New York Times Current History The European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 Part 26

America's Peril in Judging Germany

By William M. Sloane.

Late Seth Low Professor of History at Columbia University; ex-President National Inst.i.tute of Arts and Letters and of the American Historical a.s.sociation; was secretary of George Bancroft, the historian, in Berlin, 1873-5; author of works on French History.

The American public has been carefully trained to avoid entanglement with foreign affairs. This European war was so unexpected, so entirely unforeseen, that we were at first bewildered, and then exasperated, by our unreadiness to meet our own emergencies.

In our effort to fix responsibility we then became partisan to the verge of moral partic.i.p.ation and had to be called to our senses by the wise proclamation and warning of our Chief Magistrate.

Western Europe is a nearer neighbor than either Central or Eastern, and what stern censors permit us to know is nicely calculated to arouse our prejudice on one side or the other. Believing that, owing to cable cutting and neutrality restrictions of wireless, as yet the plain truth is not available, we ask for a suspension of judgment on both sides in order that our Government may enjoy the undivided support of all American citizens in its desire to secure a minimum of disturbance to the normal course of our commercial, industrial, and agricultural life by convulsions that are not of our making.

Fairness to ourselves means justice in the formation and expression of opinion about not one or two but all the partic.i.p.ants in a struggle for European ascendency, with which we have nothing to do except as overwhelming victory for either side might bring on a struggle for world ascendency, with which, unhappily, we might have much to do. To contemplate such a terrible event should sober us; the best preparation for it is absolute neutrality in thought, speech, and conduct.

Our own history since independence is an unbroken record of expansion and imperialism. Our contiguous territories have been acquired by compulsion, whether of war, of purchase, of occupation, or of exchange.

We have taken advantage of others' dire necessity in the case of Great Britain, France, Spain, Russia, and Mexico.

To rectify our frontier we compelled the Gladsden Purchase within the writer's lifetime. As to our non-contiguous possessions, we hold them by the right of conquest or revolution, salving our consciences with such cash indemnity as we ourselves have chosen to pay, and even now we are considering what we choose to pay, not what a disinterested court might consider adequate, for the good-will of the United States of Colombia, a good-will desired solely and entirely for an additional safeguard to the Panama Ca.n.a.l and a prop to the policy or doctrine subst.i.tuted by the present Administration for the moribund Monroe Doctrine.

In no single instance of virtual annexation or protectorate have we consulted by popular vote either the desires of those inhabiting the respective territories annexed or The Hague Tribunal. In every case we have had one single plea and one only--self-interest.

The entire American continent south of our frontier we have closed to all European settlement, thereby maintaining for more than a century in a magnificent territory an imperfect civilization which makes a sorry use of natural resources which could vastly improve the condition of all mankind if properly used.

This is the light in which European nations see us; our ident.i.ty in this policy from the dawn of our national existence onward they consider a proof of our national character. It differs in no respect from their own policies except in one.

But for them this exception is basic. We are a composite folk and they are h.o.m.ogeneous, their blend being approximately complete. They have one language, one tradition, one set of inst.i.tutions and laws; a unity of literature, habits, and method in life. Some European States are composite, but each component part claims and cultivates its own style and its own principles; each announces itself as a nationality with a life to be maintained and a destiny to be wrought out somehow, either in peace or in conflict.

With perhaps a single exception, they have an overflow of population, due to natural generation, for the comfort and happiness of which they seek either an expansion of territory or an improvement in the productivity of their home lands; for those who must emigrate they pa.s.sionately desire the perpetuation of their nationality, with all it implies.

In these respects they do not differ from us, except that perhaps we are more determined and imperious. We cannot think politically in any other terms than those of democratic government, either direct or representative.

At the present hour we are engaged in the very dubious experiment of direct popular legislation and administration. We are trying to change our Government radically, discarding its representative form for that of delegation. The remotest cause of this is the desire to amalgamate all our elements into h.o.m.ogeneity. So far this policy has resulted in a demand, not for equality of political and civil rights, but for its overthrow, subst.i.tuting laws intended to create social and economic equality by means of cla.s.s legislation.

