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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of An Essay On The American Contribution And
+The Democratic Idea, by Winston Churchill
+[The Author is the American Winston Churchill not the British]
+
+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: An Essay On The American Contribution And The Democratic Idea
+
+Author: Winston Churchill
+
+Release Date: October 6, 2006 [EBook #5399]
+Last Updated: August 24, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AMERICAN CONTRIBUTION ***
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+AN ESSAY ON THE AMERICAN CONTRIBUTION AND THE DEMOCRATIC IDEA
+
+By Winston Churchill
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+Failure to recognize that the American, is at heart an idealist is
+to lack understanding of our national character. Two of our greatest
+interpreters proclaimed it, Emerson and William James. In a recent
+address at the Paris Sorbonne on “American Idealism,” M. Firmin Roz
+observed that a people is rarely justly estimated by its contemporaries.
+The French, he says, have been celebrated chiefly for the skill of their
+chefs and their vaudeville actors, while in the disturbed ‘speculum
+mundi’ Americans have appeared as a collection of money grabbers whose
+philosophy is the dollar. It remained for the war to reveal the true
+nature of both peoples. The American colonists, M. Roz continues, unlike
+other colonists, were animated not by material motives, but by the
+desire to safeguard and realize an ideal; our inherent characteristic
+today is a belief in the virtue and power of ideas, of a national,
+indeed, of a universal, mission. In the Eighteenth Century we proposed
+a Philosophy and adopted a Constitution far in advance of the political
+practice of the day, and set up a government of which Europe predicted
+the early downfall. Nevertheless, thanks partly to good fortune, and
+to the farseeing wisdom of our early statesmen who perceived that the
+success of our experiment depended upon the maintenance of an isolation
+from European affairs, we established democracy as a practical form of
+government.
+
+We have not always lived up to our beliefs in ideas. In our dealings
+with other nations, we yielded often to imperialistic ambitions and
+thus, to a certain extent, justified the cynicism of Europe. We took
+what we wanted--and more. From Spain we seized western Florida; the
+annexation of Texas and the subsequent war with Mexico are acts upon
+which we cannot look back with unmixed democratic pride; while more than
+once we professed a naive willingness to fight England in order to
+push our boundaries further north. We regarded the Monroe Doctrine as
+altruistic, while others smiled. But it suited England, and her sea
+power gave it force.
+
+Our war with Spain in 1898, however, was fought for an idea, and,
+despite the imperialistic impulse that followed it, marks a transition,
+an advance, in international ethics. Imperialistic cynics were not
+lacking to scoff at our protestation that we were fighting Spain in
+order to liberate Cuba; and yet this, for the American people at large,
+was undoubtedly the inspiration of the war. We kept our promise, we did
+not annex Cuba, we introduced into international affairs what is known
+as the Big Brother idea. Then came the Platt Amendment. Cuba was free,
+but she must not wallow near our shores in an unhygienic state, or
+borrow money without our consent. We acquired valuable naval bases.
+Moreover, the sudden and unexpected acquisition of Porto Rico and the
+Philippines made us imperialists in spite of ourselves.
+
+Nations as well as individuals, however, must be judged by their
+intentions. The sound public opinion of our people has undoubtedly
+remained in favour of ultimate self-government for the Philippines, and
+the greatest measure of self-determination for little Porto Rico; it has
+been unquestionably opposed to commercial exploitation of the islands,
+desirous of yielding to these peoples the fruits of their labour in
+developing the resources of their own lands. An intention, by the
+way, diametrically different from that of Germany. In regard to our
+protectorate in the island of San Domingo, our “semi-protectorate” in
+Nicaragua, the same argument of intention may fairly be urged. Germany,
+who desired them, would have exploited them. To a certain extent, no
+doubt, as a result of the momentum of commercial imperialism, we are
+still exploiting them. But the attitude of the majority of Americans
+toward more backward peoples is not cynical; hence there is hope that a
+democratic solution of the Caribbean and Central American problem may
+be found. And we are not ready, as yet, to accept without further
+experiment the dogma that tropical and sub-tropical people will not
+ultimately be able to govern themselves. If this eventually, prove to be
+the case at least some such experiment as the new British Labour Party
+has proposed for the Empire may be tried. Our general theory that the
+exploitation of foreign peoples reacts unfavourably on the exploiters is
+undoubtedly sound.
+
+Nor are the ethics of the manner of our acquisition of a part of Panama
+and the Canal wholly defensible from the point of view of international
+democracy. Yet it must be remembered that President Roosevelt was
+dealing with a corrupt, irresponsible, and hostile government, and that
+the Canal had become a necessity not only for our own development, but
+for that of the civilization of the world.
+
+The Spanish War, as has been said, marked a transition, a development
+of the American Idea. In obedience to a growing perception that dominion
+and exploitation are incompatible with and detrimental to our system of
+government, we fought in good faith to gain self-determination for an
+alien people. The only real peril confronting democracy is the arrest
+of growth. Its true conquests are in the realms of ideas, and hence it
+calls for a statesmanship which, while not breaking with the past, while
+taking into account the inherent nature of a people, is able to deal
+creatively with new situations--always under the guidance of current
+social science.
+
+Woodrow Wilson’s Mexican policy, being a projection of the American Idea
+to foreign affairs, a step toward international democracy, marks the
+beginning of a new era. Though not wholly understood, though opposed by
+a powerful minority of our citizens, it stirred the consciousness of a
+national mission to which our people are invariably ready to respond.
+Since it was essentially experimental, and therefore not lacking in
+mistakes, there was ample opportunity for a criticism that seemed at
+times extremely plausible. The old and tried method of dealing with such
+anarchy as existed across our southern border was made to seem the safe
+one; while the new, because it was untried, was presented as disastrous.
+In reality, the reverse was the case.
+
+Mr. Wilson’s opponents were, generally speaking, the commercial classes
+in the community, whose environment and training led them to demand
+a foreign policy similar to that of other great powers, a financial
+imperialism which is the logical counterpart in foreign affairs of the
+commercial exploitation of domestic national resources and domestic
+labour. These were the classes which combated the growth of democracy at
+home, in national and state politics. From their point of view--not
+that of the larger vision--they were consistent. On the other hand, the
+nation grasped the fact that to have one brand of democracy at home and
+another for dealing with foreign nations was not only illogical but, in
+the long run, would be suicidal to the Republic. And the people at large
+were committed to democratic progress at home. They were struggling for
+it.
+
+One of the most important issues of the American liberal movement early
+in this century had been that for the conservation of what remains
+of our natural resources of coal and metals and oil and timber and
+waterpower for the benefit of all the people, on the theory that these
+are the property of the people. But if the natural resources of this
+country belong to the people of the United States, those of Mexico
+belong to the people of Mexico. It makes no difference how “lazy,”
+ ignorant, and indifferent to their own interests the Mexicans at present
+may be. And even more important in these liberal campaigns was the issue
+of the conservation of human resources--men and women and children who
+are forced by necessity to labour. These must be protected in health,
+given economic freedom and a just reward for their toil. The American
+democracy, committed to the principle of the conservation of domestic
+natural and human resources, could not without detriment to itself
+persist in a foreign policy that ignored them. For many years our
+own government had permitted the squandering of these resources by
+adventurous capitalists; and gradually, as we became a rich industrial
+nation, these capitalists sought profitable investments for their
+increasing surplus in foreign lands. Their manner of acquiring
+“concessions” in Mexico was quite similar to that by which they had
+seized because of the indifference and ignorance of our own people--our
+own mines and timber lands which our government held in trust. Sometimes
+these American “concessions” have been valid in law though the law
+itself violated a democratic principle; more often corrupt officials
+winked at violations of the law, enabling capitalists to absorb bogus
+claims.
+
+The various rulers of Mexico sold to American and other foreign
+capitalists the resources belonging to the people of their country, and
+pocketed, with their followers, the proceeds of the sale. Their control
+of the country rested upon force; the stability of the Diaz rule,
+for instance, depended upon the “President’s” ability to maintain his
+dictatorship--a precarious guarantee to the titles he had given. Hence
+the premium on revolutions. There was always the incentive to the
+upstart political and military buccaneer to overthrow the dictator and
+gain possession of the spoils, to sell new doubtful concessions and levy
+new tribute on the capitalists holding claims from a former tyrant.
+
+The foreign capitalists appealed to their governments; commercial
+imperialism responded by dispatching military forces to protect the
+lives and “property” of its citizens, in some instances going so far as
+to take possession of the country. A classic case, as cited by Hobson,
+is Britain’s South African War, in which the blood and treasure of the
+people of the United Kingdom were expended because British capitalists
+had found the Boers recalcitrant, bent on retaining their own country
+for themselves. To be sure, South Africa, like Mexico is rich in
+resources for which advancing civilization continually makes demands.
+And, in the case of Mexico, the products of the tropics, such as rubber,
+are increasingly necessary to the industrial powers of the temperate
+zone. On the other hand, if the exploiting nation aspire to
+self-government, the imperialistic method of obtaining these products
+by the selfish exploitation of the natural and human resources of the
+backward countries reacts so powerfully on the growth of democracy at
+home--and hence on the growth of democracy throughout the world--as to
+threaten the very future of civilization. The British Liberals, when
+they came into power, perceived this, and at once did their best to
+make amends to South Africa by granting her autonomy and virtual
+independence, linking her to Britain by the silken thread of Anglo-Saxon
+democratic culture. How strong this thread has proved is shown by the
+action of those of Dutch blood in the Dominion during the present war.
+
+Eventually, if democracy is not to perish from the face of the earth,
+some other than the crude imperialistic method of dealing with backward
+peoples, of obtaining for civilization the needed resources of their
+lands, must be inaugurated--a democratic method. And this is perhaps
+the supreme problem of democracy today. It demands for its solution a
+complete reversal of the established policy of imperialism, a new theory
+of international relationships, a mutual helpfulness and partnership
+between nations, even as democracy implies cooperation between
+individual citizens. Therefore President Wilson laid down the doctrine
+that American citizens enter Mexico at their own risk; that they must
+not expect that American blood will be shed or the nation’s money be
+expended to protect their lives or the “property” they have acquired
+from Mexican dictators. This applies also to the small capitalists,
+the owners of the coffee plantations, as well as to those Americans in
+Mexico who are not capitalists but wage earners. The people of Mexico
+are entitled to try the experiment of self-determination. It is an
+experiment, we frankly acknowledge that fact, a democratic experiment
+dependent on physical science, social science, and scientific education.
+The other horn of the dilemma, our persistence in imperialism, is even
+worse--since by such persistence we destroy ourselves.
+
+A subjective judgment, in accordance with our own democratic standards,
+by the American Government as to the methods employed by a Huerta, for
+instance, is indeed demanded; not on the ground, however, that such
+methods are “good” or “bad”; but whether they are detrimental to Mexican
+self-determination, and hence to the progress of our own democracy.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+If America had started to prepare when Belgium was invaded, had entered
+the war when the Lusitania was sunk, Germany might by now have been
+defeated, hundreds of thousands of lives might have been spared. All
+this may be admitted. Yet, looking backward, it is easy to read the
+reason for our hesitancy in our national character and traditions.
+We were pacifists, yes, but pacifists of a peculiar kind. One of our
+greatest American prophets, William James, knew that there was an issue
+for which we were ready to fight, for which we were willing to make the
+extreme sacrifice,--and that issue he defined as “war against war.” It
+remained for America to make the issue.
+
+Peoples do not rush to arms unless their national existence is
+threatened. It is what may be called the environmental cause that drives
+nations quickly into war. It drove the Entente nations into war, though
+incidentally they were struggling for certain democratic institutions,
+for international justice. But in the case of America, the environmental
+cause was absent. Whether or not our national existence was or is
+actually threatened, the average American does not believe that it is.
+He was called upon to abandon his tradition, to mingle in a European
+conflict, to fight for an idea alone. Ideas require time to develop, to
+seize the imagination of masses. And it must be remembered that in 1914
+the great issue had not been defined. Curiously enough, now that it
+is defined, it proves to be an American issue--a logical and positive
+projection of our Washingtonian tradition and Monroe doctrine. These
+had for their object the preservation and development of democracy,
+the banishment from the Western Hemisphere of European imperialistic
+conflict and war. We are now, with the help of our allies, striving to
+banish these things from the face of the earth. It is undoubtedly
+the greatest idea for which man has been summoned to make the supreme
+sacrifice.
+
+Its evolution has been traced. Democracy was the issue in the Spanish
+War, when we fought a weak nation. We have followed its broader
+application to Mexico, when we were willing to ignore the taunts and
+insults of another weak nation, even the loss of “prestige,” for the
+sake of the larger good. And we have now the clue to the President’s
+interpretation of the nation’s mind during the first three years of the
+present war. We were willing to bear the taunts and insults of Germany
+so long as it appeared that a future world peace night best be brought
+about by the preservation of neutrality, by turning the weight of the
+impartial public opinion of our democracy and that of other neutrals
+against militarism and imperialism. Our national aim was ever consistent
+with the ideal of William James, to advance democracy and put an end to
+the evil of war.
+
+The only sufficient reason for the abandonment of the Washingtonian
+policy is the furtherance of the object for which it was inaugurated,
+the advance of democracy. And we had established the precedent,
+with Spain and Mexico, that the Republic shall engage in no war of
+imperialistic conquest. We war only in behalf of, or in defence of,
+democracy.
+
+Before the entrance of America, however, the issues of the European
+War were by no means clear cut along democratic lines. What kind of
+democracy were the allies fighting for? Nowhere and at no time had it
+been defined by any of their statesmen. On the contrary, the various
+allied governments had entered into compacts for the transference
+of territory in the event of victory; and had even, by the offer of
+rewards, sought to play one small nation against another. This secret
+diplomacy of bargains, of course, was a European heritage, the result of
+an imperialistic environment which the American did not understand,
+and from which he was happily free. Its effect on France is peculiarly
+enlightening. The hostility of European governments, due to their fear
+of her republican institutions, retarded her democratic growth, and
+her history during the reign of Napoleon III is one of intrigue for
+aggrandizement differing from Bismarck’s only in the fact that it was
+unsuccessful. Britain, because she was separated from the continent and
+protected by her fleet, virtually withdrew from European affairs in
+the latter part of the nineteenth century, and, as a result, made great
+strides in democracy. The aggressions of Germany forced Britain in
+self-defence into coalitions. Because of her power and wealth she became
+the Entente leader, yet her liberal government was compelled to enter
+into secret agreements with certain allied governments in order to
+satisfy what they deemed to be their needs and just ambitions. She had
+honestly sought, before the war, to come to terms with Germany, and had
+even proposed gradual disarmament. But, despite the best intentions,
+circumstances and environment, as well as the precarious situation of
+her empire, prevented her from liberalizing her foreign relations to
+conform with the growth of democracy within the United Kingdom and the
+Dominions. Americans felt a profound pity for Belgium. But she was
+not, as Cuba had been, our affair. The great majority of our citizens
+sympathized with the Entente, regarded with amazement and disgust the
+sudden disclosure of the true character of the German militaristic
+government. Yet for the average American the war wore the complexion
+of other European conflicts, was one involving a Balance of Power,
+mysterious and inexplicable. To him the underlying issue was not
+democratic, but imperialistic; and this was partly because he was unable
+to make a mental connection between a European war and the brand of
+democracy he recognized. Preaching and propaganda fail unless it can be
+brought home to a people that something dear to their innermost nature
+is at stake, that the fate of the thing they most desire, and are
+willing to make sacrifices for, hangs in the balance.
+
+During a decade the old political parties, between which there was
+now little more than an artificial alignment, had been breaking up.
+Americans were absorbed in the great liberal movement begun under the
+leadership of President Roosevelt, the result of which was to transform
+democracy from a static to a pragmatic and evolutionary conception,--in
+order to meet and correct new and unforeseen evils. Political freedom
+was seen to be of little worth unless also accompanied by the economic
+freedom the nation had enjoyed before the advent of industrialism.
+Clerks and farmers, professional men and shopkeepers and artisans were
+ready to follow the liberal leaders in states and nation; intellectual
+elements from colleges and universities were enlisted. Paralleling
+the movement, at times mingling with it, was the revolt of labour,
+manifested not only in political action, but in strikes and violence.
+Readily accessible books and magazines together with club and forum
+lectures in cities, towns, and villages were rapidly educating the
+population in social science, and the result was a growing independent
+vote to make politicians despair.
+
+Here was an instance of a democratic culture growing in
+isolation, resentful of all external interference. To millions of
+Americans--especially in our middle western and western states--bent
+upon social reforms, the European War appeared as an arresting
+influence. American participation meant the triumph of the forces
+of reaction. Colour was lent to this belief because the conservative
+element which had opposed social reforms was loudest in its demand for
+intervention. The wealthy and travelled classes organized preparedness
+parades and distributed propaganda. In short, those who had apparently
+done their utmost to oppose democracy at home were most insistent that
+we should embark upon a war for democracy across the seas. Again, what
+kind of democracy? Obviously a status quo, commercially imperialistic
+democracy, which the awakening liberal was bent upon abolishing.
+
+There is undoubtedly in such an office as the American presidency
+some virtue which, in times of crisis, inspires in capable men an
+intellectual and moral growth proportional to developing events.
+Lincoln, our most striking example, grew more between 1861 and 1865
+than during all the earlier years of his life. Nor is the growth of
+democratic leaders, when seen through the distorted passions of
+their day, apparently a consistent thing. Greatness, near at hand, is
+startlingly like inconsistency; it seems at moments to vacillate, to
+turn back upon and deny itself, and thus lays itself open to seemingly
+plausible criticism by politicians and time servers and all who cry out
+for precedent. Yet it is an interesting and encouraging fact that the
+faith of democratic peoples goes out, and goes out alone, to leaders
+who--whatever their minor faults and failings--do not fear to reverse
+themselves when occasion demands; to enunciate new doctrines, seemingly
+in contradiction to former assertions, to meet new crises. When a
+democratic leader who has given evidence of greatness ceases to develop
+new ideas, he loses the public confidence. He flops back into the ranks
+of the conservative he formerly opposed, who catch up with him only when
+he ceases to grow.
+
+In 1916 the majority of the American people elected Mr. Wilson in the
+belief that he would keep them out of war. In 1917 he entered the war
+with the nation behind him. A recalcitrant Middle West was the first
+to fill its quota of volunteers, and we witnessed the extraordinary
+spectacle of the endorsement of conscription: What had happened? A very
+simple, but a very great thing Mr. Wilson had made the issue of the
+war a democratic issue, an American issue, in harmony with our national
+hopes and traditions. But why could not this issue have been announced
+in 1914 or 1915? The answer seems to be that peoples, as well as their
+leaders and interpreters, must grow to meet critical situations. In 1861
+the moral idea of the Civil War was obscured and hidden by economic and
+material interests. The Abraham Lincoln who entered the White House in
+1861 was indeed the same man who signed the Emancipation Proclamation
+in 1863; and yet, in a sense, he was not the same man; events and
+responsibilities had effected a profound but logical growth in his
+personality. And the people of the Union were not ready to endorse
+Emancipation in 1861. In 1863, in the darkest hour of the war, the
+spirit of the North responded to the call, and, despite the vilification
+of the President, was true to him to victory. More significant still,
+in view of the events of today, is what then occurred in England. The
+British Government was unfriendly; the British people as a whole had
+looked upon our Civil War very much in the same light as the American
+people regarded the present war at its inception--which is to say that
+the economic and materialistic issue seemed to overshadow the moral one.
+When Abraham Lincoln proclaimed it to be a war for human freedom,
+the sentiment of the British people changed--of the British people as
+distinct from the governing classes; and the textile workers of the
+northern counties, whose mills could not get cotton on account of the
+blockade, declared their willingness to suffer and starve if the slaves
+in America might be freed.
+
+Abraham Lincoln at that time represented the American people as
+the British Government did not represent the British people. We are
+concerned today with peoples rather than governments.
