Series 10 May, 1917 Number 4 Meredith College Quarterly Bulletin 1916-1917 SOME CONSTRUCTIVE ASPECTS OK THE WAR CHARLES McLean ANDREWS. Yale University Published by Meredith College in November, January, March, and May Entered as second-class matter, January 13, 1)08, at the p -st-)tRc3 at Raleigh, N. C. under the act of Congress of July 16, 1834 Monograph J15ZS • As? ■A SOME CONSTRUCTIVE ASPECTS OF THE WAR* Charles McLean Andrews, Professor of History, Yale University. Those in the world today, whose memory carries them back for forty years have passed through a remarkable epoch in the lives of men. The period from 1871 to 1914, contributing more than the time normally allotted to a generation, saw greater changes come over the organization and attitude of the human family than any other corresponding series of years in the world's history. It had been the longest known era of pearce among the leading nations of the west, and during that time arose the great industrial and commercial states that are so familiar to us, in which the interests of manufacturing and trade took the place of interests purely agricultural. Nearly every country in the world, during these or preceding years, had based its government upon some sort of a written constitution, and with the exception of Kussia, Germany, and the Ottoman Empire, had eliminated autocratic and class government, and based its system of rule upon democracy or what was a close approximation thereto. Great Britain and Italy, though re- taining the forms of a monarchy, had become in most particu- lars as democratic as ourselves and probably in some respects even more so. During these years provincial interests gave way to world interests, world policy and diplomacy thrust into the background the narrower purposes of the older statesmen, and fields of activities were disclosed that were unknown to the previous generation. Africa was divided among the powers in fourteen years, South American States advanced to positions of greater stability and solvency, the derelict lands of the Ottoman Empire were opened to the fructifying hand of the western agriculturist. Siberia became the seat of a new movement in colonization, Japan entered the group of the great powers, and ♦Commencement address delivered at Meredith College, May 22., 1917. Introductory paragraphs omitted. 38 Meredith College Bulletin China bestirred herself to play in time a conspicuous part in the international drama. With this growing expansion went tremendous victories of man over the obstacles of space and time. Both ceased to be serious drawbacks in the conduct of affairs either in business or diplor acy. So rapid indeed was the progress of mechanical in- ventions that the conditions of a past decade seemed almost as antiquated as those of a past century. The effect of such progress along every line of human endeavor was almost start- ling. The mind became used to magnitudes and sensations. Man thought in millions where formerly he had thought in thou- sands, he saw almost no limit to human capacity, where formerly there had been fixed metes and bounds to human control over the forces of nature; he learned of new operations in medicine and surgery with the same unconcern as he greeted wireless telegraphy, color photography, the flying machine, and the dis- covery of the North Pole. He followed the lead of the micro- scope to the haunt of the latest bacillus and of the telescope to that of the remotest fixed star. He endeavored to understand the latest returns from the fields of chemistry, physics, and biology, and though he knew little, in truth, of the technique of these things, he could comprehend their bearing and importance and their relations to the problems of human life and its en- vironment. His mind became receptive and credulous rather than resistant and unbelieving ; it was astonished at nothing, no matter how startling, and felt, often uncoi sciously, that noth- ing was fixed, nothing stable, nothing secure against change and alteration. The effect of such kaleidoscopic variety in the progress of the human race and of the manifold opportunities thrown open to human ingenuity and inventiveness, was to create a restlessness such as had never before prevailed on so gigantic a scale among men. It created problems in science, in business, and in social relations that demanded exceptional skill on the part of those who endeavored to solve them. Customary standards seemed to be destroyed by the very rapidity of the changes which under- mined older ideals and prevented the establishment of new con- ventions. Man was obliged to adjust his relations to the present Meredith College Bulletin 39 and to prepare for the possibilities of the future. Much that formerly seemed to be true Avas throwai into the melting pot and little was given in return that promised to be permanent either in philosophy or practical life. In truth rigid convictions did not exist, we were not satisfied with the way we were governed, with the older political ideals, or with the older principles of conduct. To many a thoughtful writer and speaker of the day, condi- tions in the western world seemed to be growing worse rather than better. The great issues of life and the great ideals of the spirit seemed almost lost to sight amid the multitudinous dis- tractions and minor interests that disturbed men's souls, gained their attention, wasted their lives, and provoked heated contro- versy, quarrelling, and resentment. There seemed to be an enoromus amount of energy expended on matters that were of little consequence in themselves and of no great permanent worth in the life of the nation, and the simpler virtues of sobriety, temperance, moral integrity, and self-control seemed forgotten or atrophied in the search for luxury and pleasure and the zest for wealth. There was an unmistakable fear lest the civili- zation of the west was declining in spirit, and under the supreme test would fail to react to those impulses that make the soul of a nation. Though many believed, and with ample reason, that the existing social unrest was a salutary symptom of the birth of a new moral and industrial order throughout the world, oth- ers saw in the continued influence of politics in local and na- tional life a menace to efficiency and good government, and in the absorption of business and the nervous appetite for excite- ment and indulgence a disregard of the spiritual needs of the individual and the nation. The question seemed to be how to preserve the instincts of moral heroism in the midst of increas- ing wealth and luxury and the pull of the political machine, -nd how to train a tried and hardy manhood in the face of the ease and softness