of +poverty in which man has been held since the beginning of modern +history; it has destroyed tyranny and set free the bodies and the +minds of the hundred millions who have lived in a new world. We have +rejected some of the most desirable and beautiful creations of other +peoples, the arts of Europe, the Asiatic life of contemplation, the +wisdom of philosophers, the exaltation of saints—but we have also +rejected the slavery on which these rest or the negation of life to +which they tend.</p> + +<p>The "materialism" of America is not as terrible as it looks; and it +must be respected by those who want us to make sacrifices. What +aristocratic Europeans call gross in us is a hundred million hands +reaching for the very things the aristocrats held dear. In the +scuffle, some harm is done; the first pictures reproduced on magazine +covers were not equal to the Mona Lisa; within fifty years the Mona +Lisa could be reproduced in a magazine for ten million readers, but +the aristocrats still complained of vulgarizing. The first music +popularized by records or radio was popular in itself; within fifty +years records and radio will have multiplied the audience for the +greatest music, popular or sublime, ten thousand fold; it is possible +that on one Saturday or Sunday afternoon music, good even by pedantic +standards, is heard by more people than used to hear it in an entire +year. And both of these instances have another special point of +interest: each is creating new works on its own terms, so that +pictures, very good ones, are painted for multiple reproduction and +music, as good as any other, is specially composed for radio.</p> + +<p>I shall return to the special field of creative work presently. On a +"lower" level, note that some (not all) Europeans and all American +expatriates condemn our preoccupation with plumbing. We multiply by +twenty million the number of individuals who can take baths agreeably, +without servants <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>hauling inadequate buckets of hot water up three +flights of stairs; and are materialistic; but the aristocrat who goes +to an hotel with "modern comfort" is spiritual because he doesn't +think constantly of plumbing. The truth is that the few can buy +themselves out of worry, letting their servants "live for them"; and +it is equally true that the only way, short of sainthood, to forget +about the material comforts of life is to have them always at hand.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>The Morals of Plenty</i></p> + +<p>We have never formulated the morals of prosperity, nor understood that +nearly all the practical morality we know (apart from religion) is +based on scarcity; it is intended to make man content with less than +his share, it even carries into the field of action and praises those +who do not try too hard to gain wealth. This was not good morality for +a pioneering country, so Poor Richard preached the gospel of industry +and thrift, which is not the gospel of resignation to fate. (Industry +clears the wilderness, thrift finances the growth of a nation; +Franklin was economically right for his time; in 1920 we were +preaching leisure and installment buying, the exact opposite; but we +never accepted the reverse morality of working for low wages and +living on less than we needed.) The morals of plenty, by which we are +usually guided, have created in our minds a few fixed ideas about what +is good: it is good to work and to get good wages, so as to have money +beyond our instant needs; it is bad to be ill and to be inefficient +and to disrupt production by demanding high wages. (Like most +moralities, this one has several faces; like most American products it +adapts itself to a variety of needs.) In a broader field our morality +denies that anything is too good for the average man (if it can be +made by mass production). Mass production put an end to the old +complaint that the poor would only put coal into the bathtub—mass +production of tubs and central heating in apartments. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>morality of +scarcity reserves all that is good for the few, who must therefore be +considered "the best", the "elite" (which means, in effect, the +chosen), the "civilized minority". Democracy began by declaring men +born equal and proceeded in a hundred and seventy years to create +equality because it needed every man as a customer. Incomplete this +was, perhaps only two-thirds of the way; it was nonetheless the +practical application of the Declaration, by way of the system of mass +production; it was a working morality.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Merchant Prince to 5-and-Dime</i></p> + +<p>We came a long way from nabob-morality, based on a splendor of +spending; money is not our criterion of excellence, but the reverse; +cheapness is the democratic equivalent of quality, and the +five-and-ten cent store is the typical institution of our immediate +time. We may deplore the vanishing craftsman and long for the time +when the American will make clay pots and plaited hats as skillfully +as the Guatemalan; but our immediate job is to understand that the +process which killed the individual craftsman is also the process that +substituted the <i>goods</i> of the many for the good of the few.</p> + +<p>The five-and-ten had its parallels in Europe before the war, but it +remains a distinguishing mark of America, and whoever wants to enlist +us or persuade us has to touch that side of our life. It is as near to +a universal as we possess; I have known people who have never listened +to the radio (until 1939) and never went to the movies, but I have +never known anyone who did not with great pleasure go to the +five-and-ten. It is a combination of good value and attractive +presentation; it is shrewdly managed and pleasantly staffed. One finds +cheap substitutes, but one also finds new commodities made for the +five-and-ten trade. The chain five-and-ten is, moreover, big business.</p> + +<p>In all these things the five-and-ten is a great American phenomenon; +characteristic of the twentieth century as the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>crossroads general +store was of the nineteenth. The hominess of the country store is gone +and is a loss; but the gain in other directions is impressive. It is +impressive, too, that a store should be so typical of American methods +and enterprise and satisfactions. Small commerce is not universally +held in esteem. When one remembers the fussiness of the average French +bazaar and the ancient prejudice against trade in England, the +five-and-ten as a key to our intentions becomes even more effective.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Prosperity and Politics</i></p> + +<p>Our persistent intention is to make good the Declaration of +Independence; often minor purposes get in the way, or we are in +conflict with ourselves. We attempted equal opportunity (with free +land) and at the same time contract labor in the mines; we fought to +emancipate the Negro and we created an abominable factory system in +the same decades; at times we slackened our check on abuses, because +in spite of them we flourished; all too often we let the job of +watching over our liberties fall into the hands of newcomers; +sometimes we were so engrossed in the fact, the necessary work, that +we forgot what the work was for; a ruling group forgot, or a political +party, or a generation—but America did not forget. Each time we +forgot, it seemed that the lapse was longer and it took more tragic +means to recall us to the straight line of our purpose; but each time +we proved that we could bear neglect and forgetfulness and would come +back to create a free America. There was reason always for the years +when we marked time; our prosperity increased so that the +redistribution of wealth was harder to do, but was more worth doing; +and even the black backward era of normalcy served us with proof that +America could create the materials for a high standard of life, +although we could not put them into the proper hands. We justified +supremely Stalin's compliment to capitalism: "it made Society +wealthy"; and we did <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>it so handsomely as to leave questionable his +further statement that Socialism will displace capitalism "because it +can furnish Society with more products and make Society wealthier than +the capitalist system can."</p> + +<p>We planned and eventually produced the machinery for making our lives +comfortable; our industrial methods interacted with our land and +immigration policy, from the day Eli Whitney put the quantity system +into action; and all of them required the same thing—equality of +political rights, indifference to social status, a high level of +education, the maximum of civil freedom. Our factories wanted free +speech for us as certainly as our philosophers did; a free people, +aware of novelties, critical of the present, anticipating the future, +capable of earning and not afraid to spend—these are the customers +required by mass production. And the same freedom, the same intention +to be sceptical of authority, the same eagerness to risk all in the +future, are the marks of a free man. Our economic system with all its +iniquities and stupid faults, worked around in the end to liberate men +from poverty and to uphold them in their freedom. The fact that +individual producers were afraid of Debs in 1890 and whimpered for +Mussolini in 1931 is a pleasing irony; for these reactionaries in +politics were often radicals in production; they had contributed to +our freedom by their labors and our freedom was the condition of their +prosperity. Only free people fulfill their wants, and it is not merely +a coincidence that the freest of all peoples should be also the freest +spenders.</p> + +<p>The consequences of the Declaration are now beginning to be +understood. The way we took the land and left it, or held it until it +failed us; the way we brought men of all nations here and let them +move, as we moved, over the face of a continent; our absorption in our +own capacities and our persistent endeavor to create national +well-being for every man; our parallel indifference to our fellowmen, +our State, and our God; our wealth and our endless optimism and our +fulfilment <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>of Democracy by technology are some of the basic elements +in our lives. Whoever neglects them, and their meaning, in practical +life, will not ever have us wholeheartedly on his side; whoever starts +with these, among other, clues to discover what America is, will at +least be on the right way. All we have to do in the war will rise out +of all we have done in our whole history; our past is in the air we +breathe, it runs in our veins, it is what we are.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CHAPTER X<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h2>Popularity and Politics</h2> +<br /> + +<p>There are some consequences of our history so conspicuous and so +significant that they deserve to be separated from the rest and +examined briefly by themselves.</p> + +<p>In the United States every week 34 million families listen on an +average four hours a day to the radio; 90 million individual movie +admissions are bought; 16 million men and women go bowling at least +once, probably oftener; thousands of couples dance in roadhouses, +juke-joints, and dance halls; in winter 12 million hunting licenses +are issued; millions of copies of the leading illustrated magazines +are sold; and, in normal times, some ten or fifteen million families +take their cars and go driving.</p> + +<p>These are not mass enterprises; they are popular enterprises; there +are others: mass-attendance at sport, or smaller, but steady, +attendance at conventions, lodge meetings and lectures. For the most +part, all these can be divided into sport, games, fun; the search for +information in entertainment; and entertainment by mass-communication.</p> + +<p>Sport is pleasant to think about; after all the scoldings we have had +because we like to watch athletic events (just as the ancient Greeks +did), it is gratifying to report the great number of people who are +actually making their own fun. The same ignoble but useful desire for +money which has so often served us has now built bowling alleys, dance +halls and tennis courts, so that we are doing more sports ourselves. +Sport began to come into its own after Populism and Theodore +Roosevelt's Square Deal; it is therefore not anti-social and even +withstood the prosperity of Harding and Coolidge.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Means of Communication</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span></p> + +<p>The other elements I have mentioned, movies, radio and a new +journalism, are the products of our immediate time. Although the +moving picture was exhibited earlier, it began to be vastly popular +just before the first World War, and was promptly recognized as a +prime instrument of propaganda by Lenin as he began to build the +Socialist State in 1917; the moving picture may have been colossal +then, but it did not become prodigious, a social engine of +incalculable force, until the problems of speech had been mastered.