These facts are not to the edification of other civilized States, and subject us to harsh and contemptuous criticism.

It is likewise very interesting that apparently the American people believe in a monarchical democracy. One of our typical first citizens has recently expressed his antipathy to the phrases "My monarchy," "My loyal people," "My loyal subjects," used by one of the German monarchs in summoning the nation to war, as implying a dynastic or personal owners.h.i.+p of men.

Averse from Militarism.

The American ma.s.ses dislike the sound of supreme war lord, but gladly admit their own Chief Magistrate to be Commander in Chief of the army and navy. To our ears the three German words are offensive, and well they may be, for in the treacherous literal translation they are willful perversion; but the much stronger English words are a delight to our democracy.

The phrases of monarchy are constantly used in Great Britain by its King and its Emperor, but give no offense to his "loyal subjects," even the most radical, who delight in them, as apparently do our people of British origin. Why do they give such deep offense when employed by the German Government through its King and Emperor? The social stratification of Germany is not as marked as that of Great Britain; its aristocracy is far less powerful; and Edward VII. proved that an adroit and willful English monarch could involve his "loyal people" deeper in harmful, secret alliances than William II., whose alliances and policies were and are unconcealed.

One of our greatest historians has earned a brilliant reputation in the conclusive proof that oceans are the world's highways, while its continents are its barriers. To the term "militarism" we attach an opprobrious meaning; militarism is the more infamous in exact proportion to its efficiency. We have been at little pains to define it, and as to certain of its aspects are curiously complacent.

The basic principle of our own nationality has long been the very vague Monroe Doctrine, by the a.s.sertion of which we have prevented the establishment on our nearest and remotest frontiers of strong military powers, which might in certain events compel us to maintain a powerful and numerous standing army, or even introduce the compulsory military service of all voters, (women, of course, excepted.)

Yet we propose to fight if necessary in order to prevent fighting, and to this end maintain the second strongest and, for its size, the most efficient fleet in the world. This is our militarism; that of Great Britain has been to maintain a fleet double our own or any other in size, for it is her basic principle to maintain an unquestioned supremacy on the highways of commerce. To this we have meekly a.s.sented, while other nations absorb our carrying trade and our flag waves over a fleet of perhaps a dozen respectable oceangoing trading and pa.s.senger s.h.i.+ps. It is under her rather patronizing protection that we fight our foreign wars and by pressure from her that we manage the Panama Ca.n.a.l with nice and honorable attention to her interpretation of a treaty capable of quite a different one. Whether or not this be "militarism" of the utmost efficiency by sea is not difficult to decide. But we have never styled it infamous.

While I am writing, Germans, whose basic principle is the most efficient "militarism" by land, are publis.h.i.+ng all abroad that the "militarism" of France must be forever stamped out, so that they may dwell at peace in the lands which are their home.

Within a generation France has acc.u.mulated a colonial empire second only to that of Great Britain, while she has incessantly demanded the reintegration of German lands, and especially a German city which she arbitrarily annexed and held by "militarism" for about five generations.

The "militarism" of a republic and a democracy which retains the essential features of Napoleonic administration has been quite as efficient as that of a monarchical democracy like Great Britain, and may easily prove more efficient than that of a monarchy like Germany.

Why should it be more infamous or barbarous in one case than the other?

And with what is this efficient military democracy allied in the closest ties?

With Russia, an Oriental despotism which by the aid of French money has developed a "militarism" by land so portentous in numbers, dimension, and efficiency that its movements are comparable to those of Attila's Huns. Escaped Russians in Western lands are denouncing German "militarism" as the incubus of the world.

Which of the two should Americans regard as the greater danger?

Menaces to Our Neutrality.

It has wrung our hearts to consider the violation of Belgian neutrality, for which both France and eventually even Great Britain have long been prepared, but the latter has with little or no protest arranged with the "bear that walks like a man" to disregard contemptuously the neutrality of Persia in arranging spheres of influence, exactly as j.a.pan, another ally, is contemptuously disregarding the neutrality of China, the new "republic" we were in such haste to recognize that we had to use the cable. And what about Korea? It is a j.a.panese province in contravention of the most solemn guarantees of its integrity.