+
+It remained for an American President to announce the moral issue of the
+present war, and thus to solidify behind him, not only the liberal mind
+of America, but the liberal elements within the nations of Europe. He
+became the democratic leader of the world. The issue, simply stated, is
+the advancement of democracy and peace. They are inseparable. Democracy,
+for progress, demands peace. It had reached a stage, when, in a
+contracting world, it could no longer advance through isolation:
+its very existence in every country was threatened, not only by the
+partisans of reaction from within, but by the menace from without of a
+militaristic and imperialistic nation determined to crush it, restore
+superimposed authority, and dominate the globe. Democracy, divided
+against itself, cannot stand. A league of democratic nations, of
+democratic peoples, has become imperative. Hereafter, if democracy wins,
+self-determination, and not imperialistic exploitation, is to be the
+universal rule. It is the extension, on a world scale, of Mr.
+Wilson’s Mexican policy, the application of democratic principles to
+international relationships, and marks the inauguration of a new era. We
+resort to force against force, not for dominion, but to make the
+world safe for the idea on which we believe the future of civilization
+depends, the sacred right of self-government. We stand prepared to treat
+with the German people when they are ready to cast off autocracy and
+militarism. Our attitude toward them is precisely our attitude toward
+the Mexican People. We believe, and with good reason, that the German
+system of education is authoritative and false, and was more or less
+deliberately conceived in order to warp the nature and produce
+complexes in the mind of the German people for the end of preserving and
+perpetuating the power of the Junkers. We have no quarrel with the
+duped and oppressed, but we war against the agents of oppression. To the
+conservative mind such an aspiration appears chimerical. But America,
+youngest of the nations, was born when modern science was gathering
+the momentum which since has enabled it to overcome, with a bewildering
+rapidity, many evils previously held by superstition to be ineradicable.
+As a corollary to our democratic creed, we accepted the dictum that to
+human intelligence all things are possible. The virtue of this dictum
+lies not in dogma, but in an indomitable attitude of mind to which the
+world owes its every advance in civilization; quixotic, perhaps, but
+necessary to great accomplishment. In searching for a present-day
+protagonist, no happier example could be found than Mr. Henry Ford, who
+exhibits the characteristic American mixture of the practical and the
+ideal. He introduces into industry humanitarian practices that even
+tend to increase the vast fortune which by his own efforts he has
+accumulated. He sees that democratic peoples do not desire to go to
+war, he does not believe that war is necessary and inevitable, he lays
+himself open to ridicule by financing a Peace Mission. Circumstances
+force him to abandon his project, but he is not for one moment
+discouraged. His intention remains. He throws all his energy and wealth
+into a war to end war, and the value of his contribution is inestimable.
+
+A study of Mr. Ford’s mental processes and acts illustrates the true
+mind of America. In the autumn of 1916 Mr. Wilson declared that “the
+people of the United States want to be sure what they are fighting
+about, and they want to be sure that they are fighting for the things
+that will bring the world justice and peace. Define the elements; let
+us know that we are not fighting for the prevalence of this nation over
+that, for the ambitions of this group of nations as compared with the
+ambitions of that group of nations, let us once be convinced that we are
+called in to a great combination for the rights of mankind, and America
+will unite her force and spill her blood for the great things she has
+always believed in and followed.”
+
+“America is always ready to fight for the things which are American.”
+ Even in these sombre days that mark the anniversary of our entrance into
+the war. But let it be remembered that it was in the darkest days of the
+Civil War Abraham Lincoln boldly proclaimed the democratic, idealistic
+issue of that struggle. The Russian Revolution, which we must seek
+to understand and not condemn, the Allied defeats that are its
+consequences, can only make our purpose the firmer to put forth all our
+strength for the building up of a better world. The President’s masterly
+series of state papers, distributed in all parts of the globe, have
+indeed been so many Proclamations of Emancipation for the world’s
+oppressed. Not only powerful nations shall cease to exploit little
+nations, but powerful individuals shall cease to exploit their fellow
+men. Henceforth no wars for dominion shall be waged, and to this
+end secret treaties shall be abolished. Peoples through their
+representatives shall make their own treaties. And just as democracy
+insures to the individual the greatest amount of self-determination,
+nations also shall have self-determination, in order that each shall be
+free to make its world contribution. All citizens have duties to
+perform toward their fellow citizens; all democratic nations must be
+interdependent.
+
+With this purpose America has entered the war. But it implies that our
+own household must be swept and cleaned. The injustices and inequalities
+existing in our own country, the false standards of worth, the
+materialism, the luxury and waste must be purged from our midst.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+In fighting Germany we are indeed fighting an evil Will--evil because it
+seeks to crush the growth of individual and national freedom. Its object
+is to put the world back under the thrall of self-constituted authority.
+So long as this Will can compel the bodies of soldiers to do its
+bidding, these bodies must be destroyed. Until the Will behind them is
+broken, the world cannot be free. Junkerism is the final expression
+of reaction, organized to the highest efficiency. The war against the
+Junkers marks the consummation of a long struggle for human liberty in
+all lands, symbolizes the real cleavage dividing the world. As in the
+French Revolution and the wars that followed it, the true significance
+of this war is social. But today the Russian Revolution sounds the
+keynote. Revolutions tend to express the extremes of the philosophies
+of their times--human desires, discontents, and passions that cannot be
+organized. The French Revolution was a struggle for political freedom;
+the underlying issue of the present war is economic freedom--without
+which political freedom is of no account. It will not, therefore,
+suffice merely to crush the Junkers, and with them militarism and
+autocracy. Unless, as the fruit of this appalling bloodshed and
+suffering, the democracies achieve economic freedom, the war will
+have been fought in vain. More revolutions, wastage and bloodshed will
+follow, the world will be reduced to absolute chaos unless, in the more
+advanced democracies, an intelligent social order tending to remove
+the causes of injustice and discontent can be devised and ready for
+inauguration. This new social order depends, in turn, upon a world order
+of mutually helpful, free peoples, a league of Nations.--If the world
+is to be made safe for democracy, this democratic plan must be ready for
+the day when the German Junker is beaten and peace is declared.
+
+The real issue of our time is industrial democracy we must face that
+fact. And those in America and the Entente nations who continue to
+oppose it will do so at their peril. Fortunately, as will be shown, that
+element of our population which may be designated as domestic Junkers
+is capable of being influenced by contemporary currents of thought,
+is awakening to the realization of social conditions deplorable and
+dangerous. Prosperity and power had made them blind and arrogant. Their
+enthusiasm for the war was, however, genuine; the sacrifices they are
+making are changing and softening them; but as yet they can scarcely be
+expected, as a class, to rejoice over the revelation--just beginning
+to dawn upon their minds--that victory for the Allies spells the end of
+privilege. Their conception of democracy remains archaic, while wealth
+is inherently conservative. Those who possess it in America have as a
+rule received an education in terms of an obsolete economics, of the
+thought of an age gone by. It is only within the past few years that our
+colleges and universities have begun to teach modern economics,
+social science and psychology--and this in the face of opposition from
+trustees. Successful business men, as a rule, have had neither the time
+nor the inclination to read books which they regard as visionary,
+as subversive to an order by which they have profited. And that some
+Americans are fools, and have been dazzled in Europe by the glamour of a
+privilege not attainable at home, is a deplorable yet indubitable fact.
+These have little sympathy with democracy; they have even been heard
+to declare that we have no right to dictate to another nation, even an
+enemy nation, what form of government it shall assume. We have no right
+to demand, when peace comes, that the negotiations must be with the
+representatives of the German people. These are they who deplore the
+absence among us of a tradition of monarchy, since the American people
+“should have something to look up to.” But this state of mind, which
+needs no comment, is comparatively rare, and represents an extreme. We
+are not lacking, however, in the type of conservative who, innocent of a
+knowledge of psychology, insists that “human nature cannot be changed,”
+ and that the “survival of the fittest” is the law of life, yet these
+would deny Darwin if he were a contemporary. They reject the idea that
+society can be organized by intelligence, and war ended by eliminating
+its causes from the social order. On the contrary they cling to the
+orthodox contention that war is a necessary and salutary thing, and
+proclaim that the American fibre was growing weak and flabby from luxury
+and peace, curiously ignoring the fact that their own economic class,
+the small percentage of our population owning sixty per cent. of the
+wealth of the country, and which therefore should be most debilitated by
+luxury, was most eager for war, and since war has been declared has most
+amply proved its courage and fighting quality. This, however, and other
+evidences of the patriotic sacrifices of those of our countrymen who
+possess wealth, prove that they are still Americans, and encourages the
+hope and belief that as Americans they ultimately will do their share
+toward a democratic solution of the problem of society. Many of them are
+capable of vision, and are beginning to see the light today.
+
+In America we succeeded in eliminating hereditary power, in obtaining a
+large measure of political liberty, only to see the rise of an economic
+power, and the consequent loss of economic liberty. The industrial
+development of the United States was of course a necessary and desirable
+thing, but the economic doctrine which formed the basis of American
+institutions proved to be unsuited to industrialism, and introduced
+unforeseen evils that were a serious menace to the Republic. An
+individualistic economic philosophy worked admirably while there was
+ample land for the pioneer, equality of opportunity to satisfy the
+individual initiative of the enterprising. But what is known as
+industrialism brought in its train fear and favour, privilege and
+poverty, slums, disease, and municipal vice, fostered a too rapid
+immigration, established in America a tenant system alien to our
+traditions. The conditions which existed before the advent of
+industrialism are admirably pictured, for instance, in the autobiography
+of Mr. Charles Francis Adams, when he describes his native town of
+Quincy in the first half of the Nineteenth Century. In those early
+communities, poverty was negligible, there was no great contrast between
+rich and poor; the artisan, the farmer, the well-to-do merchant met
+on terms of mutual self-respect, as man to man; economic class
+consciousness was non-existent; education was so widespread that
+European travellers wonderingly commented on the fact that we had no
+“peasantry”; and with few exceptions every citizen owned a piece of land
+and a home. Property, a refuge a man may call his own, and on which
+he may express his individuality, is essential to happiness and
+self-respect. Today, less than two thirds of our farmers own their land,
+while vast numbers of our working men and women possess nothing but the
+labour of their hands. The designation of labour as “property” by our
+courts only served to tighten the bonds, by obstructing for a time the
+movement to decrease the tedious and debilitating hours of contact of
+the human organism with the machine,--a menace to the future of the
+race, especially in the case of women and children. If labour is
+“property,” wretches driven by economic necessity have indeed only the
+choice of a change of masters. In addition to the manual workers, an
+army of clerical workers of both sexes likewise became tenants, and
+dependents who knew not the satisfaction of a real home.
