diff options
Diffstat (limited to '78895-0.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 78895-0.txt | 1131 |
1 files changed, 1131 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/78895-0.txt b/78895-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fbc858a --- /dev/null +++ b/78895-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1131 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78895 *** + + + + + THE NEMESIS + OF MEDIOCRITY + + By + RALPH ADAMS CRAM + LITT.D., LL.D. + + BOSTON + MARSHALL JONES COMPANY + MDCCCCXXI + + + _Copyright, 1917, 1919_ + By Marshall Jones Company + + _All rights reserved_ + + First printing, December, 1917 + Second printing, May, 1918 + Third printing, March, 1919 + Fourth printing, June, 1921 + + + + + THE NEMESIS OF MEDIOCRITY + + “Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us. The + Lord hath wrought great glory by them through his great power + from the beginning. Such as did bear rule in their kingdoms, men + renowned for their power, giving counsel by their understanding, + and declaring prophecies. Leaders of the people by their counsels, + and by their knowledge of learning meet for the people; wise and + eloquent in their instructions. Such as find out musical tunes and + recited verses in writing. Rich men furnished with ability, living + peaceably in their habitations: All these were honoured in their + generations and were the glory of their times.”--ECCLESIASTICUS: + XLIV. + + +Already the revelations of war have cast their searching and mordant +light on all that was brought over to us out of the last century, and +nothing is as it seemed in those far and half mythical days when there +was no war and we maintained a serene content well grounded on its +broad base of solid accomplishment. It was a proud, even an august +possession, this hoard of coined wealth such as men had never gathered +before, made up as it was of all the broad and shining counters minted +out of Renaissance, Reformation and Revolution, and with this vast +reserve our solvency seemed beyond suspicion. The touch of war is +like that of the magician in the fairy tale, and enough of the bright +counters already have turned to dried and worthless leaves to make +us wonder if in the end a single coin may remain to us, honest gold, +unclipped and undebased. + +Some day the count of these revelations will be made up, but now the +tale is not fully told, and we wait, aghast, as each day some old +truism crumbles into folly, some dogma shows thin and evanescent, some +fundamental principle of modernism reveals itself as a superstition +as groundless as those we long ago had cast away. Meanwhile “here we +have no continuing city;” the sands slide under our feet, and we touch +nothing tangible as we reach out for support in a darkness that shows +no sign of breaking. + +Amongst these revelations there is none more unexpected, more baffling +in the fact of its existence or broader in its ramifications, than the +loss of leadership. To-day, when men cry aloud, as never before, for +guides, interpreters, leaders, there is none to answer; in any category +of life, issuing out of any nation. None, that is, that matches in +power the exigency of the demand. There are those that honestly try to +lead; there are those that increasingly lead under the grim schooling +of war, slowly, painfully and towards an end still obscure and +undetermined. Arduously they struggle to build up a following, to see +the insane life of the moment and see it whole; to keep ahead of the +whirlwind of hell-let-loose and direct an amazed and disordered society +along paths of ultimate safety. And always the event outdistances them, +the phantasmagoria of chaos whirls bewilderingly beyond, and either +they follow helplessly or are sucked into the rushing vacuum that comes +in the wake of progressive destruction. In the immediate necessity of +war one august general after another receives command, plays his part +for a day, and disappears, marked by comparative failure if not by +demonstrated incompetence. Potential reputations break down and are +forgotten, in Mesopotamia, Gallipoli, Galicia, Roumania, the Trentino, +the Carso, Champagne, the Argonne: on the North Sea, in the Channel, +through the Mediterranean. The battle fronts east, west, south, bury +more than the bodies of dead soldiers, for reputations are interned +with them in a quick and merciful oblivion. + +Still, fate is a whimsical arbiter, whose operations are unaccountable, +and any day may appear the great leaders thus far coldly refused to +the desperate and death-locked armies, but there is little hope for +a like mercy in statesmanship. The years just before the war were +tumultuous with the petty machinations of the degenerate political +and diplomatic successors of the masterly manipulators of destiny of +the nineteenth century. Noble or cynical, they were leaders, these +men of a dead generation: Metternich, Cavour, Disraeli, Bismarck, +Gladstone, Gambetta, Lincoln, and they have left few successors, either +to their glory or their infamy. Can there be honest comparison between +the political leaders in Great Britain to-day and Peel, Palmerston, +Gladstone, Disraeli and Salisbury, between the flotsam and jetsam of +French parliamentary turbulence and Thiers, Gambetta, de Freycinet? +Contrast the men now controlling the destinies of Italy with those +of the epoch of the Liberation; match the present politicians of +Germany with those to the front from 1870 to 1895; place in one column +the members of President Wilson’s Cabinet, the leaders in Congress, +the Governors of the several States, and in the other the American +political forces from 1860 on for the space of a generation. Whether +you like them all or not, these men of an elder age, one thing you must +concede, and that is their capacity and their dominance as leaders. + +So one might traverse the fields of religion, philosophy, literature, +art, education, matching each man who claims or is accorded priority, +with those of the immediate past whose historical place is now as +assured as was their acceptance during their lives. Long after the +contemporary list finds “finis” written beneath, the other calendar +continues until its length is greater by tenfold. Not only this, but +there is unquestioned difference in quality; as between Harmsworth and +Gladstone, Bryan and Cleveland, Benedict XV and Leo XIII, Wells and +Emerson, Ornstein and Brahms. The leaders that once were, found their +following through comprehension of their own force and dominance, those +that are now, _faute de mieux_, and because there are no others to lead. + +Inch by inch the valleys are being filled and the mountains brought +low. More arduously the man stronger than another lifts above the +level uniformity; a few still continue, lasting over from an earlier +generation, but in a year or two they also will pass, and few indeed +are rising to take their place. Meanwhile “the hungry sheep look up, +and are not fed,” for the soul of sane man demands leadership, and in +spite of academic aphorisms on Equality, a dim consciousness survives +of the fundamental truth that without strong leadership democracy is a +menace; without strong leadership culture and even civilization will +pass away. + +Now as always the great mass of men look for the master-man who can +form in definite shape the aspirations and the instincts that in them +are formless and amorphous; who can lead where they are more than +willing to follow, but themselves cannot mark the way; who can act as +a centripetal force and gather into potent units the diffuse atoms of +like will but without co-ordinating ability. So great is this central +human instinct (which was not only the foundation of feudalism but +harks back to the very beginnings of society), that when the great +leader is not revealed he is invented out of the more impudent element +of any potential group, assurance taking the place of competence; +or optimistically assumed, the most available being dragged from his +obscurity and pitched into a position, or burdened with a task, outside +the limits of his ability--as he himself only too often knows. + +And as the supply of leaders diminishes the more reckless becomes the +desperate choice. It is perhaps not so much that men now reject all +leadership as it is that they blindly accept the inferior type; the +specious demagogue, the unscrupulous master of effrontery. Men follow +to-day as they always have and always will, the difference lies in the +quality of those that are followed. In default of the leader of the +old type, the man who first saw beyond the obvious and drew others +after him by force of vision and will and personal quality, the group, +and the super-group which we call the mob, create their leaders in +their own image, and out of their own material. Giolitti and Caillaux, +Ramsay Macdonald, Lenine and La Follette are the synthetic product +of a mechanical process of self-expression on the part of groups of +men without leaders, but who must have them and so make shift to +precipitate them in material form out of the undifferentiated mass of +their common inclinations, passions and prejudices. + +It is because of this that religion is no longer marked by the +dominance of figures like St. Paul, St. Benedict, St. Bernard, +St. Francis, St. Catherine of Siena, or even like Luther, Calvin, +John Wesley, but rather by the uncouth flotsam of the intellectual +underworld or the obscurantist _faquirs_ of a decadent Orientalism. It +is because of this that no longer a Plato or an Aristotle, a St. Thomas +Aquinas, or a Duns Scotus, a Kant, a Descartes, or a Herbert Spencer +controls the destinies of philosophy, but semi-converted novelists, +jejune instructors in psychology, and imperfectly developed but +sufficiently voluble journalists. It is because of this that salutary +movements like socialism, trades-unionism and political reform are +betrayed by the leaders that, for lack of better, have been pitchforked +into pre-eminence, and who, degraded and debased by dulness, obliquity +of vision and crude incompetence, become not a benefit but a menace. + +The argument that we are too near the present (since we ourselves +_are_ the present) to estimate greatness or establish our standard of +comparative values, but that another generation will find amongst our +contemporaries what we have missed, has no validity. I am speaking +of leadership, and leadership is not posthumous. We knew, those of +us who entered into the activities of life about 1880, that we were +“surrounded by such a cloud of witnesses,” that the world was so rich +in leadership--either for wisdom or folly--we lacked no possible +followings for our choice, but rather were confused by the plethora of +options. There was no doubt then that there were great men around and +about us. We were all hero-worshippers then, and there was sufficient +reason for our worship. I have made a list of the men who were living +in 1880, all of whom were great captains, and who would be accepted by +all as leaders of men: there are sixty of them, and I can add another +hundred of only a little less eminence, but whose claims some might +contest. All of these hundred and sixty “immortals” had died before +1905, and I challenge anyone to fill a tenth of the places they left +vacant with the names, unknown in 1880, of men whose claim can be +unquestioned. + +A generation that contains such a group as Emerson, Carlyle, Ruskin, +Matthew Arnold, Herbert Spencer, Darwin, Bismarck, Disraeli, Cavour, +Wagner, Browning, William Morris, Tourgeneff, Stevenson, Leo XIII, +Cardinal Newman, Karl Marx and von Moltke is a generation that lacks +nothing in leadership, and when is added a further century and a half +of names, all practically of the same grade and class, we can only look +back on those astonishing years with admiration, and then around at +our own time, with the greatest issues in a thousand years clamouring +for solution and almost none to lead in the solving, appalled and +despairing, while we reach out blindly for some explanation of the +cataclysm that has occurred. + +There are those who will claim that the leadership has not been lost +but only changed in direction. They will say that the leaders are now +to be found in the ranks of applied science, of industrial exploitation +and organization, of high finance and economic “efficiency.” They +will offer as their contribution Edison and Marconi and Krupp; Sage, +Rockefeller, Morgan, Carnegie and the great Hebrew financiers of +Europe. They will offer Ford, Harmsworth, Hearst; the packers of +Chicago, the mill magnates of New England, the coal and iron barons of +Pennsylvania. Their contention may be admitted; the leadership exists, +and it _has_ changed direction; the point is, however, that this +leadership, while it may conceivably supplement that of an earlier day +in other fields, may, under no circumstance whatever, be assumed to +serve as a substitute. + +Mr. Abraham Flexner may well be held to contribute something (its +essential value is not for the moment in question) to the idea of +education as it was expounded by Cardinal Newman or Arnold of Rugby; +Mr. Carnegie’s vision of culture is not one that came within the +purview of Emerson or Matthew Arnold or William Morris, while the +original and varied, if not always edifying, religious cults of the +last generation open up possibilities not indicated by Dr. Martineau +or Bishop Brooks or even Cardinal Manning. Certainly there is +something in _vers libre_ and post-impressionism and the products of +the cubist sculptors that escapes one in Browning and Burne-Jones and +Saint-Gaudens. Considered in a supplementary sense these protagonists +of modernism may be an extension of the principles of their immediate +precursors (even of all antecedent creators and leaders during the +entire range of recorded history), but when it is assumed that they +take their place the argument needs fortifying by something other than +either the dictum itself or their own accomplishments. + +In any case the day of great leaders has passed. If we take the +Cardinal of Malines as a standard, as one man at least who measures up +to the great controlling and directing agencies of the last quarter of +the nineteenth century, we shall find it hard to pick others to place +in his class. Certainly not the successor of Leo XIII and Innocent III, +of Gregory VII and Gregory the Great; nor any of the present College +of Cardinals. Honour and devotion, learning and piety are not wanting, +but where is the vision, where the qualities of command and domination, +where the power and the will that mark the captains of men? Neither +from Rome nor Moscow nor Canterbury, neither from the Episcopal Church +nor from the Protestant denominations, comes the high call for men +to rise up and follow along the lines revealed by clear vision and +under the dynamic force of personal leadership. Halting and hesitant, +bewildered by opportunism and expediency, dumb before a crisis beyond +their powers to meet, the shepherds and pastors of flocks already +more than decimated, shake in their indecision, put the great issue +to one side, and while they wait helplessly for a time more in scale +with their abilities, turn to the old round of theological argument +and disciplinary bickerings, leaving the fate of their sheep to be +determined after a fashion they cannot control, and the humbler clergy +busy themselves with parochial routine or, to their honour, find on +the blazing and thundering battle fronts of all Europe opportunity for +heroic service in the trenches and often a glorious death. + +Nor in philosophy is the condition very different. There were not +wanting, in the immediate years before the war, men of “light and +leading,” though apart from Bergson, James and Chesterton (though +it may seem strange to name the last in this connection), they were +hardly of the calibre of their forebears. James is dead, Bergson almost +completely silent, while Chesterton, perhaps under the compulsion of +his grave illness, fails to meet the standard of his earlier period, +except perhaps in “The Crimes of England” and “A Short History of +England.” Dr. Jacks comes well to the fore on occasion, and Dr. Figgis +and March Phillips, but Bernard Shaw has silenced his philosophical +cynicism and Wells alone insists on his own narrow vision, brought +over from the ante-bellum epoch, with all its mechanistic formulæ and +indeterminate determinism. + +Of all the ruined sanctuaries, that of statesmanship is the most +desolate. It was sufficiently laid waste in the years just before the +war, when diplomacy, degenerate and incompetent, toiled along the +dishonoured road that led from the Congress of Berlin. Into the coil +of cynicism and trickery, Edward VII and President Cleveland brought +some elements of honesty and good sense, but the chancelleries of +Vienna, Berlin, Paris, London, Petersburg were united in one thing, +and that their devotion to the secret, the serpentine and the oblique. +The “Balance of Power,” poisonous heritage from the Treaty of Berlin, +controlled all that was thought or done, and under its malignant spell +considerations of honour, justice and righteousness vanished from +the secret deliberations of the various and ever-changing groups of +inferior conspirators. Since the opening of the war small men, pitched +neck-and-crop into big places, have struggled against this legacy, and +with scant success. Government in France at the opening of the first +of the Seven Seals, was a tangle of political corruption complicated +by terror of what socialism would demand next; the prolonged crisis +has produced--Briand, and no more, a small man, strengthened by +responsibility and opportunity, who bore himself with firmness and +honesty. He has now been deposed through the machinations of the still +operative political cabals, to give place to the venerable but neither +stimulating nor convincing Ribot, the colourless Painlevé and the +superannuated Clemenceau. England offered Asquith, a somewhat sinuous +and agile mediocrity now smashed by an extraordinary journalistic +phenomenon who has also been largely responsible for Lloyd George, +another small man, essentially the middle-class demagogue of the first +decade of the century, who has also been fortified and chastened by +the compelling force of anomalous circumstances. With him appear men +like Churchill, still bending under the weight of tragic fiascos, +Carson, whom the war saved from becoming a rebel and an outlaw, +together with a numerous clan of financiers and industrial magnates, +some of whom had already exchanged their historic Hebraic cognomens for +others associated, if not with their own genealogy, at least with the +Norman conquest. Italy, after getting rid of her political hucksters +and demagogues, has produced none of even moderate distinction to +take their place. In the Balkans Jonescu and the Cretan Venezelos +arrived with some heralding of trumpets, but neither has succeeded +in accomplishing anything in particular, and both are now relegated +to the category of geniuses “without the enacting clause.” Leaping +suddenly into the Russian limelight come Miliukoff, Count Lvoff and +Kerensky; the revolution is effected, the exaltation of the “Oath of +the Tennis Court” is repeated, and at once, from far down amongst the +submerged majority, anarchy and insane folly rise up, insistent, not to +be denied, and already their power is in eclipse, extinguished by the +rising tide of nihilism and dishonour--leaders who could not lead. + +As for the Teutonic Empires, from Kaiser to Scheidemann there is only +mediocrity masquerading in the tarnished regalia of Bismarck and +Andrassy. Precariously von Bethmann, with phantasmal Austrian nobles, +insecure Hungarian magnates and Osmanli pashas, struggles to meet +increasingly impossible problems at home and abroad, and the time is +not far away when the final crisis a Bismarck might victoriously have +met, will show them thin and evanescent, pale futilities who could not +lead, neither could they control. And America? Well, when the war broke +we had three potential leaders, the President, Colonel Roosevelt and +Mr. Bryan, together with the untried forces of Cabinet, Congress and +the State and municipal governments. What had been the result on these +varied personalities of the unexampled stimulus of a world in chaos if +not in dissolution? Thus far, apart from the President, the three and +a half years of universal liquidation have neither produced a leader +unknown before nor raised the standard of individuals or of the general +mass of politicians. On the whole the average has been lowered. If +on the one hand we have the reliable honesty and ability of men like +Senators Lodge, Borah and Williams, with the mysterious and promising +figure of Colonel House, we find on the other the ominous figures of +Stone, Cummins, Gronna, Clark, Vardaman, La Follette, together with +the depressing personalities that dominate and give its colour to the +Cabinet. Outside administration circles the reader may pick from the +several States such men as he considers measure up to the old standard +of effective leadership, or even to that of the era just preceding the +war. Of the three conspicuous figures first named, one appears to have +forfeited the position open to him of great constructive leadership +while honourably refusing to follow up the sinister opportunities +revealed in the earlier days of the war, and has retired into an +oblivion only broken in the beginning by sheer force of ingratiating +oratory. The second strove for a renewal of that popular confidence +and to restore that popular following he so eminently deserved, and +failed, though in this failure was less of discredit to him than to +a public somewhat defective in its powers of perception and in its +standard of comparative values. And the third, the most august figure +of all? Here, if anywhere to-day, is revealed the argument against the +thesis I adduce--perhaps as the exception that proves the rule. The +most astute politician America has produced since Andrew Jackson (if +not since Jefferson), with an infallible sense for apprehending the +unexpressed will of a working majority, he pursued for three years +the standard method of contemporary politics, gauging this will by +impeccable instinct, making it his own, and so becoming the acceptable +type of leader who does not lead but obediently follows on where the +majority-will indicates the way. Then almost insensibly this method +changed; little by little as the inclusive incapacity of the democratic +method revealed itself it was relegated to the background while a +very real and equally constructive leadership took its place. Step +by step the advance has been progressive and explicit; miraculously +the nation as a whole acknowledges and accepts, while the influence +of this novel and reassuring leadership daily reaches further and +further into the other nations of the earth. It is a single leadership: +Cabinet and Congress are granted little part therein and only the +mysterious influences of unofficial and personal advisers shyly reveal +themselves from time to time. It is a real leadership, of the old and +almost forgotten type, and increasingly is it bringing coherency out +of the debilitated confusion of democratic methods and parliamentary +incapacity that have hampered our allies and imperilled their cause +since the beginning of the war. And now opportunity opens before him; +opportunity not only national but world-wide. If he wills he may +become the co-ordinating, the directing, and the constructive force in +the world, Arbiter of Democracy, re-creator of the true democracy of +ideal. The old tradition of politics, the sensitive appreciation of a +vacillating majority-will and the subtle following thereof in all its +tergiversations, has been abandoned in favour of a daring and therefore +true leadership prefigured by some of the finest verbal pronouncements +of high principle the Republic has thus far heard. The old days when +we were told of a “peace without victory,” and that we as a nation had +no quarrel with the German people; the days when we were assured that +the aims of Germany and those of the Allies were apparently much the +same; the days of experimental adventures in compromise are now very +far away. Does this mean that from now on the course followed will be +increasingly exalted, high-spirited and courageous? It may well be; if +so, and to that extent, the present lack of world-leadership will be +corrected. + +Tested by every standard this leadership is now deficient both in +quantity and quality. To what are we to attribute this anomalous +condition? Why is it that our lack is not only appalling when compared +with those periodical moments of the past when, as in the eleventh +century, every nation of Europe was following leaders as amazing in +number as they were commanding in ability, but even in contrast with +the last quarter of the nineteenth century. This was not an epoch to +which future generations will look back with any notable degree of +pride, yet it left us a heritage of great names that, as I have said +before, reached the number of one hundred and fifty, a count that could +be increased to two hundred if the arbitrary quarter century I have +chosen, during which all were still living, were extended by ten years +before 1880 and by five after 1905. + +The answer is simple, but it is an answer that will be rejected with +practical unanimity. Democracy has achieved its perfect work and has +now reduced all mankind to a dead level of incapacity where great +leaders are no longer either wanted or brought into existence, while +society itself is unable, of its own power as a whole, to lift itself +from the nadir of its own uniformity. + +“The world must be made safe for democracy” is a noble phrase, but it +is meaningless without its corollary, “democracy must be made safe +for the world.” This latter condition does not exist. For exactly one +hundred years democracy has suffered a progressive degeneration until +it is now not a blessing but a menace. + +This categorical statement demands both amplification and explanation. +In the first place the word “democracy” is used in its current sense, +as representing both the implicit aim and the explicit result of +individual and community life during the last two generations in Great +Britain, France and the United States; and in all other countries +where any portion of the democratic system has been put in practice, +including the very recent “republics” of Portugal, China and Russia. +It covers not only political agencies and methods but all those other +forms of activity, such as organized religion, education and social +life, where democratic principles and devices have been increasingly +adopted. + +It does not mean the real democracy, which is the noblest ideal +ever discovered by man or revealed to him. True democracy means +three things: Abolition of Privilege; Equal Opportunity for All; and +Utilization of Ability. Unless democracy achieves these things it +is not democracy, and no matter how “progressive” its methods, how +apparently democratic its machinery, it may perfectly well be an +oligarchy, a kakistocracy or a tyranny. The three imperative desiderata +named above may be achieved under a monarchy, they may be lost in a +republic, the mechanism does not matter. One of the chief faults with +what we call our democracy is our stolid failure to understand that +there is a democratic ideal and a democratic method, that there is not +necessarily any connection between the two, and that generally speaking +the democratic method (unstable, constantly changing its form) is +incapable of accomplishing the democratic ideal. + +That “democracy” for which the war is to make the world safe is +of course the democracy of ideal; it could not conceivably be the +democracy of method for this had proved itself in the two generations +before the war corrupt, incompetent and ridiculous, while during the +war it has revealed increasingly its almost sublime incapacity in +all matters where it has had a part; from Westminster to Rome, from +Washington to Petrograd. The only thing that has thus far saved the +Allies from the utmost penalty of their common democracy of method +has been the process which has proceeded everywhere of eliminating +the democracy and substituting a pure and perfectly irresponsible +absolutism, whether of one man or a very small committee. + +Now for the last hundred years the world has abandoned itself to an +insane devising of new mechanical toys for the achieving of democracy: +representative government, the parliamentary system, universal +suffrage, the party system, the secret ballot, rotation in office, the +initiative, referendum and recall, popular election of members of upper +legislative houses, woman suffrage, direct legislation. All have failed +to obtain abolition of privilege, equal opportunity and utilization of +ability, on the contrary, they have worked in the opposite direction, +and so far as these three things are concerned, the peoples are worse +off than they were fifty years ago, while during the same period +government and society have become progressively more venal, less +competent and further separated from the ideals of honour, duty and +righteousness. Meanwhile so obsessed have we become by our pursuit of +new devices for obtaining democracy, and by our search for nostrums to +cure the ills of our constant failures, we have now wholly forgotten in +what democracy consists. + +In the year before the war the government of the great +democracies--Great Britain, France and the United States--was +illogical, inefficient, and widely severed from the one object of +obtaining for all men justice and the rule of law. It was profoundly +cursed by the incubus of little men in great office, by chaotic, +selfish and unintelligent legislation, dull, stupid and frequently +venal administration, and by partial, unscrupulous and pettifogging +judicial procedure. Everywhere the bulk of legislation increased to +preposterous proportions as its quality degenerated. Superficial, +doctrinaire, and engendered by selfish personal interests, it ceased +to command respect or even obedience in proportion as it became +vacillating and insecure. Legislative decrees, subject to sudden +abrogation or reversal, took the place of laws. With the party system +dominant (now severed entirely from fundamental principle and become +simply the engine of spoils), democratic administrative machinery +became the obedient agency of a partizan and irresponsible committee, +maintaining itself through purchased “honours,” and exemption from +well-deserved penalties, in England; through alliances with secret +and equally irresponsible cabals whose object was plunder of one sort +or another, in France; and through deals, spoils and “pork,” in the +United States. Everywhere the standard of personal ability sank lower +and lower, until all manner of ignorant, incapable and frequently +venal men, without culture, tradition or principle, forced up from the +submerged strata of society, entered into the legislative and executive +and administrative departments of government and took possession. The +kind of men rife in the Chambre des Députés and in the short-lived +ministries were of the same type found in the provincial _mairies_, +ignorant, doctrinaire, self-sufficient, with the insolence of power +clouding even what flickerings of native intelligence or honour they +may have possessed. The full story of what happened in England between +the death of Gladstone and the triumph of Lloyd George has not yet been +written, but the facts are known if unavowed. Autocracy in its worst +form, in Byzantium, the Renaissance or the eighteenth century, contains +no more sordid examples of base trafficking in honours, emoluments and +privileges, while never was the personal quality of the beneficiaries +so radically unworthy and so malevolent in its influence on the State. + +During the Middle Ages, when the ideal of democracy was at its +highest point, and when it was most nearly achieved, it was held +as incontrovertible that the purpose of political organization was +primarily ethical and moral, and that its function was the achievement +of righteousness and justice. Authority was from God, and the power +also to enforce that authority, but both were operative only when they +were used for right ends. “_La dame ne le sire n’en est seigneur se non +dou dreit._” Equally unquestioned was the fact that law was not made, +but was the concrete expression of that morality, right and justice +that had grown with the life of the community, exactly expressing +the needs of society, and with the moral sanction of communal life +behind it. “There is no King where will rules and not law” was the +Mediæval conviction as opposed to the absolutism of the Renaissance +first expressed in theoretical form by Machiavelli. Finally the Middle +Ages asserted that Government was a solemn contract between ruled and +rulers, to be broken by neither without the abrogation of the contract. +Treason on the part of the sovereign was then as clearly recognized a +possibility as treason on the part of the people. + +This great ideal, the noblest man has yet conceived in the realm of +civil law, was completely destroyed by the Renaissance, and absolutism +took its place. This, having made itself intolerable, was in its turn +destroyed in the latter part of the eighteenth and the first quarter +of the nineteenth century, when once more the old ideals of Mediæval +freedom came to the front though in a somewhat different verbal guise. +The Oath of the Tennis Court, the Declaration of Independence, the +Reform Laws of England were all assertions of the true principles +of the real democracy, but they were destined either to fail of +fulfillment or to only a brief duration of power, partly because of +the shattering of the sense of right and wrong by Calvinism and other +Protestant phenomena, partly because their birth coincided with an +industrial development that blotted out for the time all considerations +except those of material benefit and of selfish advancement. Here and +there, for brief periods of time, righteous impulses made operative a +true democracy, but by the middle of the century the battle had been +lost: materialism, omnipotent in its power, invincible through its +self-created energies, was everywhere supreme, and from then on was +recorded only the progressive development of a conscienceless material +imperialism, the incessant invention of new and always unsuccessful +machines for the obtaining of the old democratic ideals, the growth, +through rage and impotence at the solemn mockery, of violent and +revolutionary propaganda along nihilistic, anarchistic or socialistic +lines, and finally the apotheosis of inefficiency, injustice and +unrighteousness that held the democracies of the world when the +Teutonic Powers made their desperate but perfectly logical attempt to +establish the hegemony of Europe under the dominion of efficiency, +materialism and force. + +That very wise Frenchman, Emile Faguet, has said, “The sum and +substance of the Revolution was to substitute for ‘Votre Majesté’ +‘Votre Majorité.’” The absolutism and the tyranny remained, only its +habitat and its personality were changed. Something however was lost, +and that the possibility that legislation and the execution of the laws +might sometimes approach intelligence and efficiency. In another place +the same author says: “Our examination of modern democracy has brought +us to the following conclusions. The representation of the country is +reserved for the incompetent and also for those biassed by passion, +who are doubly incompetent. The representatives of the people want +to do everything themselves. They do everything badly and infect the +government and the administration with their passion and incompetence.” + +Democratic government for the last twenty-five years has neither +desired nor created leaders of an intellectual or moral capacity above +that of the general mass of voters, and when by chance these appear +they are abandoned for a type that is not of the numerical average +but below it, and the standard has been lowering itself steadily +for a generation. The strong man, strong of mind, of will, of moral +sense, the man born to create and to lead, now seeks other fields for +his activity, or rather one field alone, and that the domain of “big +business” and finance. Here at least he finds scope for his force +and will and leadership, even if the opportunities to use his moral +sense to advantage leave something to be desired. The world no longer +wants or knows how to use statesmen, philosophers, artists, religious +prophets and shepherds, but rather “captains of industry,” directors of +“high finance,” “efficiency experts,” shrewd manipulators of popular +opinion through journalism, or of popular votes through primaries, +political conventions, and the legislative chambers of representative +government. Here also the demand creates the supply. + +Tributary to this demand is the current system of popular education, +probably the worst ever devised so far as character-making is +concerned. Secularized, eclectic, vocational and intensive educational +systems do not educate in any true sense of the word, while they do +not develop character but even work in the opposite direction. The +concrete results of popular education, as this has been conducted +during the last generation, have been less and less satisfactory +both from the point of view of culture and that of character, +and the product of schools and colleges tends steadily towards a +lower and lower level of attainment. Why anything else should be +expected is hard to see. The new education, with religion and morals +ignored except under the aspect of archæology; with Latin and Greek +superseded, and all other cultural studies as well; with logic, +philosophy and dialectic abandoned for psychology, biology and +“business administration”; the new education with its free electives +and vocational training, and its apotheosis of theoretical and applied +science (a glory and a dominion mitigated only by the insidious +penetration of semiprofessional athletics)--this new education was +conceived and put in practice for the chief purpose of fitting men for +the sort of life that was universal during the elapsed years of the +present century, and this life had no place for pre-eminence, no use +for leadership, except in the categories of business, applied science +and finance. It did its work to admiration, and the result is before +us in the shape of a society that has been wholly democratized, not by +filling in the valleys and lifting the malarial swamps of the submerged +masses, but by a levelling of all down to their own plane. + +The disappearance of religion as a vital force in human life and +society, during the last century, has been a very potent agency in +urging political, educational and industrial democracy towards its +final triumph, and in fixing the manacles of capitalism and industrial +slavery on the world. Since the Reformation religion has been only a +dissolving tradition, without any real force or potency in and over +society. For individuals it has, from time to time, possessed all its +old energy: over them it has exerted all its old influence, and just as +great saints, confessors and even martyrs have shed their glory over +the last century as at any time in the past. But since the Reformation +religion has gone back to the catacombs whence Constantine had drawn +it fifteen centuries ago: it is now the precious possession of the +individual, hidden, cloistered, fearful of coming to the light. As a +dominating influence over states, as a controlling power in diplomacy, +business, politics, philosophy, education, art, or over communities as +such, it is now, and has been for a long time, a negligible factor. + +This is true as well of Catholicism as of Protestantism. For +generations at a time it has been the effective moral and spiritual +guardian of nations, and while this was true civilization flourished +as neither before nor since. The Renaissance destroyed the claim of +the Church, as it was then, to such moral and spiritual leadership, +and the Reformation and Revolution destroyed the fact. For a time, as +a result of the Counter-Reformation, something of the old leadership +was restored in all its plenitude, where Protestantism had not taken +effect, but little by little it surrendered to the new spirit in the +world, until now it is not only impotent amongst the nations, it is +as well conditioned by the same considerations of materialism and +opportunism and a false democracy, as Protestantism, industrialism and +the capitalistic-scientific state. The Church still carries _in petto_ +all that was ever her possession, including infinite possibilities +of beneficent action and influence; at present, however, this is +inoperative, and with the rest of the world she stands hesitant and +diffident, rejected by the majority of men, ignored by states and +denied even the form of leadership. + +Democracy in government and democracy in education have each played +their part in the destruction of leadership and the establishing of the +reign of mediocrity. There is yet a third aspect, or rather result, of +the same force, which may perhaps prove in the end the most significant +of all, and that is the democratization of society by the breaking down +of the just and normal barriers of race, first through the so-called +“melting pot” process, second through the substitution of the mongrel +for the product of pure blood by reason of the free and reckless mixing +of incompatible strains. From the beginning of modern democracy it +has been with its adherents a cardinal point of faith that a “free +country” should set no limits to immigration of any race, class or +degree of cultural development. It is equally a dogma that under a true +democracy there is no discrimination possible between individuals on +the score of difference in race, blood or status, and that therefore +no restrictions should be recognized or established which would control +or limit absolute freedom of union in marital relations and the legal +procreation of children. + +The nineteenth century superstition, erected by the doctrinaire +protagonists of “evolution,” that human progress was both automatic and +constant, through the acquisition of new qualities by education, the +force of environment, and “natural selection,” has been the scientific +justification for the supposedly “democratic” principle of free +immigration and free mating. Were the theory demonstrably true it would +indeed negative the chief arguments for the scrupulous recognition +and preservation of race values both in marriage and control of +immigration. If character is determined by education and environment, +and is transmitted in substance generation after generation, the +question is manifestly only one of enough education, of the right kind, +and distributed with sufficient generality. Mongol and Slovak, Malay +and Hottentot stand on the same plane with Latin and Saxon and Celt, +for it is merely a question of education, environment and continued +breeding; good is cumulative, automatically transmitted, and time is +the answer to all. + +On this superstition has been erected the great modern system of +universal