which increasing mastery over the forces of nature was rendering everywhere possible. No one questioned the advancement of knowledge or of skill in the industrial arts, but many wondered whether in character and moral fibre the world was holding its own against the vigor of olden days, when 40 Meredith College Bulletin men had convictions and saw the right and sacrificed much that the world holds dear, their peace, their property, their hopes of success, even their lives for that which they believed to be true. It was at this time, therefore, when pessimist and optimist were viewing the world from their different points of view, when universal peace seemed already a hope approaching fulfillment, when the increasing cosmopolitarian in trade and finance seemed to render impossible anything approaching a general European war, and when a higher conception of the dignity of man seemed to make more criminal than ever before the slaughter of innocent human beings, that there fell athwart the course of peaceful progress the frightful shadow of a great in- ternational conflict, a cataclysmic and all but universal tragedy of war. The visions of a world made better by the power of reason and the play of the finer and more altruistic emotions gave place to a terrible convulsion, in which physical force be- came the arbiter of human destiny. The material gains of forty years seemed suddenly to be swallowed up in a catastrophe of overwhelming magnitude ; and the products of human inventive- ness and ingenuity were no longer applied to the peaceful task of constructive improvement, but were concentrated on the bale- ful work of destruction. Before the eyes of the world the stage was set for the most stupendous drama that had ever been enacted since the world began, a drama of terrible import, presented under conditions unlike anything before known and performed before the largest audience that has ever viewed a world spectacle. We who deal with human history and strive with difficulty to visualize the events of older days realize that we are face to face with events of vaster scope than have ever happened in the past and are comprehending them with an intimacy and a fullness undreamed of by older generations. The rise of Napoleon and the cam- paigns that resulted from his inordinate ambitions, the wide- spread revolutionary movement of 1848 and 1849, our own great war, and the European conflicts that accompanied the mighty efforts for Italian and German unity were relatively minor happenings as compared with the titanic struggle which began in August 1914, and has involved twenty nations in mortal Meredith College Bulletin 41 combat. We have felt the impact of battle resounding in a dozen places at once, until our minds are almost deadened to further impressions of horror and disaster, we have known of suffering and torture that almost pass the bounds of human be- lief, and we have learned of forces at work on land, in the air, and under the sea, calling to their aid instruments of death and desolation, undreamed of in former wars, that demand even in our own satiated age flights of imagination that almost transcend credibility. And we have known of all this, not remotely, as of distant thunder faintly heard, but as spectators near at hand, hearing as it were with our own ears and seeing as it were with our own eyes, by means of those inventions which have anni- hilated space and time. When we think that our ancestors knew of European events weeks and even months after they had hap- pened, and that our fathers during our own great war had no certainty of knowledge often for many days after the event oc- cured, we can realize what it means to read in the morning of events taking place the night before and to see with accuracy the photographed scenes themselves, not merely as single flashes of motionless humanity, but as pictures of living, moving men performing their work in every part of the vast terrain, even in the very trenches themselves, where official photographers, at the peril of their own lives, are obtaining permanent records of how modern man conducts himself in the prosecution of war. Never have the e^ils and horrors of war been demon- strated before such a throng of witnesses as is being done at the present time. What such a demonstration means to those now living and will mean to those yet unborn, who will view for themselves in the futui'e the terrible drama, it is difficult to estimate, but the results cannot be to decrease the abhorrence of the miseries, the sufferings, and the wastefulness of that last resource of nations, the appeal to arms. For despite the oppor- tunity that war affords for the display at home and in the field of such virtues as courage, self-sacrifice, and devotion to country, the fact remains that war is destruction, the destruction of life, the destruction of property, the diversion of workers from useful labor, the interruption of trade, the shock given to in- ternational confidence, and the creation of enmity and hatred 42 Meredith College Bulletin among combatants that renders difficult the resumption of friendly relations even after war is over. War is appalling, and to a peace-loving nation like our own is the last recourse, to be adopted only when all other means have failed and when, as President Wilson said, the maintenance of right is more precious to us than the maintenance of peace. But war, baneful as it is, is not a force making only for de- struction. As there may be race deterioration in times of peace, so may there be race progress in times of war, and it is to this phase of our subject, the constructive aspects of war, that I would address myself today. Despite its barbarity and its wick- edness, war somehow strengthens the finer instincts of men, and its dangers sharpen the faculties, clarify the intelligence, and awaken the imagination and the will. In the case of the present war, the shock has penetrated deeply the ideas, habits of mind, interests, convictions, and daily practices of those who are par- ticipants in it, and has had a powerful effect in regenerating national character. Sobriety has become a characteristic of popular life and thought; old and familiar truths, often neg- lected amid the sophistries and speculations of peace, reassert themselves and become once more the guides of religion, philoso- phy, and conduct ; intellectual and spiritual curiosity receives a new quickening, and minor issues all tend to be subordinated to the one great issue — the common good and the common need. Elaborate theories and finespun arguments seem to lose their importance and to give way to the great elemental truths of human faith and human intercourse, and simple