</p> + +<p>By that time another pre-war invention, the radio, had established +itself in its present commercial base. Radio was first conceived as an +instrument of secret communication; it began to be useful, as wireless +telegraphy, when the Soviets used it to appeal to peoples over the +heads of their governments—although this appeal still had to be +printed, the radio receiver did not exist. When the necessary +inventions were working (and the tinkering American forced the issue +by building his own receivers and his own ham-senders), radio began to +serve the public. Among its earliest transmissions were a sermon, the +election results in the Harding-Cox campaign, crop reports, and music. +The entrance of commerce was easy and natural; and before the crash of +1929 the decisive step was taken: the stations went out of the +business of creating programs and sold "time", allowing the buyer to +fill it with music or comedy or anything not offensive to the morals +of the community.</p> + +<p>By the time commercial radio made its first spectacular successes, in +the early days of Vallee and Amos and Andy, a new form of publication +had established itself, a fresh combination of text and picture, +devoted to fact and deriving more entertainment from fact than the old +straight fiction magazine had offered.</p> + +<p>These three new means of mass communication are <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>revolutionary +inventions of democracy. To use them is the first obligation of +statesmanship. They have been seized by dictators; literally, for the +first move of a <i>coup d'etat</i> is to take over the radio and the next +is to divert the movies into propaganda.</p> + +<p>Before these instruments can be used, their nature has to be +understood and their meaning to the average man has to be calculated.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Words and Pictures</i></p> + +<p>Of the fact and picture publications <i>Life</i> and <i>Look</i> are the best +examples; <i>Time</i> and <i>News-Week</i> are fact and illustration magazines +which is basically different, although their success is also +important. The appetite for fact appears in a nation supposed to be +adolescent and given over to the silliest of romantic fictions; <i>Time</i> +and the <i>Readers' Digest</i> become the great magazine phenomena of our +time, growing in seriousness as they understand better the temper of +their readers, learning to present fact forcefully, directing +themselves to maturity, and helping to create mature minds. Their +faults are private trifles, their basic editorial policies are public +services.</p> + +<p>The word and picture magazine is not yet completely realized; both its +chief examples grow and develop, but the full integration of word and +image is yet to come. It is probably the most significant development +in communication since the depression struck; it promises to rescue +the printed page from the obscurity into which radio, the movies, and +conservatism in format were pushing books and magazines and +newspapers. It is odd that book publication, the oldest use of +quantity production, should have so long been content with relatively +small circulations. Changes now are apparent. The most interesting +developments in recent years are mail-order selling (the basis of the +book clubs) and mass selling over the counter, the method of the +Pocketbook series. Both withdraw book-sales from the stuffiness of old +methods and the artiness <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>of book "shoppes" which always got in the +way of good book-sellers.</p> + +<p>The text-and-image publication need not be a magazine; the method is +especially applicable to argument, to the pamphlet and the report. The +art of visualization has progressed in the making of charts and +isotypes and in the pure intellectual grasp of the function of the +visual. The economic and technical problems of the use of color have +been solved and all the effectiveness of images has been multiplied by +the contrast and clarity which color provides. A new language is in +process of being formed.</p> + +<p>Until television-in-color, which exists, becomes common, the need for +this new language is great. For neither the movies nor radio can be +used for reasoned persuasion; their attack is too immediate, the +listener-spectator does not have time for argument and contemplation. +Radio profits positively by its limitation to sound when it works with +the right materials; but when President Roosevelt asked his audience +to have a map at hand, television supplied the map and the meaning of +the map without diverting attention from the speech, which radio could +not do. The movies, great pioneer in text and sound, have mastered +none of the arts of demonstration or persuasion; they have the +immediate gain of a single method and a single objective: appeal to +the emotions by absorption in the visual; and the fact that the moving +picture's appeal is to a group, means that every element must be +over-simplified and every effect is over-multiplied by the group +presence. By this the movies also gain when they use the right +materials.</p> + +<p>The use of the new combination of text and image, growing out of the +tabloid and the picture magazine, is, in effect, the creation of a +mobile reserve of propaganda. When the radio and the movies have +established the facts and aroused the desired emotion, the final +battery of argument comes in picture and print; and this, ideally, is +carried to the ward <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>meeting, to the after-supper visit, the drugstore +soda counter and the lunch hour at the factory—where the action is +determined by men and women in private discussion.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Universal Languages</i></p> + +<p>Radio, which instantly creates the desired situation, and movies, +which so plausibly arouse the desired emotion, are the two great mass +inventions of America. The patents may have been taken out elsewhere, +but it was in America that these two forms of mass communication were +instantly placed at the service of all people. The errors of judgment +have been gross, but the error of purpose was not made; the movies +were kept out of the hands of the aesthete and radio was kept out of +the hands of the bureaucrat. For a generation we deplored the +vulgarity of movies made for morons' money at the box office, and +discovered that the only other effective movies were made by +dictators, to falsify history, as the Russians did when the miserable +Trotsky was cinematically liquidated, or to stir hate as did every +film made by Hitler. For a generation we wept over the commercialism +of radio and at the end found that commercial radio had created an +audience for statesmen and philosophers; and again the alternative was +the hammering of dictators' propaganda, to which one listened under +compulsion.</p> + +<p>The intermediate occasions, the exceptions, are not significant. Some +great inventions in the realm of ideas were made by British radio +(which is government owned, but not government operated); some +exceptional and important films were made for the few. But the +dictators and the businessmen both had the right idea—movies and the +radio are for all men; they can be used to entertain, to arouse, to +soothe, to persuade; but they must not ever be used without thinking +of <i>all</i> the people. This universality lies in the nature of the +instruments, in the endless duplication of the films, the unlimited +reception of the broadcasts; and only Hitler and Stalin and the +sponsors have been happy to understand this.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>Like all those who are habituated to the movies, I have suffered much +from Hollywood, my pain being all the greater because I am so devoted; +like all those who work in radio, I am acutely conscious of its +faults; but the faults and the banalities are not in question now. Now +we have to take instruments perfected by others, and use them for our +purposes. We have to discover what the ignoramus in Hollywood and the +businessman in the sponsor's booth have paid for.</p> + +<p>The one thing we cannot do is risk the value of the medium. We have to +learn how to use popularity; we have to learn why the movies never +could carry advertising, and adjust our propaganda accordingly; and +why radio can not quickly teach, but can create a receptive situation; +and why we may have to use rhetoric instead of demonstrations to +accomplish an end. Moreover, we have to study the field so that we +know when <i>not</i> to use these instruments, what we must not take from +them, in order to preserve their incomparable appeal.</p> + +<p>A coordinated use of <i>all</i> the means of persuasion is required; to let +the movie makers make movies is good, but the exact function of the +movies in the complete effort has to be established, or we will waste +time and do badly on the screen what can be done well only in print or +most effectively on the air. There are many things to be done; we need +excitement and prophecy and cold reason, and they must not come +haphazard, but in an order of combined effect; we need news and +history and fable and diversion, and each must minister to the other. +If we fail to use the instruments correctly they can destroy us; one +ill-timed, but brilliantly made, documentary on production rendered +futile whole weeks of facts about a lagging program; and one +ill-advised news reel shot can undo a dozen radio hours. When the +means of communication and entertainment become engines of victory, we +have to use each medium only at its highest effectiveness; and we have +to use all of them together.</p> + +<p>The movies, the radio, the popular publication are so new, they seem +to rise on the international horizon of the 1920's, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>to have no link +with our past, to be the same with us as they are all over the world. +With these, it is true, we return to the universals of human +expression and communication. But what we have done with them is +unique, and their significance as part of our war machinery is based +on both the universal and the special qualities they possess. That is +why I have treated them separately; because they are powerful and have +enormous inertia, the slightest error may accumulate tremendous +consequences, and the instinctively right use of them will be the most +complete protection against disaster at home.</p> + +<p>We have to study the right use because these tools have never yet been +completely used for the purposes of democracy; and with them we have +to remind the American people of other tools and instruments they have +neglected, so many that it sometimes seems a passion with us to invent +the best instruments and to hand them over to our enemies to use +against us.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CHAPTER XI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h2>The Tools of Democracy</h2> +<br /> + +<p>The tools of democracy are certain civil actions, certain inventions, +certain habits. They can be used against us—but only if we fail to +use them ourselves.</p> + +<p>The greatest tools are civil liberties which we have been considering +as "rights" or "privileges". The right to free speech is a great one; +free speech probably was originally intended to protect property; it +preserves liberty; the rights of assembly, of protest for redress, of +a free press all have this double value, that they guarantee the +integrity of the private man and protect the State.</p> + +<p>The great debate on the war brought back some long forgotten +phenomena: broadsides, street meetings, marches, and brawls. Before +they began, virtually <i>all</i> the civil rights were being used either by +newcomers to America or by enemies of the American system. The poor +had no access to the radio; they used a soap box instead and genteel +people shrank away; the Bundist and the American Communist assembled +and protested and published and spoke; the believers in America waited +for an election to roll around again, and then did nothing about it. +The enemies of the people sent a hundred thousand telegrams to +Congressmen, signing the names of dead men to kill the regulation of +utilities, but the believer in the democratic process didn't remember +the name of his Congressman. Bewildered aliens got their second papers +and were inducted into political clubs; the old line Americans never +found out how the primaries worked.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Public Addresses</i></p> + +<p>A dangerous condition rose. No families from Beacon Street spoke in +Boston Common; therefore, whoever spoke on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>the Common was an enemy of +Beacon Street; all over America the well-born (and the well-heeled) +retired from direct communication with the people, and all over +America the privilege of talking to the citizens fell into the hands +of radicals, lunatics, and dangerous enemies of the Republic—so that +in time the very fact that one tried to exercise the right of free +speech became suspect; and Beacon Street and Park Avenue could think +of no way to protect themselves from Boston Common and Union +Square—except to abolish free speech entirely. They did not dare to +say it, but the remarkable Frank Hague, Mayor of Jersey City, said it +for them: "Whenever I hear anyone talk about civil liberties, I know +he's not a good American".</p> + +<p>The dreadful humiliation was that it came so close to the truth. The +Red and the Bundist, clamoring or conspiring against America, were +almost the only ones doing what all Americans had the right to do. We +hated cranks, we did not want to be so conspicuous, we hadn't the +time, the police would attend to it, if they didn't like it here let +them go back ... we allowed our most precious rights to atrophy. When +suddenly they were remembered, as they were by the bonus marchers of +1932, we yelled revolution and the President of the United States +called out the troops to shoot down the defenders of our country. It +was the first time that a petition for redress had been offered by +good citizens, by veterans, by men of notable American stock—and it +frightened us because they were doing what "only foreigners" or +"dangerous agitators" used to do; they were in fact being Americans in +action.</p> + +<p>What is not used, dies. The habit of protecting our freedom was dying +in the United States. There was no conspiracy of power against us; +there was no need. We were carrying experimental democracy forward so +far on several planes—the material and social planes particularly—that +we let it go by default on the vital plane of practical politics. We +did not go into politics, we did not electioneer, we did not threaten +ward <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>bosses or county chairmen, we did not form third parties, we did +nothing except vote, if it was a fair day (but not too fair if we meant +to play golf). As for private action to defend our liberties, it was +unnecessary and vulgar and bothersome.</p> + +<p>The depression scared us, but not into free speech; by that time free +speech was Red; and the deeper we floundered in the mire of defeatism, +the more intimidated we were by shouting Congressmen and +super-patriots; it was only after the New Deal pulled us out of our +tailspin that we saw the light: we too could have been obscure men +speaking at street corners, we did not have to give all the soap boxes +to men like Sacco and Vanzetti; we too could have published pamphlets +like the dreadful Communists, and held meetings and badgered our +Congressmen. Suddenly the people were reincorporated into their +government; suddenly the people began to be concerned with government; +and the tremendous revitalization of political anger was one of the +best symptoms of democratic recovery in our generation.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Return to Politics</i></p> + +<p>The merciless pressure of taxation and then the grip of war have +pushed us forward and in a generation we will be again as politically +aware as our great-grandfathers were when they had one newspaper a +week, and only their determination to rule themselves as a principle +of action. Perhaps we shall take the trouble they took; they travelled +a day's journey to hear a debate and discussed it for a fortnight; +they thought about politics and studied the meaning of events. And +they quite naturally did their duties as citizens; they dug their +neighbors out of snow-blocked roads, they nominated their candidates, +they watched and rebuked their representatives. It was not a political +Utopia, but it was a more intelligent use of political power than ours +has been. The usual excuse for the breakdown of political action in +America is that so many "foreigners" came, to whom the politics of +freedom were alien. This may have been true of some of the later +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>arrivals; but the Irish were captivated by, and presently captured, +city politics wherever they settled; the Germans were the steadiest of +citizens and so were the Scandinavians, their studious earnest belief +in our institutions shaming our flippant disregard. The Southern +Slavs, the Russian Jews and the Italians were farthest removed from +our political habits; but their passion for America was great. It +could have been worked into political action, and often was worked +into political skulduggery by bosses of a more political bent. Many of +these immigrants came after the exhaustion of free lands; many were +plunged into slums and sweatshops and steel mills on a twelve hour +day; and they emerged on the angry side, as disillusioned with America +as some of its most ancient families.</p> + +<p>That political action dwindled after the great immigrations is true; +but it was not the immigrant who refused to act; it was the old family +and the typical American; the grafting politicians and the sidewalk +radical both kept politics alive; the real Americans were slowly +smothering politics. We shall never quite repay our debt to Tammany +Hall and the Communists; between them political machines and saintly +radicals managed to keep the instruments of democratic action from +rusting. Now we have to take them back and learn how to use them +again. Fortunately we have no choice. We neglected our rights because +we wanted to sidestep our duties; today the war makes our duties +inescapable and we are already beginning to use our rights. For in +spite of censorship and regimentation, we will use more of our +instruments of democracy than ever; we will because we are fighting +for them and they have become valuable to us.</p> + +<p>The radio, the movies, and popular print are the three tools by which +we can create democratic action. The action itself will be appropriate +to our time and our conditions; we will not travel ten miles to hear a +debate, so long as the radio lasts; but we will have to form units of +self-protection in bombed cities; we may need other associations, to +apportion <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>food, to house the homeless, to support the bereaved. We +will have to learn how to live together, to share what was once as +private as a motor car, to elect a village constable who may have our +lives in his hands a dozen times a day. In the process we will be +reverting to old and good democratic habits—in a city block in +Atlanta or in a prairie village outside Emporia, or in a chic suburb +along Lake Michigan. Something like the town-meeting is taking place +in a thousand apartment houses where air-raid precautions and the +disposal of waste paper are discussed and mothers who have to work +trade time with wives who want to go to the movies; the farmers have, +since 1932, been meeting; the suburbanites are discussing trains and +creation of bus-routes. We are making the discovery that it is our +country and we can decide its destiny. We are not to let others rule +us; for in this emergency every man must rule himself; the man who +neglects his political duty is as dangerous today as the man who +leaves his lights on in a blackout.</p> + +<p>In the early months of the war our democratic processes were +muscle-bound. We hadn't been doing things together; whenever we had +organized, it was against some one else; we didn't fall naturally into +a simple cooperative effort. And within two months we were breaking +into hostile particles, until, in desperation, we discovered that men +can work together. The obstructionist manufacturer and the stubborn +labor leader could hold up an entire industry; but two men, one from +each side, could set each factory going again. The creation of the +labor-management committees of two was the first light in the darkness +of our domestic policy.</p> + +<p>Still to come was the spontaneous outbreak of fervor and the cold +organization for victory. We had forgotten the tools of democracy +which we had to work together, as simply as men had to work on a +snowbound country road together. In a small town of Ohio a pleasant +event occurred which had a stir of promise; Dorothy Thompson's report +was:</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>"They got together in the old-fashioned American way: in the old opera +house. They warmed and instilled enthusiasm and resolution into one +another, by the mass of their presence, and by music, and prayer.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Sweet had put the F.F.A. (The Future Farmers of America and the +older brothers of the Four-H clubs) to work, and they had made a +survey of the existing resources of the community, in trucks, autos, +combines, tractors. And he proposed to them that they use these +resources, <i>as a community</i>, getting the greatest work out of them +with the greatest conservation of them; organizing transportation to +the factory where war production was going on, so that no auto +travelled for its owner alone, but for as many workers as it could +carry."</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Democratic Action</i></p> + +<p>There is a field of endeavor in war time where this sort of +spontaneous, amateur organization is best; and our Government will be +wise if it prevents the inexpert from building bombers but lets them, +as far as possible, get children to and from school by local effort. +We want to feel that we are being used, that our powers are working +for the common good. So far we have been irritated by sudden demands, +and frightened by long indifference to our offers—until an angry man +has done something, as Mr. Fred Sweet did in Mt. Gilead. A government +determined to win this war will create the opportunities for +democratic action without waiting for angry men. The combination of +maximum control (the single head of production) and maximum dispersion +(two men in each factory solving the local problem) is exactly what we +understand; to translate civilian emotion into terms of maximum use is +the next step.</p> + +<p>Already this is happening to us: on one side we are grouping ourselves +into smaller units; on the other we are discovering that we are parts +of the whole nation. It is a tremendous release of energies for us; we +are discovering what <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>we had hoped—that America is of indescribable +significance to us and that we for the first time signify in +America—we, not bosses or financiers or critics or cliques or groups +or movements—but we ourselves. Something almost dead stirs again and +we know that we shall be able to work with our fellowmen, and work +with our Government, and watch those we chose to speak for us, and +challenge corruption, and see to it that we, who are the people, are +not betrayed. We may not revive the <i>forms</i> of democracy as they +existed in Lincoln's time, but we will never again let the <i>spirit</i> of +his democracy come so near to being beyond all revival.</p> + +<p>We will use the weapons we have and invent new ones; and we had better +be prompt. Because we have a victory to win with these weapons and a +world to make. We have to work Democracy because we have to create a +world in which democracy can live. There is no time to lose.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CHAPTER XII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h2>Democratic Control</h2> +<br /> + +<p>The shape of this war was created in dark back rooms of cheap saloons, +in a lodging house in Geneva, in several prison cells, in small half +secret meetings, up back flights of stairs, behind drawn shades, in +boarding houses over the dining table, in the lobbies of movie-houses, +at lectures attended by the idle and the curious and the hopeless, in +the kitchen of a New York restaurant where waiters talked more about +the future than about tips; it was molded also in British pubs and by +the sullen lives of dole-gatherers; it took a definable shape and +could have been re-formed but was not, so that its shape today is the +result of the pressure of those who willed to act and the missing +pressure of groups which failed to meet and talk and plan.</p> + +<p>The earth-shaking events of our time may have been created by the +great and mysterious forces of history, but their exact form was fixed +by obscure people: the Russian Revolution by Lenin and Trotsky, +students, impractical men, and the homeless Stalin; and the war by +Hitler, the house painter, the despised little man, the corporal who +couldn't get over his military dreams. These were the leaders, the +conspicuous ones. They planned—and wrote—and gathered a few even +more obscure followers, and talked and lived in utter darkness until +the time came for them to fight.</p> + +<p>For a thousand years the destiny of mankind will be shaped by what +these men did in countries barely emerging into freedom—and we to +whom the gods have given all freedom, sit by and hesitate even to talk +about the future, folding our hands and piously saying that in any +case it will be decided for us. That is the result of forgetting our +democratic rights <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>and duties; with them we have forgotten that the +future is ours to make.</p> + +<p>It will not be made for us; it will not be made in our favor unless we +make it for ourselves; the weapons with which we fight the war will be +strong and terrible when we come to create the peace. And we will +create it either by using the weapons or by dropping them and running +away from our triumph, which is also our responsibility.</p> + +<p>We will not escape the responsibility by saying that we cannot control +"the great forces", the "wave" of events. We can do what Hitler and +Lenin did, when they were starving and fanatic and obscure: we can +work and wait and work again. We must not say that we are helpless in +the face of international intrigue. We—not Churchill and +Roosevelt—wrote the Atlantic Charter, and we can un-write it and +write it over again; we the people, not Henry Cabot Lodge, crushed the +League of Nations by our indifference; we, not Congressmen bribed by +scrap-iron dealers, armed Japan by our greed, and we, all of us, let +Hitler go ahead by our ignorance. We have done all these things +without working; and the only thing we have not tried, is to put out +our hands and take hold of our destiny. In the first dreadful crisis +of our war, we saw China begin to plan the world after the war, +preparing a democratic center of 800 million people in Asia, putting +pressure on Britain to proclaim liberty for India, taking hold of the +future with faith and confidence—while we said not one open word to +Asia, and had barely spoken to our nearest friends, the oppressed of +Europe, to tell them that our purpose was liberty.</p> + +<p>We cannot let the shape of the future be molded by other hands. The +price of living as we want to live is more than sweat and blood and +tears: we have to make the grim effort of thinking and take the risk +of making decisions. A painful truth comes home to us: we are no +longer the spoiled children of Destiny—our destiny is our action.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Record of Isolation</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span></p> + +<p>For more than a hundred years the people of the United States did not +have to act and avoided the consequences of Democracy in international +affairs. Officially we had nothing to do with Europe, except on +special occasions when we snapped at Britain, frightened the Barbary +pirates, helped Napoleon I, drove Napoleon III out of Mexico. We had +no continuing policy and the details of foreign affairs were not +submitted to the voter. This was natural enough; the eyes of America +turned away from the Atlantic seaboard toward the Mississippi Valley; +turned back from the Pacific to Chicago and the east; turned again to +Detroit and Birmingham and Kansas City.</p> + +<p>We have not yet got the habit of thinking steadily about other +nations. Our post-war suspicion of the League, our terror of the USSR, +our pious agreements with England and Japan, our weak dislike of +Mussolini and Hitler, still left us unconcerned with <i>policy</i>. We +remained in the diplomatic era of William Jennings Bryan while Europe +marched back into the era of Metternich or Talleyrand.</p> + +<p>Yet the voters have, since 1893, determined some aspects of our +foreign policy. They did not vote on a loan to China, but they did +keep in power the party that made war in Spain, bought the +Philippines, protected Cuba, and policed Central America. This +tentative imperialism was never the supreme issue of a campaign; the +Republican Party had always a better one, which was prosperity. In the +early twentieth century, the American voter only accepted, he did not +directly approve, the beginnings of a new international outlook.</p> + +<p>Our tradition is obviously not going to help us here; but there is +another—the tradition of democratic control. It has not begun to +operate in foreign affairs; before it can operate, we will have to +clear our minds of some romantic illusions.</p> + +<p>Our future lies balanced between Europe and Asia; the disagreeable +certainty, like a chill in our bones now, is that we <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>cannot escape +the world. We still think of participation in world affairs negatively +as a favor we may, if we choose, bestow on less favored nations, or as +a mere necessity to keep the plagues of war and tyranny quarantined +from our shores. The prospect is disagreeable because we, the people, +have no experience of international affairs; we have not yet made over +diplomacy as we have made over domestic politics. We have begun to +send newspapermen into foreign lands and to trust them more than we +trust our ambassadors—because the journalists have begun to +democratize diplomacy. They have told us more, they have often +represented us more completely, and represented international business +less; they have been curious, indiscreet, and generally unaffected by +the snobbery which used to ruin our ministers to smart European +capitals. The correspondents have taken the characteristic American +democratic way of altering an ancient European institution, by +shrewdly publicised disrespect. Whenever we have had a strong +Secretary of State, something further has been done; but the permanent +officials of our State Department have completely accepted the +European style of international dealings; they have been so aware, and +ashamed, of being born on the wrong side of the Atlantic sheets, that +all the brash independence of America has been hushed; our leading +career diplomats have never been Americanized by the middle west; they +came from an almost alien institution, the private school; they +represented smart cosmopolitanism disproportionately; they represented +the East, banking, leisure, intellectualism; they did not represent +America.</p> + +<p>On occasions, political chance brought a son of the wild jackass into +the State Department, or gave him an embassy; and the pained +professionals had to resort to the language of diplomacy for the +<i>gaffes</i> and <i>gaucheries</i> of American diplomacy. These awkward +Americans were slipping all over the polished floors of the +chancelleries of Europe; but they were not falling into the hands of +the European diplomats.</p> + +<p>Neither the fumbles of our occasional ignorant envoys nor <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>the correct +discretion of the career men gave us any habit of thinking about other +countries. On the west coast there is a tradition of wariness about +the Orient—but it rises from immigration, not international +relations. We have no habit of hatred as the French had for Germany, +no cultivated friendships except for the occasional visit of a prince. +We are not susceptible to European flattery if we live beyond the +Atlantic seaboard—or below the $50,000 income level; for crowds, a +Hollywood star is at least as magnetic as a Balkan Queen; and it is +not conceivable that we should ever treat the coming of a Russian +ballet as a part of a political campaign, as the French, quite +correctly, did in 1913.</p> + +<p>We are now paying for our quiet unfortified borders, for the broad +seas so suddenly narrowed. We have to learn about foreign affairs, +about our own Empire (we hardly know that we have one). And this is +the hardest thing of all: that while we move in ignorance, <i>we have to +re-work all the basic concepts of international affairs</i>, or they will +destroy us. We will have some support in the people of Great Britain, +in the governments of Scandinavia, and in the diplomatic habits of the +USSR; but for the most part we must make our way alone.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Debunking Protocol</i></p> + +<p>Again, as in the case of military strategy, the average man must study +the subject to protect himself. He can no longer risk his life, and +the fortunes of his family, in the hands of a few career men in the +State Department, working secretly, studying protocol, forgetting the +people of the United States.</p> + +<p>The amateur statesman is as laughable as the amateur strategist, but +the laugh is not always going to be on us. We will popularize +diplomacy or it will destroy us. We have first of all to destroy the +myth of "high politics". We have to examine Macchiavelli and +Talleyrand and Bismarck and Disraeli with as much realism as we +examine Benedict Arnold and James J. Hill and Edison and Kruger. We +need <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>journalist-debunkers to do the work, a parallel, by the way, to +the process of simplifying military discussion, which is being done by +newspaper and radio experts. We have to learn that the great tricks, +the great arrangements of power, have been as shady as horse-trades, +as ruthless as robbery, and often as magnificent as building a +railroad—but in all cases they have represented the desires of +certain groups, powerful enough at any given time to impose their +wishes on the people. War, business, patriotism, medicine, sociology, +religion, and sex have all been re-examined and debunked in the past +two generations; but diplomacy which can destroy our satisfaction in +all of them, still parades as the perfect stuffed shirt, with a red +ribbon across it. At the moment no one can say whether Hitler has +blasted the Foreign Office and our State Department; if he has, it is +an achievement equal to taking Crete; and we ought to thank him for +it.</p> + +<p>We should learn that diplomacy has swapped national honor, and +betrayed it, and used it cynically for the advantage of a few—as well +as protected it. We should examine the assertion of "national destiny" +before the era of democracy, to see whether the private wealth of a +prince and the starvation of a people actually are predestined, +whether the mine-owners of France could have allowed German democracy +to live, whether Locarno satisfied national honor less than Munich.</p> + +<p>And, above all, we should know that this great "game" of European +statesmanship, going on from the Renaissance to our own time, is a +colossal and tragic failure. At times it has brought incalculable +wealth to a thousand English families, to a few hundred Frenchmen, and +power to some others. But it has always ended in the desolation of +war—and the suspicion holds that to make war advantageously has been +the aim of statesmanship, not to avoid it with honor.</p> + +<p>We have to rid ourselves of the intolerable flummery of the diplomats +because in the future foreign affairs are going to be connected by a +thousand wires to our domestic problems, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>and we propose to see who +pulls the wires. The old tradition of betraying a President at home +while supporting any stupidity abroad will have to be scrapped; and we +will be a more formidable nation, in external affairs, if we conduct +those affairs in our way, not in the way of our enemies.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>A "Various" Diplomacy</i></p> + +<p>It will not be enough to destroy the myth of high diplomacy and reduce +it to its basic combinations of chicanery and power-pressure, its +motives of pride and honor and greed. We have to take the positive +step of creating a new diplomacy, based on the needs of America, and +those needs have to be consciously understood by the American people. +Out of that, we may create a layman's foreign policy executed by +professional diplomats; just as we are on the way to create a layman's +labor policy, executed by professional statisticians, mediators and +agents. We have to recognize diplomacy as a polite war; and, as +suggested in connection with actual war, we must not fight in the +style or strategy of our enemies. We have always imitated in routine +statesmanship; and only in the past twenty years have we begun an +American style of diplomacy. The "strategy of variety" may serve us +here as on the battlefield; it may not. But the strategy of European +diplomacy is their weapon, and their strength; we are always defeated +when we attempt it, as Wilson was, as Stimson was over Manchuria. Our +only successes have been when we sidestepped diplomacy entirely and +talked to people.</p> + +<p>The first step toward creating our own, democratic, diplomacy will be +to convince the American people that they will not escape the +consequences of this war. Many of us believe that we actually escaped +the consequences of the first World War by rejecting the League of +Nations; a process of re-education is indicated, for background. This +education can begin with the future and move backward—for our +relation to post-war Europe can be diagrammed almost as accurately as +a fever chart. We withdrew from the League for peace <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>and found +ourselves in an alliance for war. It can hardly be called a successful +retreat. Actually we were in Europe, up to our financial necks, from +the moment the war ended to the day when the collapse of an Austrian +bank sent us spiralling to destruction in 1929; we stayed in it, +trying to recover the benefits of the Davis and Young plans by the +Hoover moratorium. We did everything with Europe except recognize its +first weak effort to federalize itself on our model.</p> + +<p>Decisive our part in this war will be, but if we withdraw as we did +the last time, leaving the nations of Europe to work out their own +destiny, we will, as a practical matter, destroy ourselves.</p> + +<p>The only other certainty we have is that the prosperity of the United +States is better served by peace in the world than by war. This is +true of all nations; the only difference for us is that the +dislocation may be a trace more severe, and that we have no tradition +of huge territorial repayments, or indemnities, by which a nation may +recoup the losses of war, while its people starve.</p> + +<p>Given that basis, we can observe Europe and Asia after the present +war.