state education. With a mechanical exactness it has failed +to produce appreciable results. State education, secularized, +standardized, compulsory, has left native character untouched, +furnishing only a body of faculties, used to good ends if such was +the character-predisposition of the individual, for base ends if this +race or family predisposition so determined. Nor is there any evidence +whatever that what the father acquires the son inherits. It is a +commonplace of sociology that the American-born son of the foreign-born +immigrant of a decadent race or inferior blood who himself had reacted +to the stimulus of a new environment and unprecedented educational +opportunities, is not in general an advance over his progenitor either +in character or capacity, but rather, however great his educational +acquirement, a retrogression and a return to type. + +Empirical “science” of the nineteenth century yields to the more exact +science of the twentieth century, and it is now admitted that acquired +characteristics are not heritable. That which persists is some +indelible quality of blood or of race, modified by the conjunction of +two germ plasms in generation; while new species are not the result of +the building up of one characteristic added to another by inheritance +and the process of “natural selection” and the “survival of the +fittest,” but of some cataclysmic action the nature and source of which +no scientist has determined or dared to assume. + +With the breakdown of this once popular theory, the factor of blood +becomes no longer negligible and the doctrine of the omnipotence of +education and environment falls to the ground, yet we still continue +debauching race by free movement of peoples through immigration, and by +unrestrained mating amongst men and women of alien racial qualities. In +large sections of America society is now completely mongrel, and the +same is true of portions of Europe where the process is of increasing +force. Through uncontrolled alliances the same thing is happening in +blood, and apparently the whole world is about to repeat what already +has happened in Russia, the Balkans and Central America. + +The appeal of the eugenist to biology and the testimony of botany and +zoölogy is dangerous when carried too far--as it generally is--for +it leaves out of account the element of the soul, which is a factor +that enters into the human consideration and is not operative in the +case of plants and beasts. For those who deny its existence except as +a biological product of the working of purely physical forces, the +democratic principle of the free movement, intercourse and mating of +peoples of every known blood, race and status can only appear the +blackest and most imbecile crime in the human calendar. Continued for +another generation or two the result can only be universal mongrelism +and the consequent end of culture and civilization. Cross-fertilization +and the producing of special and higher types thereby is a perfectly +artificial process, and however brilliant the result in the first +instance the tendency of reversion to type is inexorable. Either the +result is a hybrid without power of propagation, or a precarious +phenomenon tending inevitably towards a retrogression that in a few +generations comes back to the normal type. + +Nor is the situation much better when regarded from the standpoint of +those who postulate of each individual a spiritual factor that is not +the product of biological processes but is something of a different +nature added thereto. This element in the human entity works towards +the negativing or amelioration of the conditions consequent on the +predispositions determined by heredity--race factors, blood tendencies, +new inclinations that are the result of the combining of two different +sets of parental characteristics--and towards the utilization of the +possibilities inherent in education and environment. It is, however, +not omnipotent; it is conditioned by the nature of the various forces +with which it deals, and it can rise superior to them only when it +calls into play the energy of those kindred spiritual forces that +exist, are universally available, and are the only sure instrument +of victory over the gravitational pull of a predetermined natural +handicap. Recognition of, and reliance on, these remedial factors +decrease in inverse ratio to their necessity, and this is true both of +the individual and the community as a whole. The time comes for both +when the power of the degenerative forces becomes so great through +poverty of blood, hybridization of race and depravity of status, that +the energy of the spiritual factor is negatived, and the individual +or the community or the race declines, completes the final surrender, +and fails, disappearing in ignominy and oblivion. There is no tragedy +greater than that of the human soul full of the promise and potency and +desire of good things, imprisoned in the forbidding circle of mongrel +blood, inimical inheritance and pernicious environment against which it +desperately rebels, but from which there is no possibility of escape +except through the power of supernatural assistance on which it no +longer possesses the impulse or the will to call. + +Democracy of method then, not democracy of ideal, has not only failed +to attain the supreme objects for which, in its protean forms, it has +been devised, it has as well brought into existence a system that has +practically eliminated sane, potent and constructive leadership and has +therefore betrayed society, involving it in a profound mediocrity which +now confronts that fate which always follows identical progress in +other categories of the organic world,--reversion to type and ultimate +sterility. + +And so we stand to-day where the Great War has revealed us, peoples +without leaders; helpless, inefficient and, barring the miracle of +redemption through bitter chastizement, hurrying on to anarchy or +slavery as the fortunes of war may determine. The true democracy of +St. Louis, Edward I and Washington is forgotten and a false democracy +has taken its place, employing the old shibboleths but ignoring +the thing itself, while inventing one new device after another to +serve as a red herring drawn across the trail pursued implacably by +the ever-increasing numbers of those who see the inefficiency and +deceitfulness of it all, and maintain their pursuit so that in the end +they may establish what is to them democracy pure and simple, but is in +fact its _reductio ad absurdum_. + +Whatever the issue of the war there is for the world neither release +from intolerable menace nor yet a proximate salvation. The war that +is redeeming myriads of souls leaves the organic system of society, +both material and spiritual, untouched. Were peace to come to-morrow, +after a brief period of readjustment life would go on much as before, +with industrialism supreme and capitalism _versus_ proletarianism +the conditioning clauses of its unstable equilibrium; with the +parliamentary system still in vogue, and all this means of incapacity, +opportunism and the political survival of the unfit; with religion in +a condition of heresy against heresy and all against a thin simulacrum +of Catholicity; with philosophy still clinging to the shreds and +tatters of evolution or remodelling itself on the plausible lines of +an intellectualized materialism; with the mongrelizing of blood and +community going steadily forward, and with education prowling through +the ruins of scientific determinism, and struggling ever to build out +of its shreds and shards some new machine that will make even more +certain the direct application of scholastic results to the one problem +of wealth production--with education failing as before to produce +leaders to fill a demand that no longer exists. + +The best that one can say, if peace really comes again and man returns +once more to his old ways of life, is that this return will be for the +briefest of periods. The war is only the first of a series, for one war +alone cannot undo the cumulative errors of five centuries. Either after +a year or two for the taking of breath, or merging into it without +appreciable break, will come the second world-wide convulsion, the +war for the revolutionizing of society, which will run its long and +terrible course in the determined effort to substitute for our present +industrial system of life (in itself perhaps the worst man has devised) +something more consonant with the principles of justice. And the third, +which may also follow immediately after the second, or merge into it, +or even precede it, will be the war between the false democracy, now +everywhere in evidence, and whatever is left of the true democracy +of man’s ideal. From these three visitations there is no escape. The +thing we have so earnestly and arduously built up out of Renaissance, +Reformation and Revolution, with industrialism and scientific +determinism as the structural material, is not a civilization at all, +and it must be destroyed in order that the ground may be cleared for +something better. At first it seemed that one war might do the work, +when we considered the glorious regeneration of France and the heroism +and self-sacrifice of all our allies. We know better now. We can see +that the war has not touched the industrial problem at all, nor the +religious nor the social nor the political. Capitalist on the one +hand, proletarian on the other, when they stop to think of themselves +in either capacity, are just of the same old kidney as before, and the +problem of final solution only hangs in abeyance. The same is true +of government in France, England, America. Patriotism and devotion, +genuine as they are in many cases, serve only as a costume easily +laid aside, and underneath is just the same old politician, learning +nothing, forgetting nothing. Nothing is added to the issue by rotund +phrases about the warfare for universal democracy. When nations are +blindly and half unconsciously fighting for the last shreds of honour +and liberty left over from an old Christian civilization, their case +is not fortified by suggestions that they really are struggling to +preserve and extend representative government, universal suffrage or +direct legislation; rather something is taken away from a holy cause. + +Great leaders could not have averted the war, and when Lloyd George +declares that if Germany had been a democracy the war could not have +occurred, he is simply indulging in the standard type of political +jargon. The issue was too great to be set aside by a change from +imperialistic efficiency to democratic incapacity. + +On the other hand, it is true that men competent to see clearly, +capable of thinking constructively, and with will to lead capably, +might, at this juncture, make this the last war and avert the grim +terror of the two others to come. “Mene, Tekel, Upharsin” is on the +wall in words of fire and blood, and the Belshazzars of modernism can +neither understand them, nor, which is worse, find their interpreter, +therefore they and we go on to our predestined fate. + +Democracy, without the supreme leadership of men who by nature or +divine direction can speak and act with and by authority, is a greater +menace than autocracy. Men and nations have been what they have been, +either for good or evil, not by the will of a numerical majority but by +the supreme leadership of the few--seers, prophets, captains of men; +and so it always will be. When, as now, the greatest crisis in fifteen +centuries overpasses the world, and society sinks under the nemesis +of universal mediocrity, then we realize that the system has doomed +itself, since, impotent to produce leaders, it has signed its own death +warrant. + +What we confront through democracy _as it is interpreted to-day_ is +a degradation of the human potential through a double dissipation of +energy. With no defensible standard of comparative values, all the +spiritual and mental force in men is turned towards the realization of +the unimportant, to which accomplishment it is given with a prodigality +hardly equalled in the Middle Ages when it was lavished on the +realization of the essential. Simultaneously man has been dissipating +the stored-up energy of the world through his mastery of thermodynamics +and his precarious dominion over electrical forces, at such a rate +that physical potential has been degraded in a hundred years more than +in the preceding hundred centuries. Of what becomes of this fabulous +force, what the permanent contributions may be to human life, he cares +little. It is sufficient for him to realize that he is the arbiter +of this gigantic power, and if it is exploited and dissipated, with +nothing of lasting value to show, he cares no more than any other type +of spendthrift. + +As Henry Adams has said, with cold irony, “Neither historians nor +sociologists can afford to let themselves be driven into admitting +that every gain of power--from gunpowder to steam, from the dynamo to +the Daimler motor--has been made at the cost of man’s and of woman’s +vitality.” Yet the fact remains that this is true, and our present +deplorable estate is partly the result of this very degradation and +dissipation of energy, which has been lavished on activities totally +unproductive so far as lasting benefits are concerned, and spread out +over a vast area where it disappears without results. + +It would seem that there is in the world at any one time only a +certain amount of available spiritual energy, which may be preserved +and made effectively operative through concentration, or lost through +dissipation, while the physical energy, stored up out of endless ages, +is limited in its original quantity, and only added to, if at all, in +a very small degree. At the beginning of each new era this spiritual +force is precipitated in the form of great leaders who translate it, +and transmit it in available form (and directed toward productive ends) +to the general mass of men. Later, the specific era having reached +its meridian, the leaders pass as the prophets before them, and the +force once concentrated in them, and made operative, spreads thin and +ineffective, and at last is dissipated through the general mass of men. +At the end the prodigal majority, having wasted its inherited substance +in riotous living, falls into puerile contests and finally destroys +itself, and another era takes its place in history to the accompaniment +of war and anarchy. So Greece lost its leaders and squandered its +intellectual heritage; so Rome dissipated its Imperial force and +succumbed to barbarism; so Mediævalism played fast and loose with its +spiritual capital, and so modernism is now wasting all it had inherited +from these three antecedent periods, and prepares to take its place +with antiquity. + +From the earliest Renaissance, great men in whom were concentrated the +dynamic force of a crescent era, built up the imposing and consistent +thing called modernism. Great men transformed this into the terms of +industrial civilization, when they had given their commanding abilities +to the discovery and the utilization of the latent physical forces +inherent in the world, hitherto untouched by antecedent generations. +Then they ceased, almost by a cataclysmic cutting-off, and little +men, little in spirit and crafty rather than creative, took into their +hands the carrying out of the last phase of epochal development--the +establishing of the hegemony of the world on a basis of physical and +intellectual force from which the last elements of morality had been +purged away. Little men, blinded, puzzled and appalled, met the crisis +as best they could, and for three years the world has been plunged in +carnage and destruction, while military, political and psychological +blunders have followed each other in a witches’ sabbath of incapacity. + +And now the victory of the shrewd, cynical and definitely immoral +forces, so long held impossible even in thought, is more clearly +indicated than at any time since the Battle of the Marne. The exploits +of Russia in its efforts to make the “world safe for democracy” +may very well prove the determining factor. A miracle is of course +possible, but at present not predicable. A Napoleon there, a +Charlemagne in France, a Washington here, even a Cromwell in England, +might avert the nemesis of mediocrity, but a Kerensky, a Painlevé, +a Lloyd George does not fill the bill. With a German victory and a +German peace, modernism, supreme over all the world, may establish +a régime of mechanistic efficiency. Imperial, Godless, temporally +superb, but without real leaders, it can only prove an interlude of +plausibility, a preface to sudden degeneration, and the chaos of the +end of the century, when the world-slavery of Teutonistic modernism +goes down to its final ruin, will leave the record of the present war +as that of a mere rehearsal. + +And if the miracle happens; if the leader comes who can shatter the +Brumagem efficiency of Prussia, and so the world is saved from a fate +it richly deserves, can we say that we have a better hope? Yes, if with +victory comes realization of what the war means, and why it came upon +us. For this realization one of two things is necessary: either such a +spiritual regeneration of the great mass of people, through suffering +and sorrow and privation and the bitter schooling of the trenches, +that they