notions of right and wrong and primitive sentiments of the human heart find once more a place of worth and mastery. A long period of peace tends toward complex views of human life, and an exaggerated prominence is often given to the lesser needs of the individual and society. The searching flame of war burns away the lesser excitements and extravagances and shrivels up the subtleties of the higher criticism, the elaborate metaphysics, and the ethical distinctions which worry many an individual in times of peace. The world is thrown back on the simpler ideas that are born of faith, conscience, and common sense, and begins to realize that under the supreme test of life and death and the preserva- Meredith College Bulletin 43 tion of homes and liberty, the great fundamental principles of our being are those that count and have strength to stand the trial of grim reality. Except for the difference in scale and in the number of men involved, the situation is the same as that which might at any time confront individual, household, community, or State. The frontier family or garrison surrounded by a skulking horde of savages, the group gathered on the deck of a sinking steamer, the community threatened with destruction by fire, earthquake, or volcanic eruption, represent the same psychological processes that are manifest in a people fighting for their integrity or their existence. Such a people are face to face with the abnor- mal conditions of war, and the traits and characteristics dis- played under such conditions of storm and stress are in some ways more truly representative of a nation's spirit and mettle, than are those which appear under the relaxed conditions of peace, security, and bodily ease. As the greatness of the individ- ual often exhibits itself only under circumstances of high ten- sion, when the emergency calls for quickness of action and no- bility of conduct, so the finer qualities of a people are brought out under the ordeal of calamity. The world has little use for a slacker, a shirker, or a coward. It wishes calamity for no one, but it takes great pride in the man who, facing hardship and disaster, braces himself to meet the shock, confronts every emer- gency with calmness and confidence, finds in the fight he is mak- ing a certain exaltation and happiness, pursues his course to the end, without complaint and without dismay, and proves himself heroic in his struggle, even though his effort be in vain. The world does not wish war, but it is often enriched by the virtues in man which war discloses. The battlefields of Europe and the countries of Europe during war-time form a wonderful labora- tory for the study of human psychology. But in the countries of the world today, we are seeing more than the psychology of war, more than that moral and physical heroism which marks the spiritual rebirth of a nation, more than the incidents of combat and the organization and strategy of campaigns, we are seeing the effects of a mighty human con- vulsion upon the course of each nation's history. The war will 44 Meredith College Bulletin stand as a great landmark in the development of every people taking part in it, influencing local issues, retarding some, accel- lerating others and forcing still more to an immediate and com- plete fulfilment. "We are seeing history in the making, with a rapidity that is startling in its suddenness and inspiring in the richness of its results. We may not — indeed we can not — mea- sure with any certainty the full significance of these constructive aspects of the war, for that can he done only after the war is over and the final reckoning has been made, but we do know that institutions and governments, political relations and territorial boundaries, traditional opinions and conventional attitudes are all undergoing certain modifications, and that constitutional practices and social relations are feeling the effects of the new conditions. No community, state, or nation can pass through the alembic of war, without undergoing profound changes in its composition and in the relations of its constitutent parts. Issues that have been subjects of controversy for a generation and more are decided, as it were, over night, and problems that seemed destined to remain unsolved for an indefinite period are settled, not as the result of argument or by the vote of majorities, but as the result of imperative necessity, that necessity which sweeps away parties and factions and demands that all concen- trate their efforts on the one great task of conserving every ounce of strength which a nation possesses. "What are then some of the constructive aspects of the war that are likely to remain as permanent parts of our modern civ- ilization or to reach riper fulfillment when the return of peace shall concentrate once more the attention of the nations of the world upon their own upbuilding? For us most important of all is the change which the war is effecting in our foreign relations and our traditional diplomatic attitude. It has been a cardinal principle of our diplomacy for a century and a quarter to keep aloof from entangling alliances and to avoid embroilment in European affairs. In one sense and legally Ave have not broken our rule, for we have entered into no formal act of alliance, but in fact and in intention we have discarded the old doctrine and have ranged ourselves side by side with the Entente allies as a participant in the great war. Meredith College Bulletin 45 It could not be, and it should not be otherwise. For twenty years we have been confronted with the inevitable breaking of our isolation. With the official declaration in 1890 that our western frontier no longer existed and with the acquisition of outlying vantage posts in the Atlantic and the Pacific that accompanied the national expansion of our material interests, and with the completion of the Panama Canal, we have in fact become a world nation. As we have grown, the conditions of our physi- cal isolation have changed, the three thousand miles of the At- lantic have ceased to be an obstacle separating us from the Euro- pean continent. At the same time the constant enlargement of European activities, as a greater Europe has come into existence and local and national policies have been transformed into uni- versal and world policies has brought us into direct and imme- diate contact with the old world as well as the new. We annexed Hawaii and the Philippines, we shared in the work of the Con- ferences held at The Hague, we played a very important part in the suppression of the Boxer uprising in China and in the peace settlement that followed, we offered one of our own cities as the meeting place of those who came to settle the terms of peace be- tween Russia and Japan, we shared in the debate at yEgeciras upon the question of Morocco, and we have now become a part- ner in a war, the objects of which are not merely European but world-wide, and we shall have our representatives at the con- gress of the nations which will be held when the war is over. We have not gone out of our way to share in a European conflict, but have accepted the burden which a European conflict has forced us to bear, because as that conflict widened in scope and intensity, it infringed upon our neutral rights, flouted our pre- rogatives as an independent and friendly people, and endangered our security as a nation. The fact that the United States will become one of the signatories of a treaty of peace, the terms of which will surpass anything accomplished at Vienna, Paris, or Berlin, is a fact of the greatest moment in our history and in the history of the world. The entrance of the United States into a world concert of the powers, will be one of the great con- structive events of the war. While the United States is thus advancing to a position of in- 46 Meredith College Bulletin ternational leadership, Great Britain is progressing at an accel- lerated pace toward a new national strength and a new federal organization. What is commonly called the British Empire is in reality, not an empire at all, in the sense of a state with one central controlling government, exercising authority over its outlying parts. It is a collection of governments, the most im- portant of which, outside the British Isles, are free self-govern- ing commonwealths, possessing in all essential particulars full control over their own destinies. JSTewfoundland, ISTew Zealand, the Dominion of Canada, the Commonwealth of Australia, the Union of South Africa, each represents a distinct type of na- tion, living its own life and solving its own problems in its own way. Before the war, one might have believed that the more these colonies became distinct in interests and policy, the more they would be inclined to break their connections with the mother country, and there is no doubt but that Germany believed some or all of these colonies would either separate from Great Britain or would declare themselves neutral in the war that was to come. Never were expectations less true to fact. When put to the test of loyalty, every colony and dependency of Great Britain, without a single exception, showed itself British in heart and purpose. From every colony came men or money. Canadian, l^ewfoundlander, Australian, and New Zealander, as well as native troops from India have been in the very forefront of the battles on European soil, fighting not for England but with her, because as it happens England's ideas and theirs were the same. Even in South Africa, where only a decade and a half ago England warred with the Boers to preserve the higher unity of the whole against disruption by a part, the very men who opposed her so bitterly, are now with the exception of a few irreconcileables, proving their loyalty to their conqueror by fighting bravely and successfully against the common enemy. Never has there been in the history of the world an exhibit like this, a unity of action based not on race bL.t on liberty, on com- mon aspirations and purposes, in which British peoples are pledging "their all to each other with stern resolve to stand or fall together." War has tightened the bonds of a far-flung em- pire, scattered in every part of the habitable globe and including Meredith College Bulletin 47 a fourth of the population and a fourth of the area of the earth. "Never again can there be any question as to where the colonies stand in their relation to the empire nor any doubt as to the existence of an imperial unity, which is in all essential respects national. Never before has it been shown, nor is it likely that it can ever be shown again in so dramatic a way, that in the modern world geographical distance has disappeared and that a nation may exist planted on all continents and divided by all seas."^ The war has shown, therefore, that the British peoples are "profoundly united in a union much stronger and deeper than any mechanism can produce," and the results of this discovery cannot long remain uncertain. Out of the manifold parts of the British empire will be created a new type of political organiza- tion. The movement which has been under way for many years looking to the creation of an Imperial Federation will now be- come a reality. It is already well understood that in some way and under some form, not yet determined on, though frequently discussed, the colonies and even India must have some share in the government of the empire, and that matters which concern the interests of the whole must be under the control of a central government in which the whole is represented. Contrary-wise it is equally clear that if the self-governing dominions share the privileges of the empire, they must also share its burdens, that the new arrangement may be in all ways reciprocal. We need not consider here the various plans on foot for the welding of these states, separated from each other by the whole world's dia- meter, into a federal system, in which England, Scotland and Wales are to be but one of many self-governing parts. The fact that there is even now sitting in London an Imperial War Council, on which are representatives of the Dominions and India and the further fact that any reorganization must be based upon full recognition of the dominions as autonomous nations of an Imperial commonwealth and India as an important part thereof, are among the great constructive events of the war. How long such an experiment would have been deferred had the iG. B. Adams, "British Imperial Federation," in The Yale Review. 