+
+Such conditions gradually brought about a profound discontent, a
+grouping of classes. Among the comparatively prosperous there was set
+up a social competition in luxury that was the bane of large and
+small communities. Skilled labour banded itself into unions, employers
+organized to oppose them, and the result was a class conflict never
+contemplated by the founders of the Republic, repugnant to democracy
+which by its very nature depends for its existence on the elimination of
+classes. In addition to this, owing to the unprecedented immigration of
+ignorant Europeans to supply the labour demand, we acquired a sinister
+proletariat of unskilled economic slaves. Before the war labour
+discovered its strength; since the war began, especially in the allied
+nations with quasi-democratic institutions, it is aware of its power to
+exert a leverage capable of paralyzing industry for a period sufficient
+to destroy the chances of victory. The probability of the occurrence
+of such a calamity depends wholly on whether or not the workman can
+be convinced that it is his war, for he will not exert himself to
+perpetuate a social order in which he has lost faith, even though he now
+obtains a considerable increase in wages. Agreements entered into with
+the government by union leaders will not hold him if at any time he
+fails to be satisfied that the present world conflict will not result
+in a greater social justice. This fact has been demonstrated by what
+is known as the “shop steward” movement in England, where the workers
+repudiated the leaders’ agreements and everywhere organized local
+strikes. And in America, the unskilled workers are largely outside of
+the unions.
+
+The workman has a natural and laudable desire to share more fully in
+the good things of life. And it is coming to be recognized that material
+prosperity, up to a certain point, is the foundation of mental and
+spiritual welfare: clean and comfortable surroundings, beauty, rational
+amusements, opportunity for a rational satisfaction of the human
+instincts are essential to contentment and progress. The individual, of
+course, must be enlightened; and local labour unions, recognizing
+this, are spending considerable sums all over the country on schools
+to educate their members. If a workman is a profiteer, he is more to be
+excused than the business profiteer, against whom his anger is directed;
+if he is a spendthrift, prodigality is a natural consequence of rapid
+acquisition. We have been a nation of spendthrifts.
+
+A failure to grasp the psychology of the worker involves disastrous
+consequences. A discussion as to whether or not his attitude is
+unpatriotic and selfish is futile. No more profound mistake could be
+made than to attribute to any element of the population motives wholly
+base. Human nature is neither all black nor all white, yet is capable
+of supreme sacrifices when adequately appealed to. What we must get into
+our minds is the fact that a social order that insured a large measure
+of democracy in the early days of the Republic is inadequate to meet
+modern industrial conditions. Higher wages, material prosperity alone
+will not suffice to satisfy aspirations for a fuller self-realization,
+once the method by which these aspirations can be gained is glimpsed.
+For it cannot be too often repeated that the unquenchable conflicts are
+those waged for ideas and not dollars. These are tinged with religious
+emotion.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+Mr. Wilson’s messages to the American people and to the world have
+proclaimed a new international order, a League of Democracies. And in a
+recent letter to New Jersey Democrats we find him warning his party,
+or more properly the nation, of the domestic social changes necessarily
+flowing from his international program. While rightly resolved to
+prosecute the war on the battle lines to the utmost limit of American
+resources, he points out that the true significance of the conflict lies
+in “revolutionary change.” “Economic and social forces,” he says, “are
+being released upon the world, whose effect no political seer dare to
+conjecture.” And we “must search our hearts through and through and
+make them ready for the birth of a new day--a day we hope and believe
+of greater opportunity and greater prosperity for the average mass of
+struggling men and women.” He recognizes that the next great step in
+the development of democracy which the war must bring about--is the
+emancipation of labour; to use his own phrase, the redemption of masses
+of men and women from “economic serfdom.” “The old party slogans,” he
+declares, “will mean nothing to the future.”
+
+Judging from this announcement, the President seems prepared to condemn
+boldly all the rotten timbers of the social structure that have outlived
+their usefulness--a position that hitherto no responsible politician has
+dared to take. Politicians, on the contrary, have revered the dead wood,
+have sought to shore the old timbers for their own purposes. But so
+far as any party is concerned, Mr. Wilson stands alone. Both of the two
+great parties, the Republican and the Democratic, in order to make
+a show of keeping abreast of the times, have merely patched their
+platforms with the new ideas. The Socialist Party in the United States
+is relatively small, is divided against itself, and has given no
+evidence of a leadership of broad sanity and vision. It is fortunate
+we have been spared in this country the formation of a political labour
+party, because such a party would have been composed of manual workers
+alone, and hence would have tended further to develop economic class
+consciousness, to crystallize class antagonisms. Today, however, neither
+the Republican nor the Democratic party represents the great issue of
+the times; the cleavage between them is wholly artificial. The formation
+of a Liberal Party, with a platform avowedly based on modern social
+science, has become essential. Such a party, to be in harmony with our
+traditions and our creed, to arrest in our democracy the process of
+class stratification which threatens to destroy it, must not draw its
+members from the ranks of manual labour alone, but from all elements
+of our population. It should contain all the liberal professions, and
+clerks and shopkeepers, as well as manual workers; administrators, and
+even those employers who have become convinced that our present
+economic system does not suffice to meet the needs of the day. In short,
+membership in such a party, as far as possible, should not be based upon
+occupation or economic status, but on an honest difference of view from
+that of the conservative opposition. This would be a distinctly American
+solution. In order to form such a party a campaign of education will
+be necessary. For today Mr. Wilson’s strength is derived from the
+independent vote representing the faith of the people as a whole; but
+the majority of those who support the President, while they ardently
+desire the abolition in the world of absolute monarchy, of militarism
+and commercial imperialism, while they are anxious that this war shall
+expedite and not retard the social reforms in which they are interested,
+have as yet but a vague conception of the social order which these
+reforms imply.
+
+It marks a signal advance in democracy when liberal opinion in any
+nation turns for guidance and support to a statesman of another nation.
+No clearer sign of the times could be desired than the fact that our
+American President has suddenly become the liberal leader of the world.
+The traveller in France, and especially in Britain, meets on all sides
+striking evidence of this. In these countries, until America’s entrance
+into the war, liberals had grown more and more dissatisfied with the
+failure of their governments to define in democratic terms the issue of
+the conflict, had resented the secret inter-allied compacts, savouring
+of imperialism and containing the germs of future war. They are now
+looking across the Atlantic for leadership. In France M. Albert Thomas
+declared that Woodrow Wilson had given voice to the aspirations of his
+party, while a prominent Liberal in England announced in a speech that
+it had remained for the American President to express the will and
+purpose of the British people. The new British Labour Party and the
+Inter-Allied Labour and Socialist Conferences have adopted Mr. Wilson’s
+program and have made use of his striking phrases. But we have between
+America and Britain this difference: in America the President stands
+virtually alone, without a party behind him representing his views;
+in Britain the general democratic will of the nation is now being
+organized, but has obtained as yet no spokesman in the government.
+
+Extraordinary symptomatic phenomena have occurred in Russia as well as
+in Britain. In Russia the rebellion of an awakening people against an
+age-long tyranny has almost at once leaped to the issue of the day,
+taken on the complexion of a struggle for industrial democracy. Whether
+the Germans shall be able to exploit the country, bring about a reaction
+and restore for a time monarchical institutions depends largely upon
+the fortunes of the war. In Russia there is revolution, with concomitant
+chaos; but in Britain there is evolution, an orderly attempt of a people
+long accustomed to progress in self-government to establish a new
+social order, peacefully and scientifically, and in accordance with a
+traditional political procedure.
+
+The recent development of the British Labour Party, although of deep
+significance to Americans, has taken place almost without comment in
+this country. It was formally established in 1900, and was then composed
+of manual workers alone. In 1906, out of 50 candidates at the polls, 39
+were elected to Parliament; in 1910, 42 were elected. The Parliamentary
+Labour Party, so called, has now been amalgamated with four and a half
+millions of Trade Unionists, and with the three and a half millions
+of members of the Co-operative Wholesale Society and the Co-operative
+Union. Allowing for duplication of membership, these three
+organizations--according to Mr. Sidney Webb--probably include two fifths
+of the population of the United Kingdom. “So great an aggregation of
+working class organizations,” he says, “has never come shoulder to
+shoulder in any country.” Other smaller societies and organizations are
+likewise embraced, including the Socialists. And now that the suffrage
+has been extended, provision is made for the inclusion of women. The new
+party is organizing in from three to four hundred constituencies, and
+at the next general election is not unlikely to gain control of the
+political balance of power.
+
+With the majority of Americans, however, the word “labour” as
+designating a party arouses suspicion and distrust. By nature and
+tradition we are inclined to deplore and oppose any tendency toward
+the stratification of class antagonisms--the result of industrial
+discontent--into political groups. The British tradition is likewise
+hostile to such a tendency. But in Britain the industrial ferment has
+gone much further than with us, and such a result was inevitable. By
+taking advantage of the British experience, of the closer ties now being
+knit between the two democracies, we may in America be spared a stage
+which in Britain was necessary. Indeed, the program of the new British
+Labour Party seems to point to a distinctly American solution, one in
+harmony with the steady growth of Anglo-Saxon democracy. For it is now
+announced that the word “labour,” as applied to the new party, does not
+mean manual labour alone, but also mental labour. The British unions
+have gradually developed and placed in power leaders educated in social
+science, who have now come into touch with the intellectual leaders
+of the United Kingdom, with the sociologists, economists, and social
+scientists. The surprising and encouraging result of such association is
+the announcement that the new Labour Party is today publicly thrown open
+to all workers, both by hand and by brain, with the object of securing
+for these the full fruits of their industry. This means the inclusion of
+physicians, professors, writers, architects, engineers, and inventors,
+of lawyers who no longer regard their profession as a bulwark of the
+status quo; of clerks, of administrators of the type evolved by the war,
+who indeed have gained their skill under the old order but who now in a
+social spirit are dedicating their gifts to the common weal, organizing
+and directing vast enterprises for their governments. In short, all
+useful citizens who make worthy contributions--as distinguished from
+parasites, profiteers, and drones, are invited to be members; there is
+no class distinction here. The fortunes of such a party are, of course,
+dependent upon the military success of the allied armies and navies. But
+it has defined the kind of democracy the Allies are fighting for, and
+thus has brought about an unqualified endorsement of the war by those
+elements of the population which hitherto have felt the issue to be
+imperialistic and vague rather than democratic and clear cut. President
+Wilson’s international program is approved of and elaborated.
+
+The Report on Reconstruction of the new British Labour Party is perhaps
+the most important political document presented to the world since the
+Declaration of Independence. And like the Declaration, it is written
+in the pure English that alone gives the high emotional quality of
+sincerity. The phrases in which it tersely describes its objects are
+admirable. “What is to be reconstructed after the war is over is
+not this or that government department, this or that piece of social
+machinery, but Society itself.” There is to be a systematic approach
+towards a “healthy equality of material circumstance for every person
+born into the world, and not an enforced dominion over subject nations,
+subject colonies, subject classes, or a subject sex.” In industry as
+well as in government the social order is to be based “on that equal
+freedom, that general consciousness of consent, and that widest
+participation in power, both economic and political, which is
+characteristic of democracy.” But all this, it should be noted, is not
+to be achieved in a year or two of “feverish reconstruction”; “each
+brick that the Labour Party helps to lay shall go to erect the structure
+it intends and no other.”
+
+In considering the main features of this program, one must have in
+mind whether these are a logical projection and continuation of the
+Anglo-Saxon democratic tradition, or whether they constitute an absolute
+break with that tradition. The only valid reason for the adoption of
+such a program in America would be, of course, the restoration of some
+such equality of opportunity and economic freedom as existed in our
+Republic before we became an industrial nation. “The first condition
+of democracy,”--to quote again from the program, “is effective personal
+freedom.”
+
+What is called the “Universal Enforcement of the National Minimum”
+ contemplates the extension of laws already on the statute books in order
+to prevent the extreme degradation of the standard of life brought about
+by the old economic system under industrialism. A living minimum wage is
+to be established. The British Labour Party intends “to secure to
+every member of the community, in good times and bad alike... all the
+requisites of healthy life and worthy citizenship.”
+
+After the war there is to be no cheap labour market, nor are the
+millions of workers and soldiers to fall into the clutches of charity;
+but it shall be a national obligation to provide each of these with work
+according to his capacity. In order to maintain the demand for labour
+at a uniform level, the government is to provide public works. The
+population is to be rehoused in suitable dwellings, both in rural
+districts and town slums; new and more adequate schools and training
+colleges are to be inaugurated; land is to be reclaimed and afforested,
+and gradually brought under common ownership; railways and canals are to
+be reorganized and nationalized, mines and electric power systems. One
+of the significant proposals under this head is that which demands the
+retention of the centralization of the purchase of raw materials brought
+about by the war.
+
+In order to accomplish these objects there must be a “Revolution in
+National Finance.” The present method of raising funds is denounced; and
+it is pointed out that only one quarter of the colossal expenditure made
+necessary by the war has been raised by taxation, and that the three
+quarters borrowed at onerous rates is sure to be a burden on the
+nation’s future. The capital needed, when peace comes, to ensure a happy
+and contented democracy must be procured without encroaching on the
+minimum standard of life, and without hampering production. Indirect
+taxation must therefore be concentrated on those luxuries of which it
+is desirable that the consumption be discouraged. The steadily rising
+unearned increment of urban and mineral land ought, by appropriate
+direct taxation, to be brought into the public exchequer; “the definite
+teachings of economic science are no longer to be disregarded.” Hence
+incomes are to be taxed above the necessary cost of family maintenance,
+private fortunes during life and at death; while a special capital levy
+must be made to pay off a substantial portion of the national debt.
+
+“The Democratic Control of Industry” contemplates the progressive
+elimination of the private capitalist and the setting free of all who
+work by hand and brain for the welfare of all.
+
+The Surplus Wealth is to be expended for the Common Good. That which
+Carlyle designates as the “inward spiritual,” in contrast to the
+“outward economical,” is also to be provided for. “Society,” says the
+document, “like the individual, does not live by bread alone, does not
+exist only for perpetual wealth production.” First of all, there is to
+be education according to the highest modern standard; and along with
+education, the protection and advancement of the public health, ‘mens
+sana in corpore sano’. While large sums must be set aside, not only for
+original research in every branch of knowledge, but for the promotion
+of music, literature, and fine art, upon which “any real development of
+civilization fundamentally depends.”
+
+In regard to the British Empire, the Labour Party urges self-government
+for any people, whatever its colour, proving itself capable, and the
+right of that people to the proceeds of its own toil upon the resources
+of its territory. An unequivocal stand is taken for the establishment,
+as a part of the treaty of peace, of a Universal Society of Nations;
+and recognizing that the future progress of democracy depends upon
+co-operation and fellowship between liberals of all countries, the
+maintenance of intimate relationships is advocated with liberals
+oversea.
+
+Finally, a scientific investigation of each succeeding problem in
+government is insisted upon, and a much more rapid dissemination among
+the people of the science that exists. “A plutocratic party may choose
+to ignore science, but no labour party can hope to maintain its position
+unless its proposals are, in fact, the outcome of the best political
+science of its time.”
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+There are, it will be seen, some elements in the program of the new
+British Labour Party apparently at variance with American and English
+institutions, traditions, and ideas. We are left in doubt, for instance,
+in regard to its attitude toward private property. The instinct for
+property is probably innate in humanity, and American conservatism in
+this regard is, according to certain modern economists, undoubtedly
+sound. A man should be permitted to acquire at least as much property
+as is required for the expression of his personality; such a wise
+limitation, also, would abolish the evil known as absentee ownership.
+Again, there will arise in many minds the question whether the funds
+for the plan of National finance outlined in the program may be obtained
+without seriously deranging the economic system of the nation and of the
+world. The older school denounces the program as Utopian. On the other
+hand, economists of the modern school who have been consulted have
+declared it practical. It is certain that before the war began it would
+not have been thought possible to raise the billions which in four
+years have been expended on sheer destruction; and one of our saddest
+reflections today must be of regret that a small portion of these
+billions which have gone to waste could not have been expended for the
+very purposes outlined--education, public health, the advancement of
+science and art, public buildings, roads and parks, and the proper
+housing of populations! It is also dawning upon us, as a result of new
+practices brought about by the war, that our organization of industry
+was happy-go-lucky, inefficient and wasteful, and that a more scientific
+and economical organization is imperative. Under such a new system it
+may well be, as modern economists claim, that, we shall have an ample
+surplus for the Common Good.
+
+The chief objection to a National or Democratic Control of Industry has
+been that it would tend to create vast political machines and thus give
+the politicians in office a nefarious power. It is not intended here to
+attempt a refutation of this contention. The remedy lies in a changed
+attitude of the employee and the citizen toward government, and the
+fact that such an attitude is now developing is not subject to absolute
+proof. It may be said, however, that no greater menace to democracy
+could have arisen than the one we seem barely to have escaped--the
+control of politics and government by the capitalistic interests of the
+nation. What seems very clear is that an evolutionary drift toward the
+national control of industry has for many years been going on, and that
+the war has tremendously speeded up the tendency. Government has stepped
+in to protect the consumer of necessities from the profiteer, and
+is beginning to set a limit upon profits; has regulated exports and
+imports; established a national shipping corporation and merchant
+marine, and entered into other industries; it has taken over the
+railroads at least for the duration of the war, and may take over coal
+mines, and metal resources, as well as the forests and water power; it
+now contemplates the regulation of wages.
+
+The exigency caused by the war, moreover, has transformed the former
+practice of international intercourse. Co-operation has replaced
+competition. We are reorganizing and regulating our industries, our
+business, making sacrifices and preparing to make more sacrifices in
+order to meet the needs of our Allies, now that they are sore beset. For
+a considerable period after the war is ended, they will require our aid.
+We shall be better off than any other of the belligerent nations, and
+we shall therefore be called upon to practice, during the years of
+reconstruction, a continuation of the same policy of helpfulness.
+Indeed, for the nations of the world to spring, commercially speaking,
+at one another’s throats would be suicidal even if it were possible. Mr.
+Sidney Webb has thrown a flood of light upon the conditions likely to
+prevail. For example, speculative export trade is being replaced by
+collective importing, bringing business more directly under the control
+of the consumer. This has been done by co-operative societies, by
+municipalities and states, in Switzerland, France, the United Kingdom,
+and in Germany. The Co-operative Wholesale Society of Great Britain,
+acting on behalf of three and a half million families, buys two and a
+half million dollars of purchases annually. And the Entente nations, in
+order to avoid competitive bidding, are buying collectively from us, not
+only munitions of war, but other supplies, while the British Government
+has made itself the sole importer of such necessities as wheat, sugar,
+tea, refrigerated meat, wool, and various metals. The French and Italian
+governments, and also certain neutral states, have done likewise. A
+purchasing commission for all the Allies and America is now proposed.
+After the war, as an inevitable result, for one thing, of transforming
+some thirty million citizens into soldiers, of engaging a like number of
+men and women at enhanced wages on the manufacture of the requisites of
+war, Mr. Webb predicts a world shortage not only in wheat and foodstuffs
+but in nearly all important raw materials. These will be required for
+the resumption of manufacture. In brief, international co-operation
+will be the only means of salvation. The policy of international trade
+implied by world shortage is not founded upon a law of “supply and
+demand.” The necessities cannot be permitted to go to those who can
+afford to pay the highest prices, but to those who need them most. For
+the “free play of economic forces” would mean famine on a large scale,
+because the richer nations and the richer classes within the nations
+might be fully supplied; but to the detriment and ruin of the world
+the poorer nations and the poorer classes would be starved. Therefore
+governments are already beginning to give consideration to a new
+organization of international trade for at least three years after
+the war. Now if this organization produce, as it may produce, a more
+desirable civilization and a happier world order, we are not likely
+entirely to go back--especially in regard to commodities which are
+necessities--to a competitive system. The principle of “priority
+of need” will supersede the law of “supply and demand.” And the
+organizations built up during the war, if they prove efficient, will not
+be abolished. Hours of labour and wages in the co-operative League of
+Nations will gradually be equalized, and tariffs will become things
+of the past. “The axiom will be established,” says Mr. Webb, “that the
+resources of every country must, be held for the benefit not only of its
+own people but of the world.... The world shortage will, for years to
+come, make import duties look both oppressive and ridiculous.”