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Phases of the Future</i></p> + +<p>We ought at once to make a calendar. This war will probably not follow +the tradition of the last one; it may not gratify us with an exact +moment for an armistice; we may defeat our enemies piecemeal and miss +the headlines and tickertape and international broadcasts and cities +alight again and all the gaiety and solemn emotion of an end to war. +This war breaks patterns and sets new ones, so the first date on our +calendar is a doubtful one; but let us say that by a certain day we +will have smashed Germany and Japan; Italy would have betrayed them +long before.</p> + +<p>Our next step is the "peace conference" stage. Again this war may +disappoint us; we may have a long armistice and a reorganization of +the world's powers, without Versailles and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>premiers in secret +conferences; perhaps by that time the peoples of Europe and America +will have captured their diplomats. Still, let us say that an interim +between armistice and world-order will occur.</p> + +<p>The phases of the future grow longer as we progress. We will celebrate +the armistice for a day; the interim period may well be a year, +because in that time we are going to create the organization which +will bring us peace for a century—or for ever. This middle period is +the critical one; without much warning, we will be in it; the day +after we recover from celebrating the armistice, we will have to begin +thinking of the future of the world—and at the same time think about +demobilization and seeing whether the old car can still go (if we get +tires) and sending food to the liberated territories and smacking down +capital or labor as the case may be, and planning the next +election—by this time we will have forgotten that the desperate +crisis in human history has not passed, but has been transformed into +the longer crisis of planning and creating a new world—for which +there are even fewer good brains than there are for destroying the old +one.</p> + +<p>We can take cold comfort in this: if we do not work out a form of +world-cooperation acceptable to ourselves and the other principal +nations, we will bring on an event in Europe beside which the rise of +Hitler will seem trivial; it will be world revolution, the final act +of destruction which Hitler began. And whatever comes out of it, +fascist, communist, or chaos, will be no friend to us; twenty years +later we can celebrate the anniversary of a new armistice by observing +the start of another European war, which will spread more rapidly to +Asia and ourselves. Those of us who went through the first World War, +and are in good moral status because we have been under shell fire, +may be resigned to a third act in the 1960's; but the men who fight +this war may be as revolutionary in England and America as they turned +out to be last time in Russia or in Germany. They may want assurance, +the day after the war ends, that we have been <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>thinking about them and +the future of the world. They will give us the choice between world +organization and world revolution, and no amount of good intentions +will help us. We will have to choose and to act; fascism may be +destroyed, but an army returning to the turbulence of a disorganized +world will not lack leaders; we can have modified Communism or +super-fascism, all beautifully Americanized, if we have nothing +better, nothing positive to be achieved when the war ends. And by the +time it ends we may understand that disorganization at home or abroad +will mean starvation and plague and repression and death.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Seven New Worlds</i></p> + +<p>Forming now, openly or privately, are groups to put forth a number of +different alternatives to revolution and chaos. Some of these are +based on political necessity or the desire to punish the Axis; some +correspond to the necessities of a single nation, some are more +inclusive. They can be summarized so:</p> + +<p class="noin" style="margin-left: 5%">Re-isolating America;<br /> +Collaboration with Fascism;<br /> +Collaboration with Communism;<br /> +Anglo-American domination;<br /> +American imperialism;<br /> +Revival of the League of Nations;<br /> +A federal organization of the world.</p> + +<p>To some people in the United States, none of these seems possible, all +of them disastrous. If the confusion of propaganda continues, these +people will fall back on the principle of isolation; it is a fatal +backward step, but it is better than any of the seemingly fatal +forward steps; it is in keeping with part of our tradition; and if +Europe as always, with Asia now added, goes forward to another war, +the centre and core of America will say "we want out", and mean it. +But isolating America cannot be an immediate post-war policy; if we +plan <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>to withdraw, we virtually hand over the world to revolution and +hand ourselves into moral and financial bankruptcy. Isolation can only +be a constant threat to the world, that we will withdraw unless some +of our basic terms are met. We have to know our terms, or our threat +is meaningless.</p> + +<p>There is much to be said for isolation, or autarchy; I pass it over +quickly because I am not attempting to criticise each sketch of the +post-war world; only to note certain aspects of them all—notably +their relation to the America which I have described in earlier pages. +The next two programs are also easy to assay: they are at the opposite +extreme; they rise from no part of our basic tradition, and +collaboration with either fascism or communism would have to come +either by revolution after defeat or by long skillful propaganda which +would disguise the fact and make us think that we were converting the +world to our democracy.</p> + +<p>It is, nevertheless, childish to assume that the thing can't happen. +Given a good unscrupulous American dictator we could have made peace +with the Nazis, and the Japanese, by squeezing Britain out of the +Atlantic and Russia out of the Pacific; our gain would have been the +whole Western Hemisphere; this would have gratified both the +isolationists and the imperialists; it would have preserved peace and +the Monroe Doctrine; the only disqualification is that it would +destroy freedom throughout the world—which is the purpose of fascism. +This was possible; it may become possible again. Unless Britain shows +more intellectual strength in the final phases of the war than she did +in the earlier ones, the chance to scuttle her will appeal to any +anti-European American dictator; liquidate Hitler, make peace with the +anti-Hitlerian Nazis, especially the generals, send our appeasers as +ambassadors, and in five years we can re-invigorate a defeated Germany +and start world-fascism going again.</p> + +<p>The alternative is not so remote. It is a distinct and immediate +possibility.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Red America</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span></p> + +<p>A Socialist England after the war is promised, in effect, by everyone +except the rulers of the British Empire. Add a free China indebted to +Communist armies; add Russia victoriously on the side of democracy; +Red successor states will rise in Italy, Germany and the Balkans; and +our destiny would be the fourth or fifth international.</p> + +<p>If we say these things are fanciful, we convict ourselves of inability +to break out of our own mythology. Either collaboration is as likely as +complete isolation; neither would shock us if a good American led us +into it. Sir Stafford Cripps is certain that the USSR and the USA fight +for the same ideals; and collaboration with Hitler's enemies is our +standing policy today. So that a "revolution" in Germany would +automatically lead us into friendly relations with the revolutionaries; +they will be either fascist or communist, quite possibly they will be +Hitler's best friends. Actually we may approach either a fascist or a +Communist world order by easy steps, our little hand held by proud +propagandists guiding us on our way.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Parva Carta</i></p> + +<p>The dominant American relation to Europe, now, is expressed in the +Atlantic Charter which is not an alliance, not a step toward union, +but a statement of principles. However, the Charter has been used as a +springboard and been taken as an omen; so it must be examined and its +true bearings discovered. It has, for us, two essential points:</p> + +<p>One of these is the Anglo-American policing of the world; it is a curt +reminder that this war is not waged to end war; that future wars are +being taken for granted and preparations to win them will be made. The +Charter was, however, a pre-war instrument for us. Presently the +necessities of war may force us to go further and declare our +intention to prevent war entirely.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>The specific economic point in the Atlantic Charter promises "all +States, great and small, victor and vanquished ... access, on equal +terms, to the trade and the raw materials of the world which are +needed for their economic prosperity."</p> + +<p>This is a mixture of oil and the mercantile philosophy of a hundred +years ago. It has a moral value; it knocks on the head all theories of +"rights" in colonies; a nation subscribing to the Atlantic Charter and +attempting to isolate a source of bauxite or pitchblende, will have to +be hypocritical as well as powerful. "Access to", even on equal terms, +does not however imply "power to take and use". Lapland may have +access to Montana copper, unhindered by our law; and copper may be +deemed vital to Lapland's prosperity (by a commission of experts); but +Lapland will not get our copper unless we choose to let her have it.</p> + +<p>In effect, the maritime nations, England and America, have said that +if they can get to a port in the Dutch East Indies, they propose to +trade there, for oil or ivory or sea shells; and they have also said, +proudly, that Germany can trade there also, after Germany becomes +de-nazified.</p> + +<p>No realistic attempt to face the necessity of organized production and +distribution is even implied in this point. Instead, President +Roosevelt was able virtually to write into an international document a +statement of his ideals; as Woodrow Wilson wrote his League of Nations +into the Fourteen Points.</p> + +<p>Mr. Roosevelt's freedoms are specific; people (not "nations") are to be +free from want, from fear, from oppression. Freedom from want is the +actual new thing in the world; want—need—hard times—poverty—from +the beginning of European history these have been the accepted order, +the lot of man, the inescapable fate to which he was doomed by being +born.</p> + +<p>The Charter rose out of our history and out of England's need. Let me +outline again the connection with our history. In 1776, the +Declaration of Independence showed a way out <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>of the poverty-labyrinth +in the destiny of man; the Declaration declared for prosperity (then +synonymous with free land) and offered it to all (citizenship and +equal rights to the immigrant, the chance to share in this new belief +in prosperity by becoming American). In a century and a half Europe +has scoffed and sneered at this (relatively successful) attempt to +break through economic damnation—and at the end, as Europe rocks over +the edge of destruction, an American offers this still new and +imperfect thing as a foundation stone of peace in the world: freedom +from want. It has not yet been completely achieved in America; but we +know it can be achieved; we have gone far enough on our way to say +that it can be achieved in the whole world.</p> + +<p>The American standard is far above freedom from want. It is based, in +fact, on wanting too many things and getting a fair percentage of +them. But President Roosevelt's point does not involve "leveling"; it +is not an equal standard of living all over the world (which is the +implied necessity of international Communism). The negative freedom +from want is not freedom from wanting; it is explicit, as the words +are used: it means that men shall have food and shelter and clothes; +and medicine against plague; and an opportunity to learn and some +leisure to enjoy life; in accordance with the standards of their +people.</p> + +<p>This is a great deal. It was not too much for the Soviet Republics to +promise, and to begin to bring, to Kalmucks and Tartars and Georgians; +it is more than we have brought to our own disinherited in the South, +in mining towns, in the fruitful valleys of California. Our partial +failure is a disgrace, but not a disaster; our success, though +incomplete, is important. For we have carried forward in the light of +the other great freedom which Communism has had to sacrifice, which is +freedom from fear. All the specific freedoms—to think, to utter, to +believe, to act, are encompassed in this freedom from fear. Our basic +disagreement with Communism is the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>same as our attack on +nazi-fascism—both are based on illegitimate power (not power +delegated or given, not power with the consent of the governed): hence +both live on domination; on their capacity to instil fear. The war +will prove how far this fear penetrated in Russia and in Germany, and +how much longer it will be the instrument of coercion in either +country.