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THE MENACE TO THE IDEAL 
 OF THE FREE STATE 
 
 AN ADDRESS DELIVERED ON THE 
 
 OCCASION OF FOUNDERS' DAY 
 
 AT URSINUS COLLEGE 
 
 BY JOHN A. W. HAAS, D.D., L.L.D., 
 PRESIDENT OF MUHLENBERG 
 COLLEGE, ALLENTOWN, PENNA. 
 
 ALLENTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA 
 NINETEEN EIGHTEEN 
 
^ 
 
 
 LITTLE BOOKS INTIMATELY RE 
 LATED TO MUHLENBERG COL 
 LEGE, PRINTED & ARRANGED 
 INTO A BOOK IN THE COLLEGE 
 PRINTSHOP ON THE CAMPUS 
 MCM X VIII 
 
 liAY 6 »t8 
 
I THE MENACE TO THE IDEAL 
 ^ OF THE FREE STATE 
 
 TF EVER there was a time when it be- 
 hooved us to utter with a new, larger 
 significance, Longfellow's prayer for the 
 ship of state, it is today. We can and we 
 ought to say : 
 
 "Sail on, O Ship of State; 
 
 Sail on, O Union, strong and great ! 
 Humanity with all its fears, 
 With all its hopes of future years, 
 
 Is hanging breathless on thy fate." 
 
 Today the hopes of men are not fast- 
 ened upon the continuance of our own in- 
 ternal union or upon the permanence of 
 our republic, but upon the larger problem 
 of the continuance of freedom and democ- 
 racy in the world. On our fate and the fate 
 of those with us men are hanging breath- 
 
 [1] 
 
THE MENACE TO THE ID 
 
 less. But our fate must be made express- 
 ive of our faith. We are standing before 
 all humanity as the guarantors of a cer- 
 tain ideal of the state. The hopes of all 
 the centuries hang at this time on the re- 
 alization among men of the ideal for which 
 we have long contended, and which thru 
 no desire of our own we must now defend 
 in the interests of the world and of all 
 humanity as over against another ideal. 
 The political significance of the present 
 world-struggle has come into clear sight. 
 It is very important to realize that ideas 
 lie back of the actions which are disturb- 
 ing men to-day. The type of political the- 
 ory which men believe in determines 
 what the world shall be. The problem of 
 the war at present can be reduced to these 
 simple terms: - which state shall win, the 
 state of free democracy or the state of 
 autocratic monarchy. It is our duty to 
 understand the type of absolute state a- 
 gainst which we are fighting, and to 
 strengthen our conviction of the justice of 
 
 [2] 
 
EAL OF THE FRE E STATE 
 
 the type of free state for which we are 
 fighting. The world has been thrown into 
 turmoil because of the absolute concep- 
 tion of the state, and the world must final- 
 ly be delivered by the ideal of the free 
 state taking its place on a common basis a- 
 mong the parliament of states. In the lat- 
 ter ideal alone lies the promise of perma- 
 nent peace for the world. 
 
 Let us clearly understand the abso- 
 lute state which we are opposing, and let 
 us endeavor to portray its theory and the 
 development of its theory. We shall then 
 realize that the results of the war as con- 
 ducted by the absolute state are really the 
 terrors of the theory. What has been done 
 and is being done to shock humanity is 
 no accident, but it is the outcome of the 
 power of the absolute state. When we be- 
 gin definitely to know the theory that 
 menaces the whole world, we can more 
 strongly unite our forces and more joy- 
 fully uphold our standards. It is necessary 
 to travel backward some distance to the 
 
 [3] 
 
THE MENACE TO THE ID 
 
 beginnings of the nineteenth century in 
 order to understand how the present the- 
 ories of a Treitschke, a Bernhardi, a Las- 
 son, a Naumann, a Tannenberg, and the 
 whole group of German political thinkers 
 and publicists have arisen. Among them 
 all there is such a unity of ideals of the 
 state and such a conformity of political 
 belief and outlook that we can only ex- 
 plain it as shaped by consistent influences 
 and ideas of the past. The unity and con- 
 sistency of political belief has created 
 the kind of diplomacy and warfare which 
 has shocked us so strongly. 
 
 The present German political think- 
 ing of the modern type takes its beginning 
 in German development like all great prob- 
 lems with the sage of Koenigsberg. The 
 thoughtful and critical philosopher, Kant, 
 had been deeply moved by our own war 
 of independence. On the other hand the 
 development of the French Revolution, 
 whose ideals of right he had favored and 
 whose conceptions of the just demands of 
 
 [4] 
 
EAL QFTHE FREE STATE 
 
 the people had taken hold of him, drove 
 him into a reactionary position. In addition 
 his own timidity and his own experience 
 of the power of the Prussian state influ- 
 enced him to turn aside from conceiving 
 of the state internally in a republican form. 
 Altho he advocated an eternal peace for 
 the different states of the world, and real- 
 ly outlined the plan for a general court of 
 arbitration and a common league of nat- 
 ions, nevertheless his devotion to mon- 
 archy in the life of the individual state 
 made of no effect his dream of a world 
 peace. Never, said Kant, should a people 
 overthrow a monarchy, even under al- 
 most intolerable abuses of monarchical 
 power. He held that a people should sim- 
 ply suffer the injustice of a ruler. To oppose 
 a ruler means that a people takes unto it- 
 self political power. Such an action in the 
 judgment of Kant destroys order and 
 brings about anarchy. In contrast with 
 anarchy every existing form of the state 
 even tho it be founded upon mere power is 
 
 [5] 
 
THE MENACE TO THE ID 
 
 just because it is orderly. An effort to 
 overthrow the reigning powers thru rebel 
 lion or an endeavor to remove them is 
 morally wrong. Assassination of a mon- 
 arch is parricide. Such an action is abso- 
 lutely subversive of justice. With all his 
 critical freedom, Kant nevertheless bows 
 to the rising power of the Prussian state 
 and endeavors to establish by reason the 
 duty of unquestioning obedience to every 
 action of the state. The seeming dawn of 
 republican ideas in his mind never led to 
 daylight. It was darkened by devotion to 
 the monarchical ideal in its strongest 
 form. 
 
 But it is in Kant's successor, Fichte, 
 that we discover the origin of the preach- 
 ments and of the philosophy which makes 
 excessive claims for German culture as 
 essential to the world. Fichte, who rests 
 everything on the freedom of the ego, con- 
 ceives of the state as the co-existence of 
 reasonable beings who mutually recog- 
 nize each other as free beings and are 
 
 [6] 
 
EAL OF THE FREE STATE 
 
 willing to limit their freedom that there 
 may be a common right. But this com- 
 mon right when it is established must be 
 a common will. It is the first task of the 
 state to find a will which is altogether a 
 common will and with which the private 
 will of men is united. In this state Fichte 
 desires the inner development of industry 
 and commerce to take place. He wants 
 the state industrially closed as condition- 
 ed by its own natural boundaries. There 
 is no conception of a necessary world-rel- 
 ationship. Fichte's state is Spartan in its 
 emphasis on will. For him the only inter- 
 ests that can unite men are those of sci- 
 ence. In all other efforts nations must re- 
 serve their own strength in their own life. 
 With this theory Fichte combines an in- 
 tense nationalism and an extravagant 
 patriotism. He is at one with the German 
 poets Arndt and Koerner and Geibel, who 
 has coined the phrase, ''Es muss durch 
 deutsches Wesen, noch einmal die Welt 
 genesen." The world is to be cured thru 
 
 [7] 
 
THE MENACE TO THE ID 
 
 Germany. With the great idealistic out- 
 burst at the beginning of the nineteenth 
 century and the just desire of Germany 
 for its national freedom, there is combin- 
 ed the tremendous claim that Germany's 
 ideal must become the ideal of the world. 
 In its freedom it believes itself capable and 
 competent to become the leader of man- 
 kind. This overweening pride which 
 seems to disregard or undervalue the cul- 
 tural mission of other nations, and which 
 claims as Teutonic everything that is ex- 
 cellent in the life of other people, found 
 its first expression in Fichte's great Ad- 
 dresses to the German Nation. He believes 
 that spiritual renewal can come only from 
 the Germans. Toward the end of the last 
 address he says, "The old world with its 
 glory and greatness and with its defects 
 has gone under; thru its own unworthi- 
 ness and thru the power of your forefath- 
 ers. If that which has been discussed in 
 these addresses is truth, then you are the 
 nation among all modern nations, in which 
 
 [8] 
 
EAL OF THE FREE STATE 
 
 the germ of human perfectibility is most 
 definitely found, and upon which prog- 
 ress in the development toward perfection 
 has been placed as a task. If you in your 
 inner reality succumb, then the hope of 
 the whole human race to be delivered out 
 of the depths of its evil must succumb." 
 "There is no escape; if you go under, all 
 mankind sinks with you without the hope 
 of any possible restoration." * This ideal 
 of Fichte of the absolute necessity of Ger- 
 many and Germany's culture for the world 
 has taken hold increasingly upon German 
 thinking. A part of the pan -German 
 movement has been the effort to trans- 
 late into actuality the belief that Germany 
 is the cultural saviour of the world. An 
 overpowering pride has possessed the 
 minds of modern German thinkers as 
 representatives of a great national claim 
 and mission. No matter how humble 
 
 * Kuno Fischer, Geschicte der neuern Philosophic, 
 vol.6, p. 649; Fichte's Reden an die deutsche Nation, 
 xiv, p. 481 ff . 
 
 [9] 
 
THE MENACE TO THE ID 
 
 scholars might be as individuals there was 
 back of their thought this national prej- 
 udice of the superiority of German cul- 
 ture and its call to be the apostle of de- 
 liverance and salvation for all mankind. 
 The fact that this culture must be carried 
 forward thru a nation and that this nation 
 must express itself thru a strong will is 
 an essential German conviction. 
 
 But the final influence was not the 
 cultural ideal of Fichte, but the concep- 
 tions which the last thinker of the ideal- 
 istic school, Hegel, advocated. All his 
 thinking endeavored to prove the essen- 
 tial movement of absolute reason. Because 
 of this he despised the revolutionary ef- 
 forts of his age. Thru the stages of posi- 
 tion, negation and combination, his blood- 
 less reason led him to see in the state the 
 embodiment of the final and absolute 
 spirit. The spirit as it became an object 
 in the world was embodied in ethical life 
 and this found its full expression in the 
 state. From this point of view he glori- 
 
 [10] 
 
EAL OF THE FRE E STATE 
 
 fied Frederick II of Prussia as the mon- 
 arch who conceived the universal pur- 
 pose of the state, and who was the first 
 among rulers to maintain this universality 
 and to allow no place for that v/hich was 
 individual if it opposed the purpose of the 
 state. The state is not to serve but to rule; 
 it is not a means but an end, and the 
 highest of all ends and purposes. Because 
 the state rules and has itself as an end it 
 is will, and all other purposes of human 
 life must be subject to the state because 
 it is the universal will. Within it all spe- 
 cial and separate interests are combined 
 and organized. It is the moral organism. 
 And because its purposes are reason and 
 will, therefore the state is spirit, and truly 
 objective spirit. Every individual must 
 seek his purpose and his ideals in the un- 
 iversal will of the state. There can be no 
 attainment of any particular purpose or 
 any individual welfare except in and thru 
 the state. There is nothing higher in this 
 world than the state, and its absolute 
 
 [11] 
 
THE MENACE T O THE ID 
 
 sovereignty is represented in the person 
 of a monarch. For the maintenance of 
 the state as the essential moral organism 
 war is necessary. The existence and the 
 non-existence of the state is involved in 
 war. Wars may be terrible, but they are 
 necessary for moral reasons, because they 
 protect the state against inner decay and 
 cowardice. We must experience the loss 
 of all earthly goods and this experience 
 leading even to the loss of life is only pos- 
 sible thru war. In the movements of war 
 Hegel saw the soul of the world riding 
 majestically thru the world. The state and 
 its government is, therefore, the incarna- 
 tion of absolute reason and absolute just- 
 ice as expressed in absolute will. This 
 ideal of the state is not the aristocratic 
 dream of a Plato, who still thinks of a 
 republic. It is not the city of God of Au- 
 gustine, who conceives of the Church as 
 an institution that brings God's rule thru 
 Christ into the world. The state of Hegel 
 is absolute logic far beyond the idea of 
 
 [12] 
 
EAL OF THE FREE STATE 
 
 any personal God. It is a pantheistic glor- 
 ification of the state which Prussia trans- 
 lated into actuality. Hegel's government 
 is founded "by the sublime force' of great 
 men, not by physical strength. The great 
 man has something in his features so that 
 others gladly call him lord. They obey 
 him against their will. Their immediate 
 will is his will, but their conscious will 
 
 is otherwise This is the prerogative of 
 
 the great man to ascertain and to express 
 the absolute will. All gather around his 
 banner. He is their God." ''The State is 
 the self-certain absolute mind which re- 
 cognizes no definite authority but its own ; 
 which acknowledges no abstract rules of 
 good and bad, shameful and mean, craft 
 and deception." "It is absolutely only uni- 
 versality as against particularism. As this 
 absolute, ideal, universal, compared to 
 which everything else is particular, it is 
 the phenomenon of God. Its words are 
 his decision, and it can appear and exist 
 under no other form. . . The absolute 
 
 [13] 
 
THE MENACE TO THE ID 
 
 government is divine, self -sanctioned and 
 not made." * Thus we find in Hegel the 
 complete basis for the right of the state 
 expressing itself in will, the state as above 
 all morality, as God Himself, and as the 
 complete organic whole of morality. Heg- 
 el became the father of the whole Prus- 
 sian conception of the state, its super- 
 idealizing of the state, and its justification 
 of war. Every extravagant utterance trans- 
 lated into adlual pradlice by modern pol- 
 litical thinkers of Germany is the out- 
 come of the glorification of the state which 
 Hegel created. 
 
 The great philosopher of pessimism, 
 Schopenhauer, reverts to Kant's pra(5ti- 
 cal philosophy of will and to Fichte's em- 
 phasis of the will in the ego, while he un- 
 consciously also carries forward Hegel's 
 accentuation of will. He ^ands for the 
 
 * For this whole view of Hegel, see Kuno Fischer, 
 Geschichte der neuern Philosophie, v. viii, pp. 726, 
 738, 807. Hegel, System der SittHchkeit, p. 32 ff. 
 Wallace, Hegel's Philosophy of Mind, p. clxxxii. 
 
 [14] 
 
EAL QFT HE FREE STATE 
 
 claim of egoism, as the affirmation of the 
 will to live. It is this affirmation that 
 makes right or wrong. Wrong mu^ be 
 opposed by the negation of the will that 
 opposes, and mu^ be met thru the ex- 
 ternal power of forcible self-protedion. 
 Where this power does not avail, the 
 secret influence of the lie of necessity must 
 be exerted. Since all men have the will 
 to live, we need an in^itution which pro- 
 tects them againsl: interference with their 
 right to hve. The in^itution which guards 
 this right thru power is the ^ate. Nothing 
 injures the ^ate as much as anarchy, 
 which is a return to primitive conditions. 
 In its beat form the s^ate becomes a con- 
 stitutional monarchy. Thus even this 
 great thinker who elsewhere desires to 
 be delivered from evil thru sympathy is 
 the exponent of will and finds the protec- 
 tion of the will to live only in the univer- 
 sal will of the ^ate. 
 
 The great disciple of the philosopher 
 of the will to live is the preacher of the 
 
 [15] 
 
THE MEN ACE TO THE ID 
 
 will to power, the creator of the blonde 
 bea^,the erratic but influential Nietzsche. 
 He says, 'There is nothing in life that has 
 value except the degree of power -- as- 
 suming that life itself is this will to pow- 
 er."* The new gospel of this preacher of 
 power is "Be hard." It is opposed to the 
 old value of a man as a man. Man is only 
 the ladder to the superman. His import- 
 ance is his power. For this reason the 
 Chri^ian morality which protefe the 
 weak must be destroyed, because the 
 weak are the bad. The strong are those 
 that are right and are just. We need mor- 
 ality for lords and not for slaves. The old 
 God of mercy is dead. The new God is 
 power, and power makes the strong cause 
 the good cause. Thus the good cause hal- 
 lows war, and it is the good war which 
 hallows every cause. War and courage 
 have done more and truer and better 
 things than charity. These and similar 
 
 * Nietzsche, Der Wille zur Macht, Taschen-Aus- 
 
 gabe, Vol 9, p. 15. 
 
 [16] 
 
EAL OF THE FR EE STATE 
 
 ideas sound like the f ulminations of a mad 
 philosopher, and madness was the end of 
 the life of the brilliant Nietzsche. But un- 
 fortunately the madness of Nietzsche en- 
 thused young Germany and became the 
 convidlion of a growing generation. And 
 the state understood how to turn this 
 materialistic aberration into the channel 
 of service for its own advantage. The 
 heathenish ideals of Nietzsche were adopt- 
 ed, and during this war their practice 
 confirms the fa6l that they were believ- 
 ed in. 
 
 The modern Germany has found its 
 clearest expositor of the ideals of the Ger- 
 man state in the lectures on politics by 
 Treitschke, which were permitted and en- 
 dorsed as the Prussian and German con- 
 ception. According to this approved pro- 
 fessor at the University of Berlin, the 
 mouthpiece in 1890 and the following 
 years of the empire of William I, and of 
 Bismarck, the state is not the work of sin- 
 ful man, but "the objectively revealed 
 
 [17] 
 
THE MENACE TO THE ID 
 
 Will of God"^ as unfolded in its life. The 
 state is a real personality *' in a juridical 
 and in a politico-moral sense."'' The cen- 
 ter of this personality is will. "The state 
 must have the most emphatic will that can 
 be imagined."'^ It is the great collective 
 personality and must assert itself. It is 
 " power, precisely in order to assert itself 
 as against other equally independent pow- 
 ers. War and the administration of justice 
 are the tasks of even the most barbaric 
 states.""^ The strong will of different na- 
 tions is bound to come into confiidt, but 
 "the grandeur of hi^ory lies in the per- 
 petual conflidl of nations, and it is simply 
 foolish to desire the suppression of their 
 rivalry. Mankind has ever found it to be 
 so."^ The glory of all history is founded 
 on the bT:ory of the nations, of which every 
 one has its will of power and is absolute- 
 
 a H. von Treitschke, Politics, Vol. I, p. 13. 
 b Ibid. Vol. I, p. 15. 
 c Ibid. Vol. I, p. 16. 
 d Ibid. Vol. I, p. 19. 
 
 e Ibid. Vol. I, p. 21. 
 
 [18] 
 
EAL OF THE FREE STATE 
 
 ly sovereign. "No limit can be set to the 
 fundtions of the state."* It must dominate 
 the outer life of its members, and must 
 find that its duty is to go far beyond the 
 minimum that assures its very existence. 
 "We then see at once that its fir^l duty 
 is the double one of maintaining power 
 without and law within, and its primary 
 obligations mu^ be the care of its Army 
 and its Jurisprudence."^ Since the army 
 is essential to the life of the state and be- 
 longs to its very nature, the state musl 
 maintain itself in full power and sl:rength, 
 and therefore war is necessary to its ex- 
 istence. "Without war no state could be. 
 All those we know of arose thru war, and 
 the protedion of their members by arm- 
 ed force remains their primary and essen- 
 tial task. War, therefore will endure to 
 the end of history, as long as there is a 
 multiplicity of states. The laws of hu- 
 man thought and of human nature for- 
 
 i Ibid. Vol. I. p. 63. 
 6 Ibid. Vol. I, p. 63. 
 
 [19] 
 
THE MENACE TO THE ID 
 
 bid any alternative, neitlier is one to be 
 wished for. The blind worshipper of an 
 eternal peace falls into the error of isolat- 
 ing the state, or dreams of one which is 
 universal, which we have already seen to 
 be at variance with reason."^ When a 
 state declares war, it is performing an in- 
 evitable duty, and because this ideal of 
 force is essential, no international law and 
 no arbitration must take away the right 
 of the state and the right of war, for " war 
 is both justifiable and moral, and the ideal 
 of perpetual peace is not only impossible, 
 but immoral as well."* "The state is no 
 violet to bloom unseen ; its power should 
 stand forth proudly for all the world to 
 see, and it cannot allow even the symbols 
 of it to be contested."^ AH restraints to 
 which the state, therefore, binds itself are 
 purely voluntary, and consequently, " all 
 treaties are concluded on the tacit under- 
 
 h Ibid. Vol. I, p. 65. 
 i Ibid. Vol. II, p. 599. 
 j Ibid. Vol. II, p. 595. 
 
 [20] 
 
EAL OF THE FREE STATE 
 
 standing rebus sic stantibus. "^ The state 
 has power at any time to abrogate its 
 treaties. To maintain such a state mon- 
 archy is an essential, and to maintain 
 monarchy it is necessary to assert its 
 divine right which means "that the in- 
 scrutable will of Providence has decreed 
 the elevation of a particular family above 
 its rivals-"^ Any one who is called provi- 
 dentially as a member of a select family 
 to rule must have high qualifications. 
 Among these "piety is a fundamental re- 
 quirement in a monarch, since the notion 
 that he stands immeasurably above all 
 other men may actually unsettle his rea- 
 son, if it be not balanced by personal 
 humility which compels him to acknow- 
 ledge himself God's instrument. All this 
 does not abrogate the axiom that it is the 
 nature and aim of monarchy to be of 
 this world. Genuine monarchy does not 
 
 kibid.. Vol. II p. 596. 
 I Ibid. Vol. II. p. 59. 
 
 [213 
 
THE MENACE TO THE ID 
 
 aspire to partnership with the Almighty."'" 
 Unfortunately this fundamental require- 
 ment of a monarchy is exceedingly hard 
 to observe, and therefore, the very fear of 
 Treitschke has been realized thru William 
 II, who has claimed partnership with the 
 Almighty, for he said in a speech of March 
 28, 1901, " We shall conquer everywhere, 
 even though we be surrounded by ene- 
 mies on all sides ; for there lives a power- 
 ful ally, the old good God in heaven, who 
 . . . has always been on our side." The 
 theory of Treitschke is the clear exposi- 
 tion of all that the Prussian state is and 
 all that the German Empire stands for, 
 and it has been endorsed by the actions 
 and deeds of the German Empire. 
 
 Another theorist who has seconded 
 Treitschke in every way is Lasson. In his 
 conception of the ideal of culture and the 
 war he said "separate states are therefore 
 by nature in a state of war with each 
 other. Conflidt must be regarded as the 
 
 m Ibid. Vol. II, p. 59. 
 
 [22] 
 
EAL OF THE FREE STATE 
 
 essence of their relations and as the rule, 
 friendship as accidental and exceptional." 
 'Tn the intercourse of State with State 
 there are no laws, and there can be none." 
 ** Everything in the State must be calcu- 
 lated for the possibility of war." "In pol- 
 itics decisions may be postponed, but 
 when the opportunity presents itself, let 
 him who has the power and feels him- 
 self prepared cut the knot with the sword. 
 For great historical questions this is the 
 only rational and permanent solution."" 
 
 The fullest development of the ne- 
 cessity of war as the expression of the life 
 of the state has been given by Bernhardi. 
 He says, "All petty and personal interests 
 force their way to the front during a long 
 period of peace. Selfishness and intrigue 
 run riot, and luxury obliterates idealism."^ 
 He believes that only for the sake of mon- 
 ey-making do we Americans endeavor to 
 
 n Out of their own Mouths, Appleton & Co. 
 1917, p. 35 ff. 
 t Germany and the Next War, Bernhardi, p. 26. 
 
 [23] 
 
THE MENACE TO THE ID 
 
 escape war. War, he believes, is essen- 
 tially approved by Christianity. He says, 
 "Christian morality is based, indeed on 
 the law of love. 'Love God above all things, 
 and thy neighbor as thyself.' This law 
 can claim no significance for the relations 
 of one country to another, since its appli- 
 cation to politics would lead to a confiidt 
 of duties. The love which a man showed 
 to another country as such would imply 
 a want of love for his own countrymen. 
 Such a system of politics must inevitably 
 lead men astray. Christian morality is 
 personal and social, and in its nature can- 
 not be political. Its object is to promote 
 morality of the individual, in order to 
 strengthen him to work unselfishly in the 
 interests of the community. It tells us to 
 love our individual enemies, but does not 
 remove the conception of enmity. Christ 
 Himself said: *I am not come to send peace 
 on earth, but a sword.' His teaching can 
 never be adduced as an argument against 
 the universal law of druggie. There nev- 
 
 [24] 
 
EAL QF THE FRE E STATE 
 
 er was a religion which was more com- 
 bative than Christianity. Combat, moral 
 combat, is its very essence. If we transfer 
 the ideas of Chri^ianity to the sphere of 
 politics, we can claim to raise the power 
 of the State - power in the widest sense, 
 not merely from the material aspedt - to 
 the highest degree, with the object of the 
 moral advancement of humanity, and un- 
 der certain conditions the sacrifice may 
 be made which a war demands. Thus, ac- 
 cording to Chri^ianity we cannot disap- 
 prove of war in itself, but must admit 
 that it is justified morally and historical- 
 ly."" The necessity of war is found in 
 the necessity of fundamental competition 
 among men. " With the cessation of the 
 unrestricted competition, whose ultimate 
 appeal is to arms, all real progress would 
 soon be checked, and a moral and intel- 
 lectual stagnation would ensue which 
 must end in degeneration."^ Therefore, 
 
 u Ibid. p. 29. 
 V Ibid. p. 29. 
 
 [25] 
 
THE MENACE T O THE ID 
 
 men must absolutely oppose all ideas that 
 peace is a finality. "Every means must 
 therefore be employed to oppose these 
 visionary schemes. They must be public- 
 ly denounced as what they really are -as 
 an unhealthy and feeble Utopia, or a cloak 
 for political machinations. Our people 
 must learn to see that the maintenance of 
 peace never can or may be the goal of a 
 policy.'' * 
 
 These publici^s who are incessantly 
 reiterating the claim of war are further 
 encouraged by the great economists: 
 During the very period of the war the 
 economic dreams of Germany have been 
 most fully expressed and most ably ar- 
 gued by Naumann in his great book on 
 Central Europe. He too does not suppose 
 that at the conclusion of the war "the 
 long jubilee years of an everla^ing peace 
 will begin."^ Most fully he elaborates the 
 necessity of a thoro systematization of 
 
 * Ibid. p. 37. 
 
 w Naumann, Central Europe, p. 7. 
 [26] 
 
EAj^ F I^HE FREE STATE 
 
 the nation in every economic detail. The 
 advocate of a state socialism, he would 
 unite Germany and Austria as the first 
 Step toward a great world power which 
 has adequate economic resources. Altho 
 Naumann is a socialist, he does not dream 
 of peace. His outlook is not the large one 
 of peaceful economic inter-relations in the 
 world. For him the economic claims of 
 Germany and the demands of a greater 
 empire mean continuous economic con- 
 quest. He sees growing up a nationalized 
 socialism, and a systematized national 
 economy. When he has expressed this 
 hope, he breaks out into this eloquent 
 appeal: "Fichte and Hegel nod approval 
 from the walls: now, after the war, the 
 German is at la^ becoming heart and 
 soul a political economic citizen. His ideal 
 is and will be the organism and not free 
 will, reason and not the blind struggle for 
 existence. This con^itutes our freedom, 
 our self-development. By its means we 
 shall enjoy our golden age as other con- 
 
 [27] 
 
THE MENACE TO THE ID 
 
 quering nations in other ages and with 
 other abilities and excellences have done 
 before us. Our epoch dawns when English 
 capitalism has reached and overstepped 
 its higher point, and we have been ed- 
 ucated for this epoch by Frederick II, 
 Kant, Scharnhor^, Siemens, Krupp, Bis- 
 marck, Bebel, Legien, Kirdorf , and Ballin. 
 Our dead have fallen on the field for the 
 sake of this our Fatherland. Germany, 
 foremo^ in the world!"'' 
 
 Is there any further need of continu- 
 ing to describe the German theory? Have 
 we not sufficiently demon^rated how it 
 has developed and how the great concep- 
 tions of the state as will have been turned 
 into the conceptions of the state as abso- 
 lute power? Have we not seen how the 
 state has been placed above all morality 
 and made an arbitrary God of might? 
 Everything has been put into subservience 
 to the ^ate and "Kultur" has been used 
 
 X Ibid. p. 123. 
 
 [28] 
 
EAL OF THE FRE E STATE 
 
 as a means not of benefiting mankind 
 but of advancing the claims and the de- 
 mands of the German Empire. Truly its 
 ideals are impossible in a modern world, 
 for they are a constant menace to prog- 
 ress and peace. Germany, having made 
 effective her theory of the state thru 
 great commercial and industrial efficien- 
 cy, will remain a menace as long as she 
 believes and practices what she believes 
 in reference to the state. Our task is a 
 great one. It implies not only a vidlory, 
 but a conversion of the thot of a whole 
 people to an ideal of the state entirely 
 different from its own. As long as those 
 conceptions of the state live, which Ger- 
 many now holds, so long will the world 
 be unsafe for mankind. 
 
 Over again^ this menacing ideal it 
 is the supreme duty of America to reas- 
 sert her conception of the ^ate. In her 
 ideals the state is fundamentally the in- 
 stitute of justice, and society organized 
 for the sake of right. It is true that soci- 
 
 [29] 
 
THE MENACE TO THE ID 
 
 ety organized to maintain its common life 
 and order needs the assertion of authori- 
 ty, and authority does exercise power- 
 But the state is not founded primarily for 
 the sake of power, but for the sake of the 
 social welfare and the political well-being 
 of men. The state is naught else but so- 
 ciety organized for the purpose of the 
 maintenance of justice. Its right is deriv- 
 ed from those who constitute it, and it 
 cannot be an end in itself, and an idealized 
 ab^radion of power superimposed upon 
 men who have a right to political free- 
 dom, and whose government must be 
 carried on with their consent. Our ideal 
 of the state is that of society maintaining 
 itself and bringing blessing to all within 
 thru the life of the state. The state is for 
 the benefit of those governed, and does 
 not find its center in the authority of 
 those who govern. The state is but one 
 among many which desire to live with 
 each other in bonds of universal peace. 
 No state has a power and a sovereignty 
 
 [30] 
 
E A L F^T H^ E FRE E STATE 
 
 that disregards the power and sovereignty 
 of another state. It lives its own life but 
 it also lives a common life, and is ready 
 to fight not for selfish considerations but 
 for the deliverance of the oppressed. The 
 state as we conceive it is the protedor of 
 the weak, and destroys the ^rong that 
 hamper happiness on earth. It would 
 unite with other states in governing the 
 world by justice, and disbelieves that war 
 is the proper method of adjuring the 
 great questions of righteousness in the 
 world. 
 
 These ideals of ours lie at the very 
 foundation of our national exigence. 
 They were most clearly and definitely 
 expressed when we adopted our con^i- 
 tution, by such a thinker as Alexander 
 Hamilton, who was an inheritor of the 
 political liberalism of John Locke. In the 
 great Federali^ papers it is fundamen- 
 tally affirmed that our government is 
 stridlly republican, because "it is evident 
 that no other form would be reconcilable 
 
 [31] 
 
THE MENACE TO THE ID 
 
 with the genius of the People of America." 
 And a republic is "a government which 
 derives all its powers diredtly or indirect- 
 ly from the great body of the People and 
 is administered by persons holding their 
 offices during pleasure, for a limited pe- 
 riod, or during good behavior. It is essen- 
 tial to such a Government, that it be de- 
 rived from the great body of the society, 
 not from an inconsiderable proportion, or 
 a favored class of it ; otherwise a handful 
 of tyrannical nobles, exercising their op- 
 pressions by a delegation of their powers, 
 might aspire to the rank of republicans, 
 and claim for their Government the hon- 
 orable title of republic. It is sufficient for 
 such a Government, that the persons ad- 
 ministering it be appointed, either direct- 
 ly or indirectly, by the People ; and that 
 they hold their appointments by either 
 of the tenures just specified; otherwise 
 every Government in the United States, 
 as well as every other popular Govern- 
 ment that has been or can be well organ- 
 
 [32] 
 
EAL OF T HE FREE STATE 
 
 ized or well executed, would be degraded 
 from the republican charadler."* Such an 
 ideal lies at the foundation of our govern- 
 ment and shapes all our adions. And be- 
 cause we have this belief in the relation 
 of the great body of the people to govern- 
 ment, we must fundamentally be opposed 
 to war except when it is forced upon us. 
 A democracy is generally the greatest 
 safeguard against war and when it enters 
 into it, it seeks not its own. In Europe, 
 and especially in Germany, the advance 
 of democracy has been hindered. Mr. 
 Croly well says : " As a consequence of 
 their development as nations, the Euro- 
 pean peoples have been unable to get 
 along without a certain infusion of de- 
 mocracy; but it was for the most part 
 essential to their national interest that 
 such an infusion should be strictly limit- 
 ed."^ This infusion has grown in other 
 European nations than the German. The 
 
 * The Federalist, No. 38. 
 
 y Croly, The Promise of American Life, p. 265. 
 
 [33] 
 
THE MENACE TO THE ID 
 
 present menace is the effort of Germany 
 to overthrow the democratic ideal in the 
 world. Its conditions are truly that of a 
 nation which is moved by the love of 
 power and the desire for pre-eminence 
 and dominion. Consequently it must op- 
 pose and will oppose every paper of state 
 which President Wilson sends forth. He 
 has become the raouthpiece of our coun- 
 try and the hope of democracy. In his 
 conception "Government is merely the 
 executive organ of society, the organ 
 through which its habit acts, through 
 which its will becomes operative, through 
 which it adapts itself to its environment 
 and works out for itself a more effective 
 life."*" The need of the state is the need 
 of the life of society. And as society ex- 
 ists of all classes of men. In its very being 
 it must be essentially democratic, what- 
 ever may be its form. Our present task 
 is to defend the ideal of the state, of the 
 democratic state, but not in the terms of 
 
 oWilson, The State, p. 576. 
 [34] 
 
EAL OFT HE FREE STATE 
 
 the idealism of the eighteenth century. 
 Our problem is to maintain the free slate 
 with its large political rights for both men 
 and women, with its great moral tasks, in 
 a new age. The old American ideas of our 
 republic need an adaptation to an age of 
 large social relationship, and of great in- 
 ternational connections. We have inherent 
 in our life and in our political traditions 
 that conception of the state which the 
 world needs, but we must be able to make 
 it clear to men what are the essentials 
 and what the accidentals of our faith. It 
 is necessary for us to distinguish clearly 
 between our true ideals and the mis- 
 developments and dangers that threaten 
 us. We need to be aroused to a clearer 
 political consciousness and to a definite 
 grasp of what nationality and the state 
 mean in terms of world interest. There 
 are, it seems to me, three great dangers 
 in our own development which we must 
 meet. There exist three great problems 
 which we must work out. 
 
 [35] 
 
THE MENACE TO THE ID 
 
 The first problem is that of maintain- 
 ing our ancient inheritance of freedom in 
 an increasingly social and economic age. 
 There is no doubt in the mind of anyone 
 who has observed and studied the trend 
 of affairs, that it will be increasingly 
 necessary for the state to control great 
 economic interests. Trade, commerce and 
 industry cannot remain merely individual 
 affairs. We are tied up with all the world, 
 and therefore, these relationships must 
 be expressed in terms of the state. So vast 
 have become the connections of great bus- 
 iness that to allow it to go uncontrolled 
 will mean continuous industrial warfare. 
 So strong are the organizations of labor 
 that to permit them to make their own 
 solutions apart from the interests of the 
 whole state is impossible. Our task is to 
 regulate without suppression, and to con- 
 trol without destroying. We will not be 
 able to maintain political liberty without 
 economic control, but if we proceed to an 
 excessive systematic management of bus- 
 
 [36] 
 
EAL OF THE FREE STATE 
 
 iness hitherto private, we shall drift by 
 practice into an idea of the ^tate which 
 contradidls the conception of the repub- 
 lic that our fathers had. It is imperative 
 that we should find the balance between 
 necessary direction of great business and 
 labor, of trade, industry and commerce, 
 and the freedom and initiative which 
 ought not to be taken away from individ- 
 ual ability and from the personal and cor- 
 porate rights of groups of individuals. We 
 must be careful indeed not to perpetuate 
 what the exigencies of the war have 
 forced upon us in the control and manage- 
 ment of business. It is our duty to preach 
 against the selfishness, the greed, the 
 arbitrariness of those who are forcing us 
 constantly to control what ought to be 
 uncontrolled. In order to escape that dom- 
 inating socilization, which will impair our 
 freedom, we mnst advocate a great and 
 just social morality that enters into every 
 avenue of business. 
 
 Our second problem is to become ef- 
 
 [37] 
 
THE MENACE TO THE ID 
 
 ficient and still remain democratic. Ap- 
 parently the increase of efficiency implies 
 the increase of machinery. The growth of 
 machinery makes individual men mere 
 cogs in a great ^rudlure. The most ef- 
 ficient nation today is Germany, and its 
 efficiency is the outgrowth of its high cen- 
 traUzation and its autocratic government. 
 If efficiency cannot be made democratic, 
 it were better that we should continue 
 bungling and be free, than to be efficient 
 and lose our freedom. Efficiency must be- 
 come a matter of education. It is our task 
 to lead the people step by step into the 
 realization that the modern world de- 
 mands in the life of the state that we shall 
 cooperate far more largely than ever be- 
 fore. The method of imposing efficiency 
 upon a people is a quicker way of gaining 
 the end, but it is not the fairer and juster 
 way. National efficiency is liable to be in- 
 terpreted in terms of a military establish- 
 ment. We do not doubt that our nation 
 will permanently need a larger army and 
 
 [38] 
 
EAL OF THE FREE STATE 
 
 navy, unless we succeed in obtaining ac- 
 tual disarmament, we cannot live in peace 
 because of our evil neighbor across the 
 ocean; but the question is shall his enmity- 
 compel us to endanger democracy thru 
 efficiency. It is a very serious question, 
 whether it is possible to have a minutely 
 organized and thoroly efficient govern- 
 ment and a people similarly organized 
 without detriment to that ideal of freedom 
 for which America stands. Far be it from 
 me to decry just efficiency, but let us not 
 be overpowered by this conception to the 
 exclusion of liberty and independence. 
 
 The third danger is the loss, in this 
 socialized age of efficiency, of the right 
 of personality. It is true that we cannot 
 suffer arbitrary individualism. It is neces- 
 sary for all of us to impose greater limi- 
 tation upon our freedom, but neverthe- 
 less this is the question, whether we shall 
 be hampered in the inherent rights of the 
 free search after truth and the free deci- 
 sion about the truth in every sphere. The 
 
 [39] 
 
THE MENACE TO THE ID 
 
 iiicreasing socilization is liable to hamper 
 public opinion. Public opinion is liable to 
 be deprived of that variety of ideas which 
 keep it from stagnating. But the death of 
 public opinion is the death of democracy. 
 Personality is that which from time to 
 time stirs up public opinion and brings 
 it to itself and purifies its turbid waters. 
 We need personality to maintain our 
 moral self-rest. It is an exceedingly bad 
 thing that we must be controlled by laws 
 and threats of punishment to keep us 
 from doing the wrong. Our appeal in great 
 public and economic questions must be 
 to the personal conscience. Some of the 
 evils from which we are suffering are due 
 to the fact that the conscience of individ- 
 uals and of corporations has been lax. 
 To awaken personality means to awaken 
 the conscience and will aid us in solving 
 great problems without increasing legis- 
 lation. We must maintain the right of 
 personality for the sake of religious free- 
 dom. The danger in a highly socialized 
 
 [40] 
 
EAL OFTHE FRE E STATE 
 
 society is the danger of interfering with 
 the rights and prerogatives of the human 
 conscience in spiritual matters. At some 
 point or other individual religious con- 
 victions will be touched and hampered 
 by a control Wrongly centralized and 
 thoroly organized. The danger does not 
 seem imminent, but it is nevertheless 
 present. It belongs to the right of person- 
 ality to sandify patriotism by religion, 
 but it does not belong to the rights of 
 patriotism to make demands upon religion 
 which are not within the very motives 
 of that religion. The church dare not 
 rule the ^ate, but the ^ate dare not dic- 
 tate to the church. It is necessary that we 
 should think clearly and definitely upon 
 this great question of personality as it 
 touches our highest intere^s. But with 
 these reservations clearly underwood and 
 with the high hope that we shall meet the 
 demands of our age without losing our 
 democracy and being impaired in the 
 rights of our personality, we shall accept 
 
 [41] 
 
THE MENACE TO THE FREE STATE 
 
 the challenge of the present. Let us con- 
 clude as we began by making our own 
 the prayer of Longfellow for the Ship of 
 State, when he sings: 
 
 "Our hearts, our hopes, are all vvith thee, 
 Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears. 
 Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, 
 
 Are all with thee, — are all with thee." 
 
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