+
+So much may be said for the principle of Democratic Control. In spite of
+all theoretical opposition, circumstances and evolution apparently point
+to its establishment. A system that puts a premium on commercial greed
+seems no longer possible.
+
+The above comments, based on the drift of political practice during
+the past decade and a half, may be taken for what they are worth.
+Predictions are precarious. The average American will be inclined to
+regard the program of the new British Labour Party as the embodiment of
+what he vaguely calls Socialism, and to him the very word is repugnant.
+Although he may never have heard of Marx, it is the Marxian conception
+that comes to his mind, and this implies coercion, a government that
+constantly interferes with his personal liberty, that compels him
+to tasks for which he has no relish. But your American, and your
+Englishman, for that matter, is inherently an individualist he wants as
+little government as is compatible with any government at all. And the
+descendants of the continental Europeans who flock to our shores
+are Anglo-Saxonized, also become by environment and education
+individualists. The great importance of preserving this individualism,
+this spirit in our citizens of self-reliance, this suspicion against too
+much interference with personal liberty, must at once be admitted. And
+any scheme for a social order that tends to eliminate and destroy it
+should by Americans be summarily rejected.
+
+The question of supreme interest to us, therefore, is whether the
+social order implied in the British program is mainly in the nature of
+a development of, or a break with, the Anglo-Saxon democratic tradition.
+The program is derived from an English source. It is based on what is
+known as modern social science, which has as its ultimate sanction the
+nature of the human mind as revealed by psychology. A consideration of
+the principles underlying this proposed social order may prove that it
+is essentially--if perhaps paradoxically--individualistic, a logical
+evolution of institutions which had their origin in the Magna Charta.
+Our Declaration of Independence proclaimed that every citizen had the
+right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” which means
+the opportunity to achieve the greatest self-development and
+self-realization. The theory is that each citizen shall find his place,
+according to his gifts and abilities, and be satisfied therewith. We may
+discover that this is precisely what social science, in an industrial
+age, and by spiritualizing human effort, aims to achieve. We may find
+that the appearance of such a program as that of the British Labour
+Party, supported as it is by an imposing proportion of the population
+of the United Kingdom, marks a further step, not only in the advance of
+social science and democracy, but also of Christianity.
+
+I mention Christianity, not for controversial or apologetic reasons, but
+because it has been the leaven of our western civilization ever since
+the fall of the Roman Empire. Its constant influence has been to soften
+and spiritualize individual and national relationships. The bitter
+controversies, wars, and persecutions which have raged in its name are
+utterly alien to its being. And that the present war is now being fought
+by the Allies in the hope of putting an end to war, and is thus in the
+true spirit of Christianity, marks an incomparable advance.
+
+Almost up to the present day, both in our conception and practice of
+Christianity, we have largely neglected its most important elements.
+Christian orthodoxy, as Auguste Sabatier points out, is largely derived
+from the older supernatural religions. The preservative shell of dogma
+and superstition has been cracking, and is now ready to burst, and the
+social teaching of Jesus would seem to be the kernel from which has
+sprung modern democracy, modern science, and modern religion--a trinity
+and unity.
+
+For nearly two thousand years orthodoxy has insisted that the social
+principles of Christianity are impractical. And indeed, until the
+present day, they have been so. Physical science, by enormously
+accelerating the means of transportation and communication, has so
+contracted the world as to bring into communion peoples and races
+hitherto far apart; has made possible an intelligent organization of
+industry which, for the first time in history, can create a surplus
+ample to maintain in comfort the world’s population. But this demands
+the will to co-operation, which is a Christian principle--a recognition
+of the brotherhood of man. Furthermore, physical science has increased
+the need for world peace and international co-operation because the
+territories of all nations are now subject to swift and terrible
+invasion by modern instruments of destruction, while the future
+submarine may sweep commerce from the seas.
+
+Again, orthodoxy declares that human nature is inherently “bad,” while
+true Christianity, endorsed by psychology, proclaims it inherently
+“good,” which means that, properly guided, properly educated, it is
+creative and contributive rather than destructive. No more striking
+proof of this fact can be cited than the modern experiment in prison
+reform in which hardened convicts, when “given a chance,” frequently
+become useful citizens. Unjust and unintelligent social conditions are
+the chief factors in making criminals.
+
+Our most modern system of education, of which Professor John Dewey is
+the chief protagonist, is based upon the assertions of psychology that
+human nature is essentially “good” creative. Every normal child is
+supposed to have a special “distinction” or gift, which it is the task
+of the educator to discover. This distinction found, the child achieves
+happiness in creation and contribution. Self-realization demands
+knowledge and training: the doing of right is not a negative but a
+positive act; it is not without significance that the Greek word for sin
+is literally “missing the mark.” Christianity emphasizes above all else
+the worth of the individual, yet recognizes that the individual can
+develop only in society. And if the individual be of great worth, this
+worth must be by society developed to its utmost. Universal suffrage is
+a logical corollary.
+
+Universal suffrage, however, implies individual judgment, which means
+that the orthodox principle of external authority is out of place both
+in Christianity and democracy. The Christian theory is that none shall
+intervene between a man’s Maker and himself; democracy presupposes that
+no citizen shall accept his beliefs and convictions from others, but
+shall make up his own mind and act accordingly. Open-mindedness is the
+first requisite of science and democracy.
+
+What has been deemed, however, in Christianity the most unrealizable
+ideal is that which may be called pacifism--to resist not evil, to turn
+the other cheek, to agree with your adversary while you are in the
+way with him. “I come not,” said Jesus, in one of those paradoxical
+statements hitherto so difficult to understand, “I come not to bring
+peace, but a sword.” It is indeed what we are fighting for--peace. But
+we believe today, more strongly than ever before, as democracy advances,
+as peoples tend to gain more and more control over their governments,
+that even this may not be an unrealizable ideal. Democracies, intent on
+self-realization and self-development, do not desire war.
+
+The problem of social science, then, appears to be to organize human
+society on the principles and ideals of Christianity. But in view of
+the fact that the trend of evolution is towards the elimination of
+commercial competition, the question which must seriously concern us
+today is--What in the future shall be the spur of individual initiative?
+Orthodoxy and even democratic practice have hitherto taken it for
+granted--in spite of the examples of highly socialized men, benefactors
+of society--that the average citizen will bestir himself only for
+material gain. And it must be admitted that competition of some sort is
+necessary for self-realization, that human nature demands a prize. There
+can be no self-sacrifice without a corresponding self-satisfaction.
+The answer is that in the theory of democracy, as well as in that of
+Christianity, individualism and co-operation are paradoxically blended.
+For competition, Christianity substitutes emulation. And with democracy,
+it declares that mankind itself can gradually be rained towards the
+level of the choice individual who does not labour for gain, but in
+behalf of society. For the process of democracy is not degrading, but
+lifting. Like Christianity, democracy demands faith, and has as its
+inspiring interpretation of civilization evolution towards a spiritual
+goal. Yet the kind of faith required is no longer a blind faith, but one
+founded on sane and carefully evolved theories. Democracy has become a
+scientific experiment.
+
+In this connection, as one notably inspired by emulation, by the joy of
+creative work and service, the medical profession comes first to
+mind. The finer element in this profession is constantly increasing in
+numbers, growing more and more influential, making life less easy for
+the quack, the vendor of nostrums, the commercial proprietor of the
+bogus medical college. The doctor who uses his talents for gain is
+frowned upon by those of his fellow practitioners whose opinion really
+counts. Respected physicians in our cities give much of their time to
+teaching, animating students with their own spirit; and labour long
+hours, for no material return, in the clinics of the poor. And how
+often, in reading our newspapers, do we learn that some medical
+scientist, by patient work, and often at the risk of life and health,
+has triumphed over a scourge which has played havoc with humanity
+throughout the ages! Typhoid has been conquered, and infant paralysis;
+gangrene and tetanus, which have taken such toll of the wounded in
+Flanders and France; yellow fever has been stamped out in the tropics;
+hideous lesions are now healed by a system of drainage. The very list of
+these achievements is bewildering, and latterly we are given hope of
+the prolongation of life itself. Here in truth are Christian deeds
+multiplied by science, made possible by a growing knowledge of and
+mastery over Nature.
+
+Such men by virtue of their high mission are above the vicious social
+and commercial competition poisoning the lives of so many of their
+fellow citizens. In our democracy they have found their work, and the
+work is its own reward. They give striking testimony to the theory that
+absorption in a creative or contributive task is the only source of
+self-realization. And he has little faith in mankind who shall
+declare that the medical profession is the only group capable of being
+socialized, or, rather, of socializing themselves--for such is the
+true process of democracy. Public opinion should be the leaven. What
+is possible for the doctor is also possible for the lawyer, for the
+teacher. In a democracy, teaching should be the most honoured of the
+professions, and indeed once was,--before the advent of industrialism,
+when it gradually fell into neglect,--occasionally into deplorable
+submission to the possessors of wealth. Yet a wage disgracefully
+low, hardship, and even poverty have not hindered men of ability from
+entering it in increasing numbers, renouncing ease and luxuries. The
+worth of the contributions of our professors to civilization has been
+inestimable; and fortunately signs are not lacking that we are coming
+to an appreciation of the value of the expert in government, who is
+replacing the panderer and the politician. A new solidarity of teaching
+professional opinion, together with a growing realization by our public
+of the primary importance of the calling, is tending to emancipate it,
+to establish it in its rightful place.
+
+Nor are our engineers without their ideal. A Goethals did not cut an
+isthmus in two for gain.
+
+Industrialism, with its concomitant “corporation” practice, has
+undoubtedly been detrimental to the legal profession, since it has
+resulted in large fees; in the accumulation of vast fortunes, frequently
+by methods ethically questionable. Grave social injustices have been
+done, though often in good faith, since the lawyer, by training and
+experience, has hitherto been least open to the teachings of the new
+social science, has been an honest advocate of the system of ‘laissez
+faire’. But to say that the American legal profession is without ideals
+and lacking in the emulative spirit would be to do it a grave injustice.