</p> + +<p>The President's freedoms are a wide promise to the people of the +world—a promise made, like Woodrow Wilson's promises, before entering +any agreement with any foreign power. Into the Atlantic Charter, Mr. +Roosevelt also injected his basic domestic policies and, by some +astute horsetrading managed to make them <i>theoretically</i> the basis for +international agreement. This point promises improved labor standards, +economic adjustment, and social security throughout the world.</p> + +<p>Improvement, adjustment, security—they are not absolutes; freedom +from want is, in effect, security; any reasonable adjustment between +owners and workers will be an improvement in most countries. But the +principle behind the labor point is as clear as the inspiration of the +points on raw materials and freedom: it is that wars are caused by the +miseries of peoples; when the people rule, they will prevent wars +unless their miseries are acute; if they are not in dire want, if they +have a chance to work, if they are free of coercion and threat, they +will not make war—nor will they fall under the hand of the tyrant and +the demagogue.</p> + +<p>In plain practical statesmanship, Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill +apologized for Versailles, which denied Germany access to raw +materials and prevented improvement in labor standards and drove +millions of Europeans into want and fear; and at the same time they +acknowledged the connection between high diplomacy and the food and +shelter and comforts of the citizen. The eight points reiterate some +of the fourteen; they withdraw from others; but the new thing is all +American, it is the injection of the rights of the common man into an +international document.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>But there the Atlantic Charter ends. As an instrument of propaganda +and as a basis of making war and peace, it was outlawed by events; it +is forgotten.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>What Is Lacking</i></p> + +<p>The Charter could not carry its own logic beyond a first step: since +we were not allied to Britain we could not discuss a World system—all +we could say was that aggressors would be disarmed (by ourselves and +Great Britain, neither gaining a military or naval predominance) and +later we also might disarm—when the world seemed safe. This was on +the power side; on the economic side, our role was gratifyingly vague.</p> + +<p>Out of the Atlantic mists a few certainties rose, like icebergs. We +soon saw:</p> + +<div class="block3"><p class="hang">1. That Britain has no method of organizing Europe; its +tradition is isolation plus alliances.</p> + +<p class="hang">2. That Britain has no system of production parallel to the +slave system of Germany, by which Europe would restore the +ravages of war.</p> + +<p class="hang">3. That Britain cannot impose its relatively democratic habits +and relatively high level of comfort on the Continent.</p></div> + +<p>In effect, after an uprush of enthusiasm following the defeat of +Hitler, the democratic countries will face with panic their tragic +incapacity to do what the fascists have almost done—unify the nations +of Europe.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Slow Union-Now</i></p> + +<p>It was not the function of the Charter to outline the new map of +Europe. But the map is being worked over and the most effective of the +workers are those led by Clarence K. Streit toward Union-now. Long +before the Atlantic Charter was issued, Federal Union had proposed +free access to raw materials, even for Germans if they destroyed their +Nazi leaders; and the entire publicity, remarkably organized, has a +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>tone of authority which makes it profoundly significant. I do not know +that it is a trial balloon of Downing Street or of the White House; +but in America a Justice of the Supreme Court and a member of the +Cabinet recommend the proposal to the "serious consideration" of the +citizens and it has equally notable sponsors in England.</p> + +<p>I believe that union with the British Commonwealth of Nations stands +in the way of America's actual function after the war; I see it as a +sudden reversal of our historic direction, a shock we should not +contemplate in war time; it does not correspond to the living +actualities of our past or present. But I think we owe the Unionists a +great deal; they have incited thought and even action; they serve as +the Committee to Aid the Allies did before last December, to supply a +rallying point for enthusiasts and enemies; we are doing far too +little thinking about our international affairs, and Federal Union +makes us think.</p> + +<p>It has two aims: the instant purpose of combining all our powers to +win the war, using the fact of our union as an engine of propaganda in +occupied and enemy countries; and second, "that this program be only +the first step in the gradual, peaceful extension of ... federal union +to all peoples willing and able to adhere to them, so that from this +nucleus may grow eventually a universal world government of, by and +for the people". (It sounds impractical, but so did the Communist +Manifesto and Hitler's "ravings".)</p> + +<p>As to the immediate program, it would instantly revive the latent +isolationism of tens of millions who used to insist that the Roosevelt +policy would end in the sacrifice of our independence; we should have +a unified control of production, but some 40% of our producers would +lose all faith in our government. In the midst of winning the war, we +should have to re-convince millions that we had not intentionally +betrayed them.</p> + +<p>Military and productive unity can be independent of political <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>unity. +Unified command was achieved in France in 1918 and in the Pacific in +1942, without unions.</p> + +<p>As for effect abroad, propaganda could present a better case to +Frenchmen who believe Britain let them down if complete Anglo-American +union were not an accomplished fact; and the whole Continental and +Russian and Asiatic suspicion of our motives might be allayed if we +did not unite completely and permanently with "the people of Canada, +the United Kingdom, Eire, Australia, New Zealand, and the Union of +South Africa" while we were not so fondly embracing the peoples of +India, China, and the Netherlands East Indies. The abiding union of +literate, superior, capitalist white men is not going to be taken as a +first step to world equality by Slavs and Orientals; and much as the +British Empire may wish not to acknowledge the fact, Communism has +completely undermined the idea of white supremacy, and has given a new +hope to Asia and Africa. It may have been a very bad thing to do, but +we cannot stop for recriminations now. There are new soldiers for +democracy in the world, and if they are fighting beside us, we cannot +ignore them and fall into the arms of their traditional oppressors. We +have a great work to do with the Chinese and the Indians, and all the +other peoples who can stand against our enemy; we cannot begin to do +it if our first move is accepting British overlordship in the East, +uncritically, without pledges or promises.</p> + +<p>As a post-war program Federal Union is more persuasive. It begins with +a Wilsonian peace offer—the influence is strong and supplies the deep +emotional appeal of the organization. It guarantees free access to +rubber and oil and gold; it accepts any nation whose people had +certain minimal freedoms; it implies, of course, free trade—with new +markets for our manufactured products, and no duties on British +woolens; plans for the Union Congress "assure the American people a +majority" at the start. (As between the United States and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>the British +Commonwealth; as soon as "all peoples willing and able" to, enter, the +200 million American and British Commonwealthers would be swamped by +800 million Chinese and Indians and other Asiatics.)</p> + +<p>The average American pays a great tribute to the largeness of the +concept of "Union-now"—he doesn't believe that anyone really means +it. He thinks it is a fancy name for a war alliance, or possibly a new +simplified League of Nations. The gross actuality of Iowa and +Yorkshire ruled by one governing body, he cannot take in. And as the +argument develops, this general scepticism is justified; for the +American learns that while he may be ruled, he will not be over-ruled, +and he wonders what Mr. Churchill and the man in the London street +will say to that, or in what disguise this plan is being presented to +the English or the Scots or the New Zealanders. So far no responsible +British statesman has offered union to the United States, but Mr. +Leslie Hore-Belisha has said that we need a declaration of +inter-dependence and our Ambassador to the Court of St. James's told +an international Society of writers that we need a sort of +international citizenship. Mr. Wendell Willkie however has said that +"American democracy must rule the world."</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Entry Into Europe</i></p> + +<p>By union or by alliance, American or Anglo-American rule over the +world will have some strange consequences for us, citizens not +accustomed to worry over "foreign affairs". Perhaps the strangest +thing is that the results will be almost the same whether we are +partners with Britain or alone in our mighty domination, with England +as a satellite. An American or Anglo-American imperium can only be +organized by force; it is, in effect, the old order of Europe, with +America playing Britain's old star part, Britain reduced to the +supporting role of France or Holland or Portugal. In any controversy, +we step in, with our vast industrial power, our democratic tradition, +our aloofness from Europe, just as England used to step <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>in with <i>her</i> +power and traditions; the Atlantic is to us what the Channel or North +Sea was to Britain. England's policy was to prevent the rise of any +single Continental power, so she made an alliance with Prussia to +fight France in 1814 and made an alliance with France to fight Prussia +in 1914. In an Anglo-American alliance, England would be our European +outpost, just as Prussia or France was England's Continental outpost.</p> + +<p>Our policy would still be the balance of power. Like England, we +should be involved in every war, whether we take up arms or not—as +she was involved in the Crimea and the Balkans, and South Africa and +North Africa; we should have our Fashodas and our Algeciras and our +Mafeking; our peace will be uneasy, our wars not our own.</p> + +<p>The Atlantic Charter suggests a "policing" of the world after the war; +it holds off from anything further; it does not actually hint that a +reorganization of power in the world is needed. Yet, at the same time, +the creation of an oceanic bloc to combat the European land bloc is +hinted. It is all rather like a German professor's dream of +geo-politics; Russia becomes a Pacific power and Japan, by a miserable +failure of geography, is virtually a Continental one, while the United +States is reduced to two strips of ocean frontage, like a real estate +development with no back lot, with no back country, with no background +in the history of a Continent.</p> + +<p>The Sea-Powers unit is as treacherous as "the Atlantic group" or "the +Democratic countries"; the intent is still to create a dominant power +and give ourselves (and Britain) control of the raw materials and the +trade of the world. No matter how naturally the group comes together, +by tradition or self-interest, it becomes instantly the nucleus for an +alliance; and as the alliance begins to form, nations we omit or +reject begin to crystallize around some other centre, and we have the +balance of power again, the race for markets and the race for +armaments.</p> + +<p>This will be particularly true if we begin to play the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>diplomatic +game with the stakes greater than those ever thrown—since we are the +first two-ocean nation to enter world affairs. At the moment nothing +seems more detestable than the policy of Japan; but diplomacy +overcomes all detestation, and if we are going in for the game of +dealing with nations instead of peoples, we can foresee ourselves +years from now as the great balance between the Atlantic and the +Pacific, between Japan and England, or Japan and Germany, perhaps the +honest broker between the two sets of powers. In 1942 we are +independent, fighting for freedom, helping all those who fight against +tyranny; and we can do this because we have kept out of the groupings +and combinations of the powers. But we are being pushed into a +combination and we know now that there is only one way to avoid +entanglement: we must prevent the combination from coming into +existence.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Our Historic Decision</i></p> + +<p>In 1919 an attempt was made, by America, to put an end to all European +combinations of power. That attempt was unanimously approved by the +people of the United States, some of whom voted for the League while +the others endorsed a Society of Nations, to which W.G. Harding +promised our adhesion. The Society of Nations was never seriously +proposed, and Harding betrayed the American people; at the same time +it was monumentally clear that France, with England's help, had +sabotaged the actual League by making it a facade for a punitive +alliance. Between these two betrayals, the idea of world organization +was mortally compromised.