Leaving aside for the moment certain considerations like these, and they might easily be indefinitely amplified, which should compel Americans to unbiased consideration for others and preclude a dangerous partiality, let us ask ourselves how in the event of mediation we could be an impartial pacificator, behaving as we have hitherto done. The att.i.tude of our Government has been strictly neutral, neutral to the verge of utter self-abnegation; and, as some regard it, timidity.

But rock-fast as any democratic magistrate may be, public opinion must and does influence him. Rightly or wrongly his agents would be even more completely dominated, and rightly or wrongly they would be suspect in view of our terrific partisans.h.i.+p on both sides since the commencement of hostilities.

The efficiency of Government organs in "producing the goods," the terrific power of organization on one side and ma.s.s on the other, have been considered a menace to world equilibrium.

Whichever way the decision falls, the scrutiny of Europe will be turned to us. Unless observation and instinct be utterly at fault, we have for more than a decade been, after Germany, the worst-hated nation of all that are foremost.

It is pre-eminently our affair to mind our own business, as others have minded theirs. Without cessation of noise and fury in America this is impossible.

Indeed, our emotional storms have already furnished proof of how we are incapacitated from either enforcing our rights as neutrals or seizing by the forelock the opportunity afforded to us as neutrals and from enjoying the unquestioned privileges of neutrality.

It is not altogether edifying to think that the close of the European struggle, be it long or short, will probably find our ocean commerce substantially where it was at the beginning, and that conflicts which were not of our making will have been fought out before we are able to secure our share of the world markets. Apparently the leaders in commerce, industry, and trade, like the lawmakers and administrators, are paralyzed by the imperative necessity of aiding panicstricken tourists and panicstricken stay-at-homes. Apparently, too, our people are suffering more in purse and general comfort than the actual combatant nations.

Clamorous for American sympathy and cash, we have on our sh.o.r.es emba.s.sies from the belligerents, pleading their respective virtues and sorrows.

Why, after all, should our chiefest concern be with them? Surely we may be good Samaritans without a total disregard of our own interests and a blindness to opportunity verging on impotency. There is no immorality in the proper play of self-interest. It is the conflict of interests which creates morality. But the spectators, even the maddest baseball "fans,"

do not play the game nor train for it. It is high time we ceased wasting our energies in emotions and vain babble.

At this writing the first line of defense against the Oriental deluge is endangered. The Slav individually and in his primitive culture is altogether charming. He is a son of the soil, picturesque in life and creative; he is minstrel and poet, seer. But so far he is the carrier of a low civilization, the prophet, priest, and king of autocracy and absolutism. Never has there been a time in history when the higher civilization was not in a savage struggle for existence. It is almost the first time in three centuries that the highest civilizations were in alliance with the lowest; not since the pugnacious Western powers of Europe sued for favor at the Sublime Porte.

In Peril of the Whirlwind.

This ought to be a very sobering spectacle, but it seems to arouse the delighted enthusiasm of an American majority. For such an aberration there is but a single and efficient remedy: absorption in our own affairs, the discriminating study of efficient methods to prevent our being caught up by a whirlwind, even the outer edges of which may s.n.a.t.c.h us into the vortex.

To change the metaphor, we revel in the pleasant propulsion of the maelstrom's rim, unaware that every instant brings us closer to dangers, escape from which would demand herculean effort. Irresponsible emotions are, like those of the novel and the stage, when intensified to excess utterly incompatible with action. And just such a paralysis seems for six long weeks to have lamed the highest powers of America.

The proportionate increase in population among the European powers is overwhelmingly in favor of the Slavs. Their rate of increase by natural generation is nearly three times that of even the Germans, with the result that by the introduction of enforced military service into Eastern Europe, (excepting Hungary and perhaps Rumania,) the military balance of power has been completely changed.

The wars among the Balkan States, including Turkey, have put on foot armies of a dimension hitherto undreamed of among the South Slavs, and the army of Russia is probably two and a half times larger than it could have been thirty-five years ago.