+The increasing influence of national and state bar associations
+evidences a professional opinion discouraging to the unscrupulous;
+while a new evolutionary and more humanitarian conception of law is now
+beginning to be taught, and young men are entering the ranks imbued
+with this. Legal clinics, like medical clinics, are established for the
+benefit of those who cannot afford to pay fees, for the protection
+of the duped from the predatory quack. And, it must be said of this
+profession, which hitherto has held a foremost place in America,
+that its leaders have never hesitated to respond to a public call, to
+sacrifice their practices to serve the nation. Their highest ambition
+has even been to attain the Supreme Court, where the salary is a mere
+pittance compared to what they may earn as private citizens.
+
+Thus we may review all the groups in the nation, but the most
+significant transformation of all is taking place within the business
+group,--where indeed it might be least expected. Even before the war
+there were many evidences that the emulative spirit in business had
+begun to modify the merely competitive, and we had the spectacle of
+large employers of labour awakening to the evils of industrialism, and
+themselves attempting to inaugurate reforms. As in the case of labour,
+it would be obviously unfair to claim that the employer element was
+actuated by motives of self-interest alone; nor were their concessions
+due only to fear. Instances could be cited, if there were space, of
+voluntary shortening of hours of labour, of raising of wages, when
+no coercion was exerted either by the labour unions or the state;
+and--perhaps to their surprise employers discovered that such acts were
+not only humane but profitable! Among these employers, in fact, may be
+observed individuals in various stages of enlightenment, from the few
+who have educated themselves in social science, who are convinced that
+the time has come when it is not only practicable but right, who realize
+that a new era has dawned; to others who still believe in the old
+system, who are trying to bolster it up by granting concessions, by
+establishing committees of conference, by giving a voice and often a
+financial interest, but not a vote, in the conduct of the corporation
+concerned. These are the counterpart, in industry, of sovereigns whose
+away has been absolute, whose intentions are good, but who hesitate,
+often from conviction, to grant constitutions. Yet even these are
+responding in some degree to social currents, though the aggressive
+struggles of labour may have influenced them, and partially opened
+their eyes. They are far better than their associates who still seek to
+control the supplies of food and other necessities, whose efficiency is
+still solely directed, not toward a social end, but toward the amassing
+of large fortunes, and is therefore wasted so far as society is
+concerned. They do not perceive that by seeking to control prices they
+merely hasten the tendency of government control, for it is better to
+have government regulation for the benefit of the many than proprietary
+control, however efficient, for the benefit of the few.
+
+That a significant change of heart and mind has begun to take place
+amongst capitalists, that the nucleus of a “public opinion” has been
+formed within an element which, by the use and wont of business and
+habits of thought might be regarded as least subject to the influence of
+social ideas, is a most hopeful augury. This nascent opinion has begun
+to operate by shaming unscrupulous and recalcitrant employers into
+better practices. It would indeed fare ill with democracy if, in such
+an era, men of large business proved to be lacking in democratic
+initiative, wholly unreceptive and hostile to the gradual introduction
+of democracy into industry, which means the perpetuation of the
+American Idea. Fortunately, with us, this capitalistic element is of
+comparatively recent growth, the majority of its members are essentially
+Americans; they have risen from small beginnings, and are responsive
+to a democratic appeal--if that appeal be properly presented. And, as a
+matter of fact, for many years a leaven had been at work among them; the
+truth has been brought home to them that the mere acquisition of wealth
+brings neither happiness nor self-realization; they have lavished their
+money on hospitals and universities, clinics, foundations for scientific
+research, and other gifts of inestimable benefit to the nation and
+mankind. Although the munificence was on a Medicean scale, this private
+charity was in accord with the older conception of democracy, and paved
+the way for a new order.
+
+The patriotic and humanitarian motive aroused by the war greatly
+accelerated the socializing transformation of the business man and the
+capitalist. We have, indeed, our profiteers seeking short cuts to luxury
+and wealth; but those happily most representative of American affairs,
+including the creative administrators, hastened to Washington with a
+willingness to accept any position in which they might be useful, and
+in numerous instances placed at the disposal of the government the
+manufacturing establishments which, by industry and ability, they
+themselves had built up. That in thus surrendering the properties for
+which they were largely responsible they hoped at the conclusion of
+peace to see restored the ‘status quo ante’ should not be held against
+them. Some are now beginning to surmise that a complete restoration is
+impossible; and as a result of their socializing experience, are even
+wondering whether it is desirable. These are beginning to perceive
+that the national and international organizations in the course of
+construction to meet the demands of the world conflict must form the
+model for a future social structure; that the unprecedented pressure
+caused by the cataclysm is compelling a recrystallization of society in
+which there must be fewer misfits, in which many more individuals than
+formerly shall find public or semi-public tasks in accordance with their
+gifts and abilities.
+
+It may be argued that war compels socialization, that after the war
+the world will perforce return to materialistic individualism. But this
+calamity, terrible above all others, has warned us of the imperative
+need of an order that shall be socializing, if we are not to witness the
+destruction of our civilization itself. Confidence that such an order,
+thanks to the advancement of science, is now within our grasp should not
+be difficult for Americans, once they have rightly conceived it. We, who
+have always pinned our faith to ideas, who entered the conflict for an
+Idea, must be the last to shirk the task, however Herculean, of world
+reconstruction along the lines of our own professed faith. We cannot be
+renegades to Democracy.
+
+Above all things, then, it is essential for us as a people not to
+abandon our faith in man, our belief that not only the exceptional
+individual but the majority of mankind can be socialized. What is true
+of our physicians, our scientists and professional men, our manual
+workers, is also true of our capitalists and business men. In a more
+just and intelligent organization of society these will be found willing
+to administer and improve for the common weal the national resources
+which formerly they exploited for the benefit of themselves and their
+associates. The social response, granted the conditions, is innate in
+humanity, and individual initiative can best be satisfied in social
+realization.
+
+Universal education is the cornerstone of democracy. And the recognition
+of this fact may be called the great American contribution. But in
+our society the fullest self-realization depends upon a well balanced
+knowledge of scientific facts, upon a rounded culture. Thus education,
+properly conceived, is a preparation for intelligent, ethical, and
+contented citizenship. Upon the welfare of the individual depends the
+welfare of all. Without education, free institutions and universal
+suffrage are mockeries; semi-learned masses of the population are at the
+mercy of scheming politicians, controversialists, and pseudo-scientific
+religionists, and their votes are swayed by prejudice.
+
+In a materialistic competitive order, success in life depends upon the
+knack--innate or acquired, and not to be highly rated--of outwitting
+one’s neighbour under the rules of the game--the law; education is
+merely a cultural leaven within the reach of the comparatively few
+who can afford to attend a university. The business college is a more
+logical institution. In an emulative civilization, however, the problem
+is to discover and develop in childhood and youth the personal aptitude
+or gift of as many citizens as possible, in order that they may find
+self-realization by making their peculiar contribution towards the
+advancement of society.
+
+The prevailing system of education, which we have inherited from the
+past, largely fails to accomplish this. In the first place, it has been
+authoritative rather than scientific, which is to say that students have
+been induced to accept the statements of teachers and text books, and
+have not been trained to weigh for themselves their reasonableness and
+worth; a principle essentially unscientific and undemocratic, since it
+inculcates in the future citizen convictions rather than encourages the
+habit of open-mindedness so necessary for democratic citizenship.
+For democracy--it cannot be too often repeated--is a dynamic thing,
+experimental, creative in its very essence. No static set of opinions
+can apply to the constantly changing aspect of affairs. New discoveries,
+which come upon us with such bewildering rapidity, are apt abruptly to
+alter social and industrial conditions, while morals and conventions are
+no longer absolute. Sudden crises threaten the stability of nations
+and civilizations. Safety lies alone in the ability to go forward,
+to progress. Psychology teaches us that if authoritative opinions,
+convictions, or “complexes” are stamped upon the plastic brain of
+the youth they tend to harden, and he is apt to become a Democrat or
+Republican, an Episcopalian or a Baptist, a free trader or a tariff
+advocate or a Manchester economist without asking why. Such “complexes”
+ were probably referred to by the celebrated physician who emphasized
+the hopelessness of most individuals over forty. And every reformer and
+forum lecturer knows how difficult it is to convert the average audience
+of seasoned adults to a new idea: he finds the most responsive groups
+in the universities and colleges. It is significant that the “educated”
+ adult audiences in clubs and prosperous churches are the least open to
+conversion, because, in the scientific sense, the “educated” classes
+retain complexes, and hence are the least prepared to cope with the
+world as it is today. The German system, which has been bent upon
+installing authoritative conviction instead of encouraging freedom of
+thought, should be a warning to us.
+
+Again, outside of the realm of physical science, our text books have
+been controversial rather than impartial, especially in economics and
+history; resulting in erroneous and distorted and prejudiced ideas of
+events, such for instance, as our American Revolution. The day of the
+controversialist is happily coming to an end, and of the writer who
+twists the facts of science to suit a world of his own making, or of
+that of a group with which he is associated. Theory can now be labelled
+theory, and fact, fact. Impartial and painstaking investigation is the
+sole method of obtaining truth.
+
+The old system of education benefited only the comparatively few to
+whose nature and inclination it was adapted. We have need, indeed, of
+classical scholars, but the majority of men and women are meant for
+other work; many, by their very construction of mind, are unfitted to
+become such. And only in the most exceptional cases are the ancient
+languages really mastered; a smattering of these, imposed upon the
+unwilling scholar by a principle opposed to psychology,--a smattering
+from which is derived no use and joy in after life, and which has no
+connection with individual inclination--is worse than nothing. Precious
+time is wasted during the years when the mind is most receptive. While
+the argument of the old school that discipline can only be inculcated
+by the imposition of a distasteful task is unsound. As Professor Dewey
+points out, unless the interest is in some way involved there can be
+no useful discipline. And how many of our university and high school
+graduates today are in any sense disciplined? Stimulated interest
+alone can overcome the resistance imposed by a difficult task, as any
+scientist, artist, organizer or administrator knows. Men will discipline
+themselves to gain a desired end. Under the old system of education a
+few children succeed either because they are desirous of doing well,
+interested in the game of mental competition; or else because they
+contrive to clothe with flesh and blood some subject presented as a
+skeleton. It is not uncommon, indeed, to recognize in later years with
+astonishment a useful citizen or genius whom at school or college we
+recall as a dunce or laggard. In our present society, because of archaic
+methods of education, the development of such is largely left to chance.
+Those who might have been developed in time, who might have found their
+task, often become wasters, drudges, and even criminals.