48 Meredith College Bulletin war not taken place, it is impossible to say, but today the higher federation of the empire is a living issue, and when consum- mated will represent a new application of the federal principle, arousing in many optimistic minds the hope of a federation of the world. Far more startling in its apparent suddenness and highly dra- matic as all revolutionary events are dramatic, was the uprising in Russia, whereby the autocratic regime was broken and the rule of the Romanoffs brought to an end. Accustomed though the historian is to rapid changes in the past and readily as his mind adapts itself to alterations in the map and governments of Europe, it is difficult even for him to adjust himself to the new conditions which now prevail in Russia, and to realize that the most characteristic features of Muscovite life are gone, never to return. Though revolution had been preparing for a dozen years, and though the October constitution of 1905 and the aboli- tion of the secret police marked a modification of the old system of harsh and despotic rule, yet the transformation of Russia into a modern, liberal, democratic state seems more like a dream than a reality. The land of the knout and the prison, of inhuman punishments for political offenses, of nihilists, anarchists, bombs, and political murders, the land from which offenders have gone in exile to England and Switzerland, or in chains to the prison camps of Siberia, has now to all appearances become politically free and prospectively democratic. One cannot easily think of Siberia as no longer the synonym for a living death, or picture the returning exiles breaking their prison bonds and speeding westward to freedom in the new Russia by order of those in authority in Petrograd. Henceforth, we are to look on Siberia, not as a place of mines and convict settlements, but as a new world of free colonists, transforming by willing labor this great and neglected land into one of the most productive on the earth. But the transformation is not of Russia only, it is also that of Finland, Poland, and the Jewish peoples. The Jews are free at last in a country where anti-Semitism has resulted not only in social and civic ostracism, but also in Jew-baiting, widespread massacre, and the passage of abominable laws which have driven thousands across the western frontier to seek an asylum in other Meredith College Bulletin 49 lands. The emancipation of the Jews in Russia stands with the emancipation of the exiles in Siberia as a marvelous accomplish- ment in the sphere of human liberty and human justice. For Poland the future is uncertain, but the promise is high. The Russian provisional government has offered to re-establish Poland as an independent state, and in behalf of the Russian nation has promised freedom to all parts of the ancient Polish Republic. This promise responds to the demands, and fulfills the hopes of a people who are now divided between Russia, Aus- tria, and Germany, but who have never lost their traditions or their sense of integrity, and though existing only as a race ele- ment in central Europe, subjected though not subdued, are keenly alive to the promise of a better future. That a new Poland will arise on the ruins of the old seems probable, should the war end in a victory for the Entente allies, and a free Poland is certain to prove loyal to whomsoever is its liberator. Whether after a century of subjection, the Polish people, never successful as political administrators, can rise to the high level of a self- governing state is one of the problems that time alone can solve. As to the future of Finland, the solution is more certain. There during the last quarter of a century Russian autocracy has found its most unwilling victim, for there the constitution of Alexander I, solemnly confirmed by his successors, has been abrogated and Finnish autonomy largely destroyed. Of all the Panslavic movements, the Russification of Finland has been the most dishonorable and the most unnecessary, but the Finnish people, undismayed, have waited the appointed time, confident that Russian despotism could not last forever. And now the revolution Tias solved the Finnish problem, and the Russian pro- visional government has restored to the Finns their constitution, has given back in full the liberties that were confirmed to them when they entered the empire, and has wiped out all the restric- tive edicts made by Alexander III and Nicholas II. In the name of the Russian people, the Russian minister of justice de- clared that Russia would do everything in its power to perpetu- ate Finnish freedom and that between the two peoples there would be henceforth a complete agreement based on reciprocal confidence and mutual regard. I have longed for a word from 50 Meredith College Bulletin my many Finnish friends with whom I talked over these ques- tions five years ago in Helsingfors and Tammerfors, that I might rejoice with them over the end of Russian tyranny. What the ultimate solution will be, whether autonomy under the aegis of Russia or separation as an independent people, no one can foretell ; the issues of a great revolution are beyond the scope of prophecy, but self-government for Finland is assured. Though for Russia, the end is not yet, and though the outlook is dark as is always the outlook of revolutions, we can still hope that under the pressure of an outside danger, moderate and radical will pull together in behalf of the newly won liberties. The ramifications of the Eastern and the far Eastern questions, as the result of the war, are manifold. What is to be the future of the Ottoman Empire, and what is the significance of recent movements in China and the far East? Should the Entente allies win, the future of Turkey is certain to be decided and an undesirable and hopelessly unassimilable element in European life will be removed forever as far as the European continent is concerned. Those who are familiar with the gradual decrease of Ottoman territory during the last two centuries, who have seen the revolt of Arabia since the war began, and who are watching today the conquest of the Mesopotamian Valley believe that eventually the Turk will be driven from Europe and the middle East, and will be confined to an area of Asia Minor, until he disappears as an independent power from the face of the earth. Would that it might be so ! With the Turk out of Europe, the near Eastern question will have ceased to exist. As that perplexing enigma has been for years a part of the stock in trade of the diplomat and the historian, its disappearance will change vitally the aspect of the near East, and alter materially one of the most significant phases of historical discussion. With the Mesopotamian Valley rescued from Turkish hands, an area of great fertility will blossom under proper control, just as Egypt has done under British management, and with Palestine and Syria under the aegis of Great Britain and France, it is not impossible that Zionism will take on a new lease of life; a Jewish Palestine may become a reality; and a Jewish state in the old Jewish homeland may become the spiritual and cultural Meredith College Bulletin 51 centre of the Jews throughout the world. It is true that mauy Jews do not believe it either necessary or possible to establish a separate Jewish national state, but there are those who desire a homeland and a nationality of their own, and are hoping that their dream will some day be fulfilled. To those the possible defeat of Turkey contains a great and a noble promise. For the far East, the war has already brought into high relief a new and unexpected development. When less than two months ago China broke off relations with Germany, an event took place of far reaching importance that begins a new chapter in the history of that oldest of the nations of the world. No longer afraid that Russia will enter into combination for her dismemberment, and daring to act in a paramount matter of foreign policy without consultation with Japan, China has taken a step which is likely to bring her into the ranks of the great powers, and in case of allied victory to obtain for herself a place at the peace congress that will be held when the war is over. There, as a republic, which has been influenced by the same motives that have actuated ourselves, she will be entitled to have her grievances considered as an independent and autonomous state. This means that she will demand freedom from Japanese control and will depend on British and American public opinion to strengthen her in her determination to resist the autocratic policy which Japan has been pursuing toward her during the last few years. The question is too large for consideration here, but with China an ally and not a dependent state, subject to spoilation and partition, the issue may mean the final abolition of the last marks of her subordination and humiliation. Should China cooperate effectively with the allies during the war, she may win a recognition that will give her independence and sta- bility to an extent hitherto unknown. Thus the bold initiative which has brought China into line with the other powers may have results as important for the world as the revolution in Russia and may prove in the end one of the great constructive events of the war. These are a few of the great changes in the organization and status of some of the states of the world that have already been effected or may be effected as the result of the universal war. 52 Meredith College Bulletin To the careful observer there are scores of others, some conspicu- ous and attracting attention, others more subtle and operating more obscurely that have felt or will feel the pressure and thrust of a new force. There is the granting of parliamentary suffrage to the women of England as the result of their war services and sacrifices, and the probable recasting of the whole industrial fabric as the result of woman's noteworthy demonstration of her efficiency and skill. There are the enormous advances that have been made in the mechanical arts and the application of science to the demands of the war. There is the effect which the experiences and sensations of war will have upon literature and the drama, and the beneficial influence which sober reality must exert upon the bizarre aspects of painting and poetry. And there is the enormous progress which has already been made in the knowledge of disease and its remedies, and in the skill of the physician and the surgeon. Of these subjects I can say noth- ing here. They will all receive their meed of consideration when the war is over and the reckoning of its results has been begun. As the great conflict has passed step by step from a European into a world war and as one nation after another has become a participant in it, one feature has manifested itself with increas- ing distinctness, until it has become in the minds of many the leading issue and the main end for which the war is being fought. This issue is democracy versus autocracy, and it has been given unmistakable prominence, owing to the fact that with the fall of the Komanoffs in Russia and the entrance of China as an allied sympathizer, all of the powers ranged against Ger- many are either in name or in fact democratic nations. There is no doubt but that democracy has gained from the war to such an extent as to become one of the great issues involved, but to speak as if the main object of the war were nothing more than to substitute democracy for autocracy or to overthrow the forms of government established in Germany and Austria-Hungary is to make a fundamental and far-reaching mistake. No one can deny the right of any country to set up whatever form of gov- ernment it wishes, provided that government does not imperil the security of its neighbors or endanger the peace of the world. No outside power has any right or reason to intrude upon the Meredith College Bulletin 53 domestic concerns of any nation in the world today, and if the German people are content with the system they have, it is not for us or for anyone to say that they are wrong. One might as justly deny to Japan her right to have an hereditary and in- vulnerable Imperial throne, a war-lord as a prime minister, and a body of influential Japanese junkers with jingoistic and im- perial pretensions, as to object to the particular form of govern- ment, which today is approved by those diverse peoples who, united under the Prussian monarchy, constitute the German Empire. Nor is the issue the overthrow of Hapsburg or Hohcn- zollern, who, as long as their retention on their thrones does not menace the peace of other nations and meets with the support of the people whom they govern, have as much right to exist as have the kings of England and Italy and the Emperor of Japan. It must be said that what is sometimes called the "king's business" is not much in favor at the present time, and that there is abroad a conviction that things dynastic, unless shorn of their specially dynastic characteristics, are somewhat out of date. There is also a growing feeling that military and reactionary forces in government are losing their grip as desirable features of modern political life and a belief that the strengthening of the popular and liberal elements and the extension of the democratic idea will make for a more certain peace and justice in the world. To this extent the war may be said to be a war for the preservation and extension of democracy. It is further said in elaboration of this idea, and the inclusion of the statement in the president's address to Congress has given it further currency that there exists a difference between the German government and the German people, and that we are fighting in one sense the cause of that people against their rulers. I cannot see any truth in this contention. In its foreign relations and military policy the German government is autocratic be- cause the Emperor is exclusively and entirely responsible for all that concerns these affairs, but in its social and domestic con- cerns it is not autocratic, because the people have universal suffrage and representation in the Reichstag, and consequently share in the responsiblity for all that is done in that law-making body. All appropriations for military and naval purposes must 54 Meredith College Bulletin have the sanction of the representatives of the people, who thus support the autocracy of the monarchy in its world policy. Hence Germany is an example of autocracy nationalized. We must not forget that the German people have heen organized and regimented, drilled and disciplined, into a marvellous, smooth-running machine, methodical as the system of an ant-hill or a hee-hive, and are as little likely to break from their obedi- ence or to start a revolution, as would the parts of a machine re- fuse to respond to the power of the engines that drive it. Polit- ically, they are a docile people, neither revolutionary nor war- like, and they stand today a unit behind their emperor, because they have absolute belief in the state, in a military organization as the most perfect type of a political system, and in the right of those in authority to commandeer every man, woman, and child for whatever purpose they may desire to accomplish. There is no line of separation between the German government and the German people, the two together constitute a single, compact, working whole. The struggle is not between two forms of government or for the purpose of overthrowing kings or emperors, by whatever dynastic name they may be known. It is rather a contest be- tween two sets of national ideals, two national creeds, two views as to the law which should govern the states of the world in their relations to each other. It is not the form of government but the moral sentiments of nations that are at stake. The German training has been in the direction of patriotic obedience to au- thority and of absolute faith in the superiority of the German system. The mass of the people follow their leaders blindly, believing that the state is greater than the individual and that by painstaking organization their society may be raised to the pinnacle of human greatness. Their leaders constitute powerful castes, hereditary, military, and official, the last two of which, constantly recruited from all classes of the population, are com- posed of highly trained and intelligent experts, to whom the mass of the people bow in all humility. These experts, trained in German universities and passed through the requirements of a universal military training have made performance and effi- ciency their ideals, and in order to attain results have become Meredith College Bulletin 55 willingly a part of the great governmental machine, the object of which is to organize the nation for the accomplishment of its ends. This expert military and administrative caste has devel- oped a sense of superiority, not only towards its inferiors at home, but also toward the people of the world outside. It tends to become arrogant, supercilious and dictatorial, unduly set in its opinions, obstinate and unimaginative, looking with ill-dis- guised contempt upon everything that might be stigmatized as merely popular. Professor Kuno Francke, himself a loyal pro- German, says that "even among teachers in the gymnasia and university professors this type of the supercilious and unap- proachable expert is not absent; "it is often found," he says, "among administrative officials, most frequently, among army officials. To say that the latter forms a social, if not a political caste, is no exaggeration, a caste of splendidly trained, highly intelligent, thoroughly devoted specialists, and for the most part fine and manly fellows, but somehow or other lacking in those wider human sympathies and generous instincts which we asso- ciate with a democracy." Mr. Frederick Walcott, who in 1916, traveled widely among them on a relief commission and was given every opportunity for observation, said of the German leadei-s that they lacked only heart to make them great, and that the men of the military caste possessed no drop of the milk of human kindness. Those men are in the first instance servants of the State and only in a far more remote sense than with us servants of the people, and they deem pride, and conceit, and arrogant defence of their creed essential to true patriotism. Furthermore among the methods adopted for the attainment of its ends, the German military caste advocates the law of might, the law of the mailed fist and the shining armor, and up- holds the non-moral doctrine that it is unnecessary, when Ger- man destiny calls and the German state decrees, to regard the law of nations or of civilization, or to keep faith with neighbor- ing peoples, in respect of any treaty or contract, the existence of which is an obstacle to German success. On the one hand they reject that law of life which is by all of us deemed essential to the continued welfare of humanity, the law of right, justice, and mercy, without which civilization would revert to the barbarism 56 Meredith College Bulletin of the past ; and on the other, they reject the law of mutual con- fidence and good faith, which is just as necessary in the world of international relations as it is in the world of international finance, and without which all trust, honor, and security would vanish and the intercourse of nations be reduced to the level of the jungle and the savage tribe. Although in outward form the struggle appears to be between democracy and autocracy, or as it may be more accurately ex- pressed, between democracy and a national state autocratically organized, the contest is in reality between two sets of ideals. One of these is based on individual character, is governed by public opinion, and is dominated by motives of right, sympathy, and justice. It is frequently accompanied by unintelligence and corruption in government, by a great lack of discipline and effi- ciency in execution, and as far as foresight is concerned by great indefiniteness of aim or purpose; but it gives high place to in- dividual independence, upholds peace among the nations, and encourages the cultivation of certain virtues of a manly and moral nature. The other ideal involves the subordination of the individual and the supremacy of the state, the worship of disci- pline and the machinery of organization, and the creation of men highly trained, intelligent, enormously energetic, even if not always as efficient as is commonly supposed, who are ex- pected to employ their efforts to the attainment of certain defin- ite and immediate ends. The application of this ideal is accom- panied with a lamentable want of insight into the workings of human nature and a disregard of the rights of others, which has shown itself in extraordinary blunders of diplomacy, an offen- sive system of espionage, gross miscalculation of the psychology of nations, and a curious faith in theories, academically worked out, as to what another nation will do under given circumstances. This German method of conducting diplomacy according to academic formulae has led to a vast amount of self-deception among the German diplomats, and causes us to wonder how long this deception can continue among a great intelligent people like the Germans, drilled and disciplined as they are and long prac- ticed in submission to governmental direction and in acceptance of governmental explanations. Mr. Brand Whitlock, our min- Meredith College Bulletin 57 ister to Belgium, has lately said, "The German capacity for blundering is almost as great as the German capacity for cruelty." Given these contrasting ideals as representative of the peoples pitted against each other, may we not hope that out of the con- flict will arise a higher ideal than either, in which the best of each will be conjoined. May not one of the constructive results of the war, at least for the western nations and possibly for Ger- many also, be the creation of a single ideal, in which expert training, organized devotion, discipline, obedience, and well- directed performance may be linked with character and indi- vidual liberty, justice, humanity and the moral law. The Ger- mans have taught the world the science of organization and the lesson has already been learned by their enemies, particularly the British, who in the space of a few months have equalled the Germans in their own field. The lesson must be learnt by us also. That we need in this country some of the virtues of the German ideal cannot be questioned, and that democratic govern- ment in order to be efficient government and at the same time good government, must get rid of what is left of the old-time excessive individualism, born in the days of the pioneer and the frontier, is becoming evident to all. The age of individualism has definitely passed, the doctrine of states' rights as a political shibboleth is passing away. For the first time in the history of our federal organization the people of our states and sections are beginning to think, not in terms of their own local interests but in terms of the interest of the country as a whole. Only when we are thinking nationally shall we become a nation, for nationality is not a question of race but of common needs, common purposes, and common ideals. I believe that for us the war will hasten, as it is already hastening, the tendency toward increased national unity and authority and will bring home to every individual the necessity of subordinating much of his boasted liberty and independence to the higher needs of the community as a whole. There is no danger that we shall overdo discipline or worship organization for its own sake, or be transformed from a peace-loving to a militaristic people, but we can learn and are learning from the pressure of war-needs 58 Meredith College Bulletin upon us how to train young men without making them profes- sional soldiers and how to increase centralized authority without lessening those individual and moral guarantees, without which concentration of power may become a weapon of oppression rather than an instrument for the common good. We now reach the last phase of our subject, and ask ourselves what is likely to be the effect of the war upon that which is com- monly called international, but which may perhaps better be called super-national organization and relationship. It is abundantly evident that the world will not return to the lame and impotent internationalism of the period before the war, but will make a tremendous effort to set up some system which will render impossible, as nearly as may be, the recurrence of the calamities of the last three years. The conscience of the world has revolted against the useless waste and cruelty of this greatest of human disasters, and will demand that some means be con- trived to prevent its repetition and to give body to the doctrine that all are of one family, in which the good and evil of one is the good and evil of all. The progress of civilization must be the progress of international comity, sympathy, cooperation, and fair dealing, and must recognize the validity of ethical laws to which we hold individuals and communities alike amenable. The greatest question before the world today, as far as the future is concerned, is whether the nations acting in harmony can be purged of their traditions and can enter upon anything that de- serves the name of true international reform. Even now plans in great variety, often inconsistent and con- tradictory, illogical and impracticable, have been advanced chiefly by writers among the western nations, for the improve- ment of international relations, and the prevention, if possible, of a recurrence of war. Among the many specifics and cure-alls suggested, a few may be taken as showing in a way the construc- tive work likely to be taken up after the war is over. In the first place, international relations must be based on mutual confidence and not on the mutual distrust that has hitherto characterized these relations. This means that there must be a reform of the system of modern diplomacy. Diplo- mats must be more representative of popular needs and Meredith College Bulletin 59 sentiments and express as far as it is possible to express, the desires and intentions of a people. Diplomatic office must cease to be the spoil of party; diplomatic inter- course must be rid of secrecy, obscurantism, and espionage. These features have been a part of the German war creed and espionage has been raised to the rank of an organized science in Germany's dealings with her neighbors. We in the United States feel that the system of employing men and women in all walks of life to spy upon a friendly country in times of peace and upon a neutral country in times of war is contempt- ible business. There is something in the way the German mili- tary and civil leaders prepare for and conduct a war that is lack- ing in chivalry and highmindedness. The French have always charged that Bismarck did not play fairly the game of diplo- macy and war, and that while appealing to the Most High God, a just God as long as he favored Prussia's ambitions, did not hesitate to employ means both brutal and dishonorable to gain his ends. To them and to us there is something repulsive in the contrast. The events of the present war have only served to deepen this impression. The German has not been a generous or a magnanimous enemy ; he has not been a good sport, because he has taken defeat sulkily or with anger, refusing to acknowl- edge failure, even though such failure is apparent to everybody else. The business of war and of diplomacy must be conducted with some regard for the rules of the game. It may be that some