</p> + +<p>We may quarrel over the blame for the impotence of the League; did +France invade the Ruhr because, without us in the League, she needed +"protection"? or did we stay out of the League because we knew France +would go into the Ruhr? That can be argued for ever. We know +reasonably well why we kept out of the League; but no one troubles to +remember how earnestly we wanted the League and prayed for it and +wanted to enter, so that it remained always to trouble us as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>we tried +to sleep through the destruction of Ethiopia or Spain or +Czecho-Slovakia.</p> + +<p>The League was not a promise of security to the <i>people</i> of the United +States. Our Government may have felt the need of a world order; we did +not; the war had barely touched us, yet even those whom it had touched +least were enthusiasts for a new federation of nations. It was neither +fear nor any abstract love of peace. The League, or any other +confederation of Europe, corresponded to our American need, which was +to escape alliance with any single power or small group; to escape the +danger of Europe united against us; and to escape the devil's +temptation of imperialism—<i>because the people of the United States do +not want to rule the world</i>. There is an instinct which tells us that +those who rule are not independent; they are slaves to their slaves; +it tells us that we are so constituted that we cannot rule over part +of Europe or join with any part to rule the rest; it is our instinct +of independence which forbids us in the end to destroy the liberty of +any other nation.</p> + +<p>This goes back to the thought of union with the British nations. If we +unite, and we are dominant, do we not accept the responsibility of +domination? The appetite for empire is great and as the old world +turned to us in 1941, as the War of the Worlds placed us in the centre +of action, as more and more we came to make the decisions, as +Australia, Russia, China, Britain called to us for help—the image of +America ruling the world grew dazzling bright. It was our duty—our +destiny; Mr. Henry Luce recognized the American century, seeing us +accepted by the world which already accepts our motor cars, chewing +gum and moving pictures. To shrink from ruling the world is abject +cowardice. Did England shrink in 1914? Or France under Napoleon? Or +Rome under Augustus? Or Sweden under Gustavus Adolphus?</p> + +<p>No. No despotism ever shrank from its "destiny" to destroy the freedom +of other nations.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>But the history of America will still create our destiny—and our +destiny is <i>not</i> to rule the world.</p> + +<p><i>Our destiny is to remain independent and the only way we can remain +independent is by cooperation with all the other nations of the earth. +That is the only way for us to escape exclusive alliances, the pull of +grandiose imperial schemes, the danger of alliances against us, and a +tragic drift into the European war system which can destroy us.</i> There +is an area of action in which nationality plays no part: like labor +statistics—and this area is steadily growing; there is another area +jealously guarded, the area of honor and tariffs and taxes. We have to +mark out the parts of our lives which we can offer up to international +supervision and the parts we cannot. It will surprise us to see that +we can become more independent if we collaborate more.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2">"<i>Far as Human Eye Can See</i>"</p> + +<p>I have no capacity to describe the world order after the war. If, as I +have said, the war is fought by us in accordance with our national +character, we will create a democratic relationship between the +nations of the world; and our experience added to that of Britain and +the USSR will tend toward a Federation of Commonwealths; the three +great powers have arrived, by three separate experiences, at the idea +of Federation; two of them are working out the problems of sovereign +independent states within a union; the third, ourselves, worked the +problem out long ago by expunging States Rights in theory and allowing +a great deal in practise. As a result of our experience, we +dogmatically assert that no Federation can be created without the +ultimate extinction of independence; we may be right. But the thought +persists that independence was wanted for the sake of liberty; that +independence without security was the downfall of Czecho-Slovakia and +France; and that we have cherished independence because the rest of +the world did not cherish liberty as we did. Profoundly as I believe +independence to be the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>key to American action, I can imagine the +translation of the word into other terms; we are allied to Britain and +the Netherlands and the Soviets today, we have accepted alien command +of our troops and ships; we are supplying arms to the Soviets and +building a naval base in Ecuador and have accepted an agreement by +which Great Britain will have a word in the creation of the most +cherished of our independent creations, the tariff. Independence, so +absolute in origin, is like all absolutes, non-existent in fact; we +know this in private life, for the man of "independent means" may +depend on ten thousand people to pay him dividends; and only the mad +are totally independent of human needs and duties.</p> + +<p>We will not willingly give up our right to elect a President; we may +allow the President to appoint an American member to an international +commission to allocate East Indies rubber; in return for which we will +allocate our wheat or cotton or motors—on the advice of other +nations, but without bowing our neck to their rule. We have always +accepted specific international interference in our affairs—the +Alabama claims and the Oregon boundary and the successive troubles in +Venezuela prove that our "sovereign right" to do what we please was +never exercised without some respect for the opinion of mankind—and +the strength of the British navy. Indeed recent events indicate that +for generations our independence of action, the reality of +independence, rested on our faith in the British fleet.</p> + +<p>The moment we become realistic about our independence we will be able +to collaborate effectively with other nations. We got a few lessons in +realistic dealings in 1941—lend-lease and the trade for the naval +bases were blunt, statesmanlike but most undiplomatic—moves to +strengthen the British fleet, to extend our own area of safety, and to +give us time against the threat of Japan. They protected our +independence, but they also compromised it; the British by any +concession to Japan might have weakened us; we took the risk, and our +action was in effect an act of defensive war against Germany. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>Like +Jefferson, buying Louisiana to protect us against any foreign power +across the Mississippi, President Roosevelt acted under dire necessity +and as Jefferson (not Roosevelt) put it, was not too deeply concerned +with Constitutionality. The situation in 1941 required not only the +bases but the continued functioning of the British fleet in the +Atlantic; and we got what we needed.</p> + +<p>The economic agreement of 1942 is probably a greater invasion of our +simon-pure independence of action; although it empowers a post-war +President to decide how much of lend-lease was returned by valor in +the field, it specifically binds us to alter our tariff if Britain can +induce its Commonwealth of Nations to give up the system of "imperial +preference". All our tariffs are horsetrades and the most-favored +nation is a sweet device; but heretofore we have not bartered our +tariffs in advance. Certainly a post-war economic union is in the +wind; certainly we will accept it if it comes to us piecemeal, by +agreements and joint-commissions and international resolutions which +are not binding, but are accepted and become as routine as the law of +copyright which once invaded our sacred national right to steal or the +international postal union which gave us the right to send a letter to +any country for five cents.</p> + +<p>When we think of the future our minds are clouded by memory of the +League; we are psychologically getting ready to accept or reject the +League all over again. We are worried over the form—will it be Geneva +again or will headquarters be in Washington; will Germany have a vote; +will we have to go to war if the Supreme Council tells us to. These +are important if we are actually going to reconstitute the League; but +if we are not, the only question is what we want the new world +organization to do. In keeping with our political tradition we will +pretend that we want it to do as little as possible and put upon it +all the work we are too lazy to do ourselves; but even the minimum +will be enough.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Our Standing Offer</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span></p> + +<p>Everything points to an economic council representing the free nations +of the world; the lease-lend principles in time of peace may be +invoked, as Harold Laski has suggested, to provide food and raw +materials for less favored nations; and the need for "economic +sanctions" will not be lost on the nation which supplied Japan with +scrap-iron and oil for five years of aggression against China and then +was repaid at Pearl Harbor.</p> + +<p>If there is any wisdom—in the people or in their leaders—we will not +have a formulated League to accept or reject; we will have a series of +agreements (such as we have had for generations) covering more and +more subjects, with more and more nations. We have drawn up treaties +and agreements with twenty South American States, with forty-six +nations united for liberty; we can draw up an agreement with Russia +and Rumania and the Netherlands so that England and the Continent and +China get oil; and another agreement may give us tungsten; we may have +to take universal action to stop typhus—and no one will be an +isolationist then. If the war ends by a series of uprisings we may be +establishing temporary governments as part of our military strategy. +Slowly the form of international cooperation will be seen; by that +time it will be familiar to us—and we will see that we have not lost +our independence, but have gained our liberty.</p> + +<p>We began the war with one weapon: liberty. If we fight the war well, +we will begin the long peace with two: liberty and production. With +them we will not need to rule the world; with them the world will be +able to rule itself. All we have to do is to demonstrate the best use +of the instruments—and to let others learn.</p> + +<p>Before our part in the war began, it was often suggested that America +would feed and clothe Europe, send medicine and machinery to China, +and make itself generally the post-war stockpile of Democracy as it +had been the arsenal and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>treasury during the war; and the monotonous +uncrushing answer was about "the money". Realities of war have blown +"the money" question into atoms; no sensible person pretends that +there is a real equation between our production and money value; we +can't in any sense "afford" bombers and battleships; if we stopped to +ask where "the money" would come from, and if the question were +actually relevant, we would have to stop the war.</p> + +<p>Another actuality of war relieves us of the danger of being too +generous—the actuality of rubber and tin and tungsten and all the +other materials critical to production in peace time. Since we will +have to rebuild our stocks of vital goods, our practical men will see +to it that we get as well as give; we may send food to Greece and get +rubber from Java, but on the books we will not be doing too badly.</p> + +<p>Neither money nor the bogey of a balance of trade is going to decide +our provisioning of Europe and Asia; the cold necessity of preventing +revolution and typhus will force us to rebuild and re-energize; in the +end, like all enlargements of the market, this will repay us. The rest +of the world will know a great deal about mass production by the end +of the war: Indians and Australians will be expert at interchangeable +parts; but we will have the immeasurable advantage of our long +experience on which the war has forced us to build a true productive +system. We will jump years ahead of our schedule of increase and +improvement because of the war; and we will be able to face any +problem of production—if we want to, or have to. The choice between +people's lives and the gold standard will have to be made again, as it +was by many nations in the 1930's; only this time the choice is not +without a threat. After wars, people are accustomed to bloodshed; they +prefer it to starvation.</p> + +<br /> + +<p class="right2"><i>Alternative to Prosperity</i></p> + +<p>The greatest invention of democracy is the wealth of the people. We +discovered that wealth rested more firmly on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>prosperity than on +poverty and the genius of our nation has gone into creating a +well-to-do mass of citizens. Unfinished as the job is, we can start to +demonstrate its principles to others. In return they may refrain from +teaching us the principles of revolution.</p> + +<p>Recovery and freedom are our concrete actual offer to the nations of +Europe, counter to the offer of Hitler. Without this literal, concrete +offer, we shall have to fight longer to defeat Hitler—and every added +day costs us lives and money and strength inside ourselves which we +need to create the new world; if we can defeat Hitler without the aim +of liberty, our victory will be incomplete; we will not automatically +emancipate France or Jugo-Slavia, or draw Rumania back into the orbit +of free nations. Within each nation a powerful group profits by the +Nazi-system; within each a vast population, battered, disheartened, +diseased, wants only the meanest security, one meal a day, shelter +only from the bitter days, something more than a rag for clothing—and +an end to the struggle; these are not heroes, they are old people, men +and women struck down and beaten and starved so that they cannot rise, +but can drag down those who attempt to rise. These we may save only by +giving them food and forgetfulness. On the other side there are the +young—carefully indoctrinated, worked over to believe that the offer +of fascism is hard, but practical; it is an offer of slavery and +security; whereas they are told the offer of the democratic countries +is an hypocrisy and—worse still—cannot be made good. We have to face +the disagreeable fact that the Balkan peasant in 1900 heard of +universal suffrage and high wages in America, and his grandchildren +know more about our sharecroppers and race riots and strike breakers +than we do—because the Goebbels machine has played the dark side of +our record a million times. The first year of the war was bound to +show the "superiority" of the German production technique over ours, +since Europe will not know that we are still at the beginning of +actual production. The mind of Europe knows <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>little good of us; we +have not yet begun to undermine the fascist influence by words, and +our acts are not yet planned. Even after Hitler is destroyed, we will +have to act to overcome impotence in political action which years of +Nazi "conditioning" induces, and to compensate for the destruction of +technical skill in the occupied areas. To us the end of the war is a +wild moving picture of gay processions, swastikas demolished, prisons +opened, and the governments-in-exile hailed at the frontiers; all of +these things may happen, but the reality, after the parade, will be a +grim business of re-making the flesh and the spirit of peoples. The +children of Israel rejoiced and sang as they crossed the Red Sea; but +they had been slaves. So Moses led them forty years in the wilderness, +when he could have gone directly to the Promised Land in forty months, +because he wanted a generation of slaves to die, and a generation of +hardy freemen to be in full mature power.<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> The generation we will +raise to power in the occupied countries will have great experience of +tyranny, none of freedom; it will know all about our shortcomings and +nothing of our triumphs; it will distrust our motives and methods; it +will have seen the Nazis at work and know nothing of new techniques of +production; we will have to teach them to be free and to work.</p> + +<br /> +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> +<br /> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> I have not traveled the route; but General Sir Francis +Younghusband who had, gave me the figures—and the motive.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CHAPTER XIII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h2>The Liberty Bell</h2> +<br /> + +<p>Above all things our function is to proclaim liberty, to proclaim it +as the soil on which we grow and as the air we breathe, to make the +world understand that liberty is what we fight for and live by. We +have to keep the word always sounding so that people will not +forget—and we have to create liberty so that it is always real and +people will have a goal to fight for, and never believe that it is +only a word. We do not need to convert the world to a special form of +political democracy, but we have to keep liberty alive so that the +peoples who want to be free can destroy their enemies and count on us +to help. We will do it by the war we are waging and the peace we will +make and the prosperity of the peoples of the world which we will +underwrite. For in the act of proclaiming and creating liberty we must +also give to the world the demonstration we have made at home: that +there is no liberty if the people perish of starvation and that alone +among all the ways of living tried in the long martyrdom of man, +freedom can destroy poverty.</p> + +<p>We have been bold in creating food and cars and radios and electric +power; now we must be bold in creating liberty on a scale never known +before, not even to ourselves. For we have to create enough liberty to +take up the shameful slack in our own country. We all know, +indifferently, that people (somewhere—where was it?—wasn't there a +movie about them?) hadn't enough to eat. But we assume that Americans +always have enough liberty. The Senate's committee report on the +fascism of organized big-farming in California is a shock which +Americans are not aware of; in the greater shock of war we do not +understand that we have been weakened internally, as England was +weakened by its distressed areas <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>and its Malayan snobbery. We do not +yet see the difference between the misfortune of an imperfect economic +system and calculated denials of liberty. We have denied liberty in +hundreds of instances, until certain sections of the country, certain +portions of industry, have become black infections of fascism and have +started the counter-infection of communism. Most of the shameful +occasions we have cheerfully forgotten; in the midst of our war +against tyranny, any new blow at our liberty is destructive. Here are +the facts in the California case, chosen because the documentation +comes from official sources:</p> + +<div class="block"><p>"Unemployment, underemployment, disorganized and haphazard +migrancy, lack of adequate wages or annual income, bad housing, +insufficient education, little medical care, the great public +burden of relief, the denial of civil liberties, riots, strife, +corruption are all part and parcel of this autocratic system of +labor relations that has for decades dominated California's +agricultural industry."</p></div> + +<p>The American people do not know that such things exist; no American +orator has dared to say "except in three or four states, all men are +equal in the eyes of the law"—or, "trial by jury is the right of +every man except farm hands in California, who may be beaten at will." +When the Senate's report is repeated to us from Japanese short-wave we +will call it propaganda—and it will be the terrible potent propaganda +of truth. We will still call for "stern measures", if a laborer who +has lost the rights of man on American soil does not go into battle +with a passion in his heart to die for liberty, and we will not +understand that we have been at fault, because we have not created +liberty. We have been living on borrowed liberty, not of our own +making.</p> + +<p>We have not seen that some of our "cherished liberties" are heirlooms, +beautiful antiques, not usable in the shape they come to us. We have +the right to publish—but we cannot afford to print a newspaper—so +that we have to create a new <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>freedom of the press. We have the right +to keep a musket on the wall, but our enemies have ceased to prowl, +the musket is an antique, and we need a new freedom to protect +ourselves from officious bureaucrats. We have the right to assemble, +but men of one mind, men of one trade, live a thousand miles apart, so +we need a new freedom to combine—and a new restriction on +combination, too.</p> + +<p>Freedom is always more dangerous than discipline, and the more complex +our lives, the more dangerous is any freedom. This we know; we know +that discipline and order are dangerous, too, because they cannot +tolerate imperfection. A nation cannot exist half-slave and half-free, +but it can exist 90% free, especially if the direction of life is +toward freedom; that is what we have proved in 160 years. But a nation +cannot exist 90% slave—or 90% regimented—because every degree of +order multiplies the power of disorder. If a machine needs fifty +meshed-in parts, for smooth operation, the failure of one part +destroys forty-nine; if it needs five million, the failure of one part +destroys five million.</p> + +<p>That is the hope of success for our strategy against the strategy of +"totality"; the Nazis have surpassed the junkers by their disciplined +initiative in the field, a genuine triumph; but we still do not know +whether a whole people can be both disciplined and flexible; we have +not yet seen the long-run effect of Hitler's long vituperation of +Bolshevism, his treaty with Stalin, and his invasion of Russia—unless +the weakening of Nazi power, its failure to press success into victory +at the gates of Moscow and Leningrad reflect a hesitation in the +stupefied German mind, an incapacity to change direction.</p> + +<p>Whether our dangers are greater than those of fascism may be proved in +war; it remains for us to make the most of them, to transform danger +into useful action. We have to increase freedom, because as freedom +grows, it brings its own regulation and discipline; the dangers of +liberty came to us only after we began to neglect it or suppress it; +freedom itself is orderly, because it is a natural state of men, it is +not <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>chaos, it begins when the slave is set free and ends when the +murderer destroys the freedom of others; between the tyrant and the +anarchist lies the area of human freedom.</p> + +<p>It is also the area of human cooperation, the condition of life in +which man uses all of his capacities because he is not deprived of the +right to work, by choice, with other men. In that area, freedom +expands and is never destructive. The flowering of freedom in the past +hundred years has been less destructive to humanity than the attempted +extension of slavery has been in the past decade; for when men create +liberty, they destroy only what is already dead.</p> + +<p>I have used the phrase "creating enough liberty"—as if the freedom of +man were a commodity; <i>and it is</i>. So long as we think of it as a +great abstraction, it will remain one; the moment we <i>make</i> liberty it +becomes a reality; the Declaration of Independence <i>made</i> liberty, +concretely, out of taxes and land and jury trials and muskets. +Liberty, like love, has to be made; the passion out of which love +rises exists always, but people have to <i>make love</i>, or the passion is +betrayed; and the acts by which human beings make liberty are as +fundamental as the act of sexual intercourse by which love is made. +And as love recreates itself and has to be made, in order to live +again, liberty has also to be re-created, or it dies out. Whatever +lovers do affects the profound relation between them, for the passion +is complex; whatever we do affects our liberties, for freedom rises +out of a thousand circumstances; and we have to be not only eternally +vigilant, but eternally creative; we can no longer live on the liberty +inherited from the great men who created liberty in the Declaration of +Independence. All that quantity has been exhausted, stolen from us, +misused; if we want to survive, we must begin to make liberty again +and proclaim it throughout the land, to all the inhabitants thereof; +and it shall be a jubilee unto them.</p> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<div class="tr"> +<p class="cen"><a name="TN" id="TN"></a>Typographical errors corrected in text:</p> +<br /> +Page 54: "what the trust were" replaced with "what the trusts were"<br /> +Page 83: "given by the the people" replaced with "given by the people"<br /> +Page 156: enterprizes replaced with enterprises<br /> + +<p class="noin"><span class="sc">Note</span> that on Page 85 there are words missing from the +quoted section of the Declaration of Independence.</p> +<p class="noin">The missing words "to our British brethren. We have warned +them" have been inserted in the paragraph that begins:</p> +<p class="noin" style="margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%">"Nor have We been wanting in attention (to our British +brethren. We have warned them) from time to time of +attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable +jurisdiction over us."</p> +</div> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Proclaim Liberty!, by Gilbert Seldes + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PROCLAIM LIBERTY! *** + +***** This file should be named 34890-h.htm or 34890-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/8/9/34890/ + +Produced by Curtis Weyant, Jeannie Howse and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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