+
+The old system tends to make types, to stamp every scholar in the same
+mould, whether he fits it or not. More and more the parents of today
+are looking about for new schools, insisting that a son or daughter
+possesses some special gift which, under teachers of genius, might be
+developed before it is too late. And in most cases, strange to say, the
+parents are right. They themselves have been victims of a standardized
+system.
+
+A new and distinctly American system of education, designed to meet the
+demands of modern conditions, has been put in practice in parts of the
+United States. In spite of opposition from school boards, from all
+those who cling to the conviction that education must of necessity be an
+unpalatable and “disciplinary” process, the number of these schools is
+growing. The objection, put forth by many, that they are still in the
+experimental stage, is met by the reply that experiment is the very
+essence of the system. Democracy is experimental, and henceforth
+education will remain experimental for all time. But, as in any other
+branch of science, the element of ascertained fact will gradually
+increase: the latent possibilities in the mind of the healthy child will
+be discovered by knowledge gained through impartial investigation. The
+old system, like all other institutions handed down to us from the ages,
+proceeds on no intelligent theory, has no basis on psychology, and is
+accepted merely because it exists.
+
+The new education is selective. The mind of each child is patiently
+studied with the view of discovering the peculiar bent, and this bent
+is guided and encouraged. The child is allowed to forge ahead in those
+subjects for which he shows an aptitude, and not compelled to wait on a
+class. Such supervision, of course, demands more teachers, teachers of
+an ability hitherto deplorably rare, and thoroughly trained in their
+subjects, with a sympathetic knowledge of the human mind. Theirs will be
+the highest and most responsible function in the state, and they must be
+rewarded in proportion to their services.
+
+A superficial criticism declares that in the new schools children will
+study only “what they like.” On the contrary, all subjects requisite for
+a wide culture, as well as for the ability to cope with existence in
+a highly complex civilization, are insisted upon. It is true, however,
+that the trained and gifted teacher is able to discover a method of so
+presenting a subject as to seize the imagination and arouse the interest
+and industry of a majority of pupils. In the modern schools French, for
+example, is really taught; pupils do not acquire a mere smattering
+of the language. And, what is more important, the course of study is
+directly related to life, and to practical experience, instead of being
+set forth abstractly, as something which at the time the pupil perceives
+no possibility of putting into use. At one of the new schools in the
+south, the ignorant child of the mountains at once acquires a knowledge
+of measurement and elementary arithmetic by laying out a garden,
+of letters by inscribing his name on a little signboard in order to
+identify his patch--for the moment private property. And this principle
+is carried through all the grades. In the Gary Schools and elsewhere
+the making of things in the shops, the modelling of a Panama Canal, the
+inspection of industries and governmental establishments, the
+designing, building, and decoration of houses, the discussion and even
+dramatization of the books read,--all are a logical and inevitable
+continuation of the abstract knowledge of the schoolroom. The success of
+the direct application of learning to industrial and professional
+life may also be observed in such colleges as those at Cincinnati and
+Schenectady, where young men spend half the time of the course in the
+shops of manufacturing, corporations, often earning more than enough to
+pay their tuition.
+
+Children are not only prepared for democratic citizenship by being
+encouraged to think for themselves, but also to govern and discipline
+themselves. On the moral side, under the authoritative system of lay
+and religious training, character was acquired at the expense of mental
+flexibility--the Puritan method; our problem today, which the new system
+undertakes, is to produce character with open-mindedness--the kind
+of character possessed by many great scientists. Absorption in an
+appropriate task creates a moral will, while science, knowledge, informs
+the mind why a thing is “bad” or “good,” disintegrating or upbuilding.
+Moreover, these children are trained for democratic government by the
+granting of autonomy. They have their own elected officials, their
+own courts; their decisions are, of course, subject to reversal by the
+principal, but in practice this seldom occurs.
+
+The Gary Schools and many of the new schools are public schools. And the
+principle of the new education that the state is primarily responsible
+for the health of pupils--because an unsound body is apt to make an
+unsound citizen of backward intelligence--is now being generally adopted
+by public schools all over the country. This idea is essentially an
+element of the democratic contention that all citizens must be given
+an equality of opportunity--though all may not be created equal--now
+becoming a positive rather than a negative right, guaranteed by the
+state itself. An earnest attempt is thus made by the state to give
+every citizen a fair start that in later years he may have no ground
+for discontent or complaint. He stands on his own feet, he rises in
+proportion to his ability and industry. Hence the program of the British
+Labour Party rightly lays stress on education, on “freedom of mental
+opportunity.” The vast sums it proposes to spend for this purpose are
+justified.
+
+If such a system of education as that briefly outlined above is
+carefully and impartially considered, the objection that democratic
+government founded on modern social science is coercive must disappear.
+So far as the intention and effort of the state is able to confer it,
+every citizen will have his choice of the task he is to perform for
+society, his opportunity for self-realization. For freedom without
+education is a myth. By degrees men and women are making ready to take
+their places in an emulative rather than a materialistically competitive
+order. But the experimental aspect of this system should always be borne
+in mind, with the fact that its introduction and progress, like that of
+other elements in the democratic program, must be gradual, though always
+proceeding along sound lines. For we have arrived at that stage of
+enlightenment when we realize that the only mundane perfection lies in
+progress rather than achievement. The millennium is always a lap ahead.
+There would be no satisfaction in overtaking it, for then we should have
+nothing more to do, nothing more to work for.
+
+The German Junkers have prostituted science by employing it for the
+destruction of humanity. In the name of Christianity they have waged
+the most barbaric war in history. Yet if they shall have demonstrated
+to mankind the futility of efficiency achieved merely for material ends;
+if, by throwing them on a world screen, they shall have revealed
+the evils of power upheld alone by ruthlessness and force, they will
+unwittingly have performed a world service. Privilege and dominion,
+powers and principalities acquired by force must be sustained by force.
+To fail will be fatal. Even a duped people, trained in servility, will
+not consent to be governed by an unsuccessful autocracy. Arrogantly
+Germany has staked her all on world domination. Hence a victory for the
+Allies must mean a democratic Germany.
+
+Nothing short of victory. There can be no arrangement, no
+agreement, no parley with or confidence in these modern scions of
+darkness--Hohenzollerns, Hindenburgs, Zudendorffs and their tools.
+Propaganda must not cease; the eyes of Germans still capable of sight
+must be opened. But, as the President says, force must be used to the
+limit--force for a social end as opposed to force for an evil end. There
+are those among us who advocate a boycott of Germany after peace is
+declared. These would seem to take it for granted that we shall fall
+short of victory, and hence that selfish retaliative or vindictive
+practices between nations, sanctioned by imperialism, will continue to
+flourish after the war. But should Germany win she will see to it that
+there is no boycott against her. A compromised peace would indeed mean
+the perpetuation of both imperialism and militarism.
+
+It is characteristic of those who put their faith in might alone that
+they are not only blind to the finer relationships between individuals
+and nations, but take no account of the moral forces in human affairs
+which in the long run are decisive,--a lack of sensitiveness which
+explains Germany’s colossal blunders. The first had to do with Britain.
+The German militarists persisted in the belief that the United Kingdom
+was degenerated by democracy, intent upon the acquisition of wealth,
+distracted by strife at home, uncertain of the Empire, and thus would
+selfishly remain aloof while the Kaiser’s armies overran and enslaved
+the continent. What happened, to Germany’s detriment, was the instant
+socialization of Britain, and the binding together of the British
+Empire. Germany’s second great blunder was an arrogant underestimation
+of a self-reliant people of English culture and traditions. She believed
+that we, too, had been made flabby by democracy, were wholly intent upon
+the pursuit of the dollar--only to learn that America would lavish
+her vast resources and shed her blood for a cause which was American.
+Germany herself provided that cause, shaped the issues so that there
+was no avoiding them. She provided the occasion for the socializing
+of America also; and thus brought about, within a year, a national
+transformation which in times of peace might scarce in half a century
+have been accomplished.
+
+Above all, as a consequence of these two blunders, Germany has been
+compelled to witness the consummation of that which of all things she
+had most to fear, the cementing of a lasting fellowship between the
+English speaking Republic and the English speaking Empire. For we had
+been severed since the 18th Century by misunderstandings which of late
+Germany herself had been more or less successful in fostering. She has
+furnished a bond not only between our governments, but--what is vastly
+more important for democracy--a bond between our peoples. Our soldiers
+are now side by side with those of the Empire on the Frontier of
+Freedom; the blood of all is shed and mingled for a great cause embodied
+in the Anglo-Saxon tradition of democracy; and our peoples, through the
+realization of common ideas and common ends, are learning the supreme
+lesson of co-operation between nations with a common past, are being
+cemented into a union which is the symbol and forerunner of the
+democratic league of Nations to come. Henceforth, we believe, because
+of this union, so natural yet so long delayed, by virtue of the ultimate
+victory it forecasts, the sun will never set on the Empire of the free,
+for the drum beats of democracy have been heard around the world. To
+this Empire will be added the precious culture of France, which the
+courage of her sons will have preserved, the contributions of Italy, and
+of Russia, yes, and of Japan.
+
+Our philosophy and our religion are changing; hence it is more and more
+difficult to use the old terms to describe moral conduct. We say,
+for instance, that America’s action in entering the war has been
+“unselfish.” But this merely means that we have our own convictions
+concerning the ultimate comfort of the world, the manner of
+self-realization of individuals and nations. We are attempting to
+turn calamity into good. If this terrible conflict shall result in
+the inauguration of an emulative society, if it shall bring us to the
+recognition that intelligence and science may be used for the upbuilding
+of such an order, and for an eventual achievement of world peace, every
+sacrifice shall have been justified.
+
+Such is the American Issue. Our statesmen and thinkers have helped to
+evolve it, our people with their blood and treasure are consecrating it.
+And these statesmen and thinkers, of whom our American President is
+not the least, are of democracy the pioneers. From the mountain tops on
+which they stand they behold the features of the new world, the dawn of
+the new day hidden as yet from their brothers in the valley. Let us have
+faith always that it is coming, and struggle on, highly resolving that
+those who gave their lives in the hour of darkness shall not have died
+in vain.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of An Essay On The American Contribution
+And The Democratic Idea, by Winston Churchill
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+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AMERICAN CONTRIBUTION ***
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