will follow up their victory over the enemy in the field by +an even greater victory over the enemy at home in religion, philosophy +and society, purging a chastened world of the last folly and the last +wickedness of modernism; or the coming once more of the great prophets +and captains of men who alone can lead as their predecessors have +always led, and so build up a new life on the ruins of an old that has +passed in blood and flame and dishonour. + +If none of these things happens, if there is a German peace, or an +inconclusive “peace through negotiation,” or a victory in the field for +the Allies that is followed by no attainment of a new vision; if in the +end the world returns to the same system, the same basis of judgment, +the same standard of comparative values that held before the war--what +then? + +Russia already has given the answer. + + + + + POSTSCRIPT + + +Written in the spring of the year 1918, as it was, “The Nemesis of +Mediocrity” may very well have become superannuated as to its estimates +of world-leaders by the time it was published, for events moved as +the avalanche and years were compressed into days. I have been asked +if I should write differently now, and criticized for ignoring some +unquestionable leaders whose glory has filled the consciousness of men +since that mysterious twenty-fifth of August, 1918, when, in an hour, +it would seem, overwhelming German victory turned into inevitable and +crushing defeat, a defeat eternally recorded in history ten weeks later +on that epic Eleventh of November. + +Yes, in one respect a different estimate would be set down, but its +nature makes only more salient the lack of real leadership in the +categories of civil life and thought. Leadership in religion and +philosophy is perhaps a degree less evident than it was nine months ago +and the achievement of “victory without peace” instead of instigating +constructive activity along these lines seems rather to have acted as +a further deterrent. Lenine and Trotsky are more to the front with +a certain leadership that is at least striking, if one is disposed +to accept what they offer as constituting the sort of thing one has +in mind when thinking of the great leaders of the past. So it may +be admitted were Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg until their summary +taking-off. In politics and statecraft the world on the one hand +has lost a real leader in Roosevelt, while on the other a sort of +merger has been effected whereby--for the moment at least--all issues +have been pooled in one extraordinary Personality who has become a +kind of super-leader, universal dictator, Manager of the World--the +adequate phrase does not suggest itself. That here is leadership of +Brobdignagian degree no one could deny, but in a way this supersession +of the many by the one would seem to argue in favour of the original +hypothesis that leadership, as a working fact in society as a whole, +has ceased. Never before, except perhaps in the case of the Dark Ages, +when Charlemagne stood as the one lone personality in the midst of +blank incompetence, has a phenomenon such as this presented itself. Of +the ultimate result for the world it is still too early to venture a +forecast. On the historians of the far future must fall the burden of +estimate. + +At the present writing this singularity of leadership would appear +to be threatened by M. Clemenceau who in the first edition of this +book was carelessly referred to as “the superannuated.” Again the +word was hardly descriptive, but it was used at a time when the once +redoubtable “Tiger” had just made his sensational re-entry on the +scene where he was, it appears, destined to play a part (at present +unfinished) that at the time was hardly subject to anticipation. The +word is hereby withdrawn with sincere apologies: “superannuated” he +conspicuously is not. Whether his astute direction of baffling affairs +is, or may become, great constructive leadership is another matter +not yet determined. By the time this “Postscript” is published not +his alone, but other salient claims to man-mastership, may have been +decided either in the negative or the affirmative. + +There is one field however in which real leadership has appeared, +manifesting itself very largely since this book was written: the field +of action. If it had not been so there would have been no editions of +this book subsequent to the first, nor of any other for that matter. +Barring this miraculous emergence of great captains, we should by now +have become a series of conquered peoples in vassalage to Imperial +Teutonism. + +To have omitted the name of King Albert of Belgium was a blunder, but +it was of carelessness rather than of false measure. A great captain +he is, of an army and of a people, in the sense of all historical +greatness; and the name of Marshal Joffre should also have been set +down in reverence and gratitude. Since the great Eighteenth of July, +men of action have leaped to the front with a swiftness that is matched +only by quality. Set first the immortal name of Marshal Foch, the +Great Captain of the Great War, and then Field Marshal Haig, Generals +Pershing, Petain, Allenby, Castelnau, Diaz; Admirals Jellicoe, Beatty, +Sims and, thank God, many others. In six months the lack of four years +was supplied, and had the war gone on another three months to the final +annihilation of the enemy in the field, who can doubt that the list +would have run to four times its present length? The quality of the +men in the trenches was a glory and an amazement; on land and sea and +in the air young officers were finding themselves and revealing both +mettle and character as never could have been during peace. What was +is earnest of what might have been--of what may be, and here lies the +great hope in a time of great doubt. + +In the field of action leadership at last has shown itself. What +democracy and universal education and wealth and science and +industrialism had failed to make manifest was hammered out on its hard +anvils. Can this tempered steel be turned from its original destiny; +can the fine swords of the new men of action be beaten into pruning +hooks to gather the ripe harvest of mingled wheat and tares, and into +ploughshares for the ploughing of the war-fields in preparation for the +greater harvest that is to come? It is the fateful question on whose +answer hangs all the future. + +The peril of war has given place (at least for the moment) to the +far greater peril of an untimely “peace” wherein the masters of our +destiny flounder as in the first years of conflict. Paris at the +present moment, or Europe for that matter, can hardly be called a +centre and source of serene confidence. “Secret diplomacy” has yielded +to a confusion of words which are again being employed with notable +success for the concealing of thoughts. Russia and Germany are midnight +mysteries with no Sherlock Holmes to probe their sinister depths. No +one really knows anything about anything, and he is told less--so +far as the real things are concerned. Meanwhile the old influences +become operative again; the old two alternatives, conservatism and +radicalism, or under the new nomenclature, reactionism and Bolshevism, +offer themselves as the only choice, while the third alternative +(which always exists and is always right, and is never recognized or +victorious) finds neither leaders nor adherents, although the Great +Alternatives represent only a mean minority on either hand. Legislation +grows more leaderless and imbecile; ridiculous individuals are +increasingly chosen for important executive and diplomatic positions; +organized religion is either silent on the one hand or on the other +offers as its great solution the raising of some hundreds of millions +for the purpose of bringing the blessings of Methodism or Puritanism to +the benighted peoples of the Catholic countries; philosophy is merged +in the sentimental pacifism or the parlour Bolshevism of the weekly +press; art and letters wander in the “vast inane” and the feeble +gleams of an old liberty are extinguished in the water-floods of +doctrinaire legislation. + +One is impelled to pray for the quick return of all the men of all the +armies, for in them alone seems the possibility of salvation through +leadership, if (and this is fundamental) they bring back with them, +operative and undiminished, the vision and the idea of justice and the +good sense the war has revealed in them, and to them, when all else has +failed. Bring them back and offer them in strong support. Without this, +the future is not entirely clear. + + R. A. C. + +Boston, 12th February, 1919. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78895 *** |