Patriotism and radicalism; addresses and letters

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I Patriotism and Radicalism .... 3 II Washington the Statesman ... 31

III Washington, First in the Hearts of

II Washington The Statesman

WASHINGTON THE STATESMAN

Macaulaj, in his essay on Mill on Government, speaks of " the petty craft so often mistaken for statesmanship by minds grown narrow in habits of intrigue, jobbing and official etiquette."

Between the noble statesmanship of Washington and this sort of ignoble statecraft there is a great intellectual and ethical gulf fixed. Those on the right side of this gulf are statesmen: political co-workers with God. Those on the wrong side of this gulf are the creeping things on the body politic, known today as " politicians." This fixed gulf between " politics " and statesmanship is not altogether impassable, but it needs a mighty mental and moral miracle of the kind that seldom happens to get a politician across it onto the right side.

Washington was born on the right side of this political gulf. There he grew up, increasing in favor with God and man and there he wrought his great and splendid work. Never once did he cross over the gulf to the other side. He died as he lived, a clean-handed, free-minded, clear-souled servant of " the benign Parent of the human race," of whom he was ever humbly conscious, and of the country he carried in his bosom like a nursing father and so ardently loved.

A great statesman is a great political seer. And Washington was a great political seer. He had a great vision of the state. He was a statesman of " large discourse," as Shakespeare would say. He had the God-like capability of " looking before and after." His letters and his speeches leave no doubt of this. The " Farewell Address " is marked by the foresight and the insight of a great prophecy. He visualized, first, America, and then, American problems, afar off. He peered into the future and saw America when as yet America was not. And when America came to be, he knew both what was in her, and what was in store for her.

But a great statesman is something more than a great political seer. He must be a great actor or doer, a great steerer or helmsman. He must go out into the uncharted sea of the future and bring the ship of state he sees in his vision safe into the port of the present where she can be seen and boarded by ordinary men. It is not enough for him to tell the story, or to paint the picture, of some imaginary ship of state. He must make the ship of his political fancy a solid political fact, an actual concrete thing in the world of politics — visible, tangible, workable. He must not be a mere talker, a word-mongerer, or statement-maker. He must be a doer, a builder, a state-maker. He must not only speak out, he must strike out, blow upon blow, to the end that the thing he visualizes may be actualized — to the

WASHINGTON THE STATESMAN 33

end that his dream may be dramatized and staged. If I may venture to use the figure of a rope-walker for a moment, the real statesman is not one who merely balances himself on a political rope swung near the ground. He must dare to walk the rope, from end to end, and that too when stretched at a dangerous height. A real statesman must be a man of undaunted courage. He must get somewhere with his ideals. He must go forth valiantly with them. He must do and dare for them at all hazards, he should not be a " man on horse-back " ; rather should his feet be planted squarely on the solid earth. But he should have a horse at hand and be ready and able to mount him when great occasion calls for irrevocable action.

Now Washington was not only a great political seer. He was a great political actor, a great doer of political deeds, a great steerer or helmsman of the ship of state. He was an extraordinarily great and intrepid servant of an extraordinarily noble political ideal. He is what the English historian has so finely called him, " the noblest figure that ever stood in the forefront of a nation's life."

Ill

WASHINGTON, FIRST IN THE HEARTS OF HIS COUNTRYMEN

An address delivered at the dedication of tablet in Trinity Church, Newark, by the Sons of the American Revolution.

WASHINGTON, FIRST IN THE HEARTS OF HIS COUNTRYMEN

Sons of the American Revolution:

I bid you welcome in the name of Old Trinity. It is altogether well that you should come together in this consecrated place for the patriotic purpose for which you are assembled.

The place is perfect. In a peculiar sense it bears the imprimatur of him who beyond all others was the incarnation of the Spirit of J 76 — of him who was not only the brawn and the backbone, but the heart and brains and the good red blood of the American Revolution. He would be perfectly at home here.

The purpose is a good purpose. Good for you, and good for those who come after you. And I thank you, both as a citizen of Newark and as rector of this church, for emphasizing, as you do by the fulfillment of your purpose, the historic interest of this old building which, like a precious heir-loom, adorns the throbbing bosom of this city as she slips off the short and simple dresses of townhood and steps upon the stage of civic womanhood and makes her challenging bow

to the world. I count it a privilege to co-operate with you in the execution of your laudable purpose.

" The place

Where shining souls have passed imbibes a grace

Beyond mere earth."

So it was finely said by James Russell Lowell in the poem read at Cambridge under the Old Elm on the hundredth anniversary of Washington's taking command of the American Army.

" Words pass as wind, but where great deeds were

done A power abides transfused from sire to son: The boy feels deeper meanings thrill this ear, That tingling through his pulse life-long shall run, With sure impulsion to keep honor clear, When pointing down, his father whispers, ' Here, Here, where we stand, stood he, the purely great, Whose soul no siren passion could unsphere, Then nameless, now a power and mixed with fate."

The imperishable tablet placed upon yonder tower is meant to tell Americans of today and tomorrow, especially the youth of our land, — and in so doing to preserve whatever of inspiration such knowledge may contain for the historic imagination, — that a " shining soul " whom we hold in high honor and, I trust, open wide our hearts to, once passed, foe beset, within stone's throw of this spot: and that, when he and the little band of men that went with him were the sole attentuated golden thread upon which all the world's hopes of liberal government then hung.

The inscription on this bronze tablet begins with this quotation from the First Book of Samuel : " There went with him a band of men whose hearts God had touched." Let me tell you why I so greatly desired to have this quotation in the inscription.

First, because while there are striking contrasts between Saul, the young giant of Benjamin, the leader referred to in this passage, and Washington, the young giant of Virginia, the leader we have in mind. Saul was so unbalanced a soul that even his great genius could not save him. Washington possessed the " genius of balance " in a preeminent degree — being perhaps the most " evenbalanced soul," as the American poet thought, and therefore, as the English historian declared, " the noblest figure that ever stood in the forefront of a nation's life." But while there are striking contrasts between Saul and Washington, there is a striking similarity in the romantic circumstances that occasioned the Twelve Tribes of Israel to turn to Saul as a savior from the Philistines, and the romantic circumstances that occasioned the Thirteen American Colonies to turn to Washington as a savior from the British Philistines headed by George Third.

There is another and stronger reason why this quotation appeals to me as peculiarly appropriate to be associated forever with the name of him who was once proclaimed in all sincerity as

" first in the hearts of his countrymen " as well as " first in war " and " first in peace."

I regard it as one of my highest patriotic duties to do everything in my power to strengthen the hold of Washington upon the hearts of his countrymen. And I have thought that this quotation, which appeals at once to the heart, would contribute to this end. It seems to me to bring out the fact that a heart, a heart touched by God, is essential to great leadership. For men of heart do not follow heartless men. Men whose hearts God has touched do not follow men whose hearts have not been touched by God. When Saul was called to the kingship we are told " God gave him another heart." God gave him a heart with His own hands big enough, and human enough, and brave enough, to serve the needs of a king. Therefore it was that " there went with him a band of men whose hearts God had touched." That this was so in a far greater degree in the case of Washington I believe with all my heart. Therefore my heart opens wide to receive him. And nobody ever did, or ever could, impose a marblehearted man upon me — I care not how fair he be. The man who finds a welcome to my heart of hearts must be a man with a heart of flesh, a heart that beats in strong sympathy with every noble cause, a heart that sends good red blood without stint leaping up to bathe the righteous thoughts of the brain. That Washington was such a man I am as sure as were Henry Lee and

John Marshall who knew him well, and knew that he ought to be, and said that he was, " first in the hearts of his countrymen."

Of Washington's greatness there is no question. His title to greatness is guaranteed by the whole world. Lowell calls him " the sole chief without a blot," and all nations, peoples and languages say, Amen. In the judgment of the world it is as silly to speak contemptuously of the greatness of the sun as it is to speak disparagingly of the greatness of Washington.

But how is it with Washington's claim upon the affections of his countrymen? It is not, I sometimes fear, for his sake and ours, as well as it should be. There are some of the children of light, if we Americans are children of light, who are less wise in this matter than the children of the world: For I am inclined to think that the world has not only guaranteed Washington's title to greatness but has also taken him much to its heart.

I could wish that every American would welcome Washington to his heart of hearts. I know that it is rather a badge of shame than a certificate of superiority not to do so. It is the most natural thing in the world for a normal American who knows Washington to give him a high place in his heart. Nobody would expect an abnormal person — a person with ethical smart-jacks (and there are a good many such afflicted folk among us) — to love anything normal, and Washington was in all respects a normal human being. But the failure of the normal American to give Washington the high place in his affections that he richly deserves to hold is almost certain to be due to prejudice based upon ignorance — ignorance of the flesh and blood man, who had bones in his hands, and brains in his head, and the reddest of red blood in his heart and veins, who was at once a splendid lover and a splendid hater, who possessed great grit and gumption as well as great grace, and who was physically, mentally and sympathetically altogether the livest human being on this earth when God touched his heart, and girded him for his matchless service to America and the world.

" If he do but touch the hills they shall smoke," sang the Psalmist. What, then, if God touched the heart of a man? Let fiery Moses on Sinai as he trembles with indignation at the sight of the Golden Calf — let fiery Washington at Kip's Bay, at Trenton, at Princeton, at Monmouth, and in his trenchant letters to Congress, make answer!

The marble shaft in Washington City tells only half the truth about him in whose honor it was erected. It speaks well for his lofty purity and his majestic bearing, but its cold white blocks tell nothing of the fierce fires that burned within the full-blooded Washington from the days of his youth when he went forth into the wilderness rejoicing as a giant to run his course and to match his prowess against wild beast or savage to the day when with undimmed eye and natural force unabated God called him to his great reward. That hollow shaft would only be a fit symbol of Washington if it were converted into the chimney of a blast furnace and from time to time smokeless flame were seen leaping from its summit.

If Washington was cold, he was only cold as the snow-clad volcano is cold. It is written, " Our God is a consuming fire." The man whose heart God touches, as we have every reason to believe he touched the heart of Washington, is never an icicle. He may, if he be great enough, attain " the energetic passion of repose." He will certainly burn his smoke, if he be a man after God's heart. But within he will be a burning fiery furnace.

Washington was splendidly human. Sometimes he was pathetically human. To know him well is to love him. Not to love him is to lose a rare patriotic opportunity. To love him is an honor to any heart and an inspiration. I thank God for the proud privilege of receiving this " shining soul," this " modest glory," this incomparable human-hearted gentleman, and soldier, and statesman, and patriot into my inmost heart as my own great dear countryman.

IV PAXOMANIACS : OR PACIFISTS RUN MAD

A series of articles published in the Baltimore Evenvng Sun, April- June, 1917.

PAXOMANIACS : OR PACIFISTS RUN MAD

What is a Paxomaniac? There is no use in looking in the dictionary for the word. You will not find it. It is a brand new word — just brought to birth by Necessity, the mother of invention.

But so is the word " pacifist " a new word ; so new that it appears neither in the New Standard Dictionary of 1913 nor the Century Dictionary of 1914. Presumably the word is a product of the belligerent (not to say contentious, controversial, enraged, exasperated, exasperating, fighting, furious, harsh, hateful, hostile, irritated, irritating, provoked, provoking, quarrelsome, stormy, tumultuous, turbulent, warlike) peace propaganda now being waged in England and the United States. It would not be fair to say the smell of powder started this propaganda, but that the fresh smell of it has greatly accelerated the speed of our peace-makers goes without saying. However that may be, the word " pacifist " seems to have been coined — certainly it has been appropriated — by the two-forty-on-the-shell-road (not to say typhoonish, tornadoish, whirlwindish) peace propagandist as a pleasing description of himself as a super-apostle (I had almost said, a super-messiah) of peace in these rambunctious times.

Ask a self-confessed, simon-pure " pacifist " to define this word, — which when you first look at it appears innocent enough, and such a word as might be fairly descriptive of your own attitude towards your fellowmen — and (presto! change!) he skins up a sort of greasy pole to a dizzy height, stands on the tip of it, improvises a halo about his head, spins around like a dancing dervish, stops suddenly, points a scornful finger at some such calm, tranquil, conciliatory, gentle, meek, mild, peaceable, neighborly gentleman as (say) William Howard Taft, and with a withering look upon his face, cries, " Do you see that bold, bad, brutal, blood-thirsty, militaristic monster? Thank God I am not what he is ! i am a pacifist ! ! My motto is : Peace at any price. My belief is that the use of force is absolutely diabolical; so absolutely diabolical that it is a waste of time to attempt to differentiate between the use of force by the Kaiser in the invasion of Belgium and the use of force by Jesus Christ in the cleansing of the Temple. I suspect, however, the scene in the Temple has been incorrectly reported by witnesses with militaristic preconceptions. Any way, Force is fiendish. Peace is the be-all, the do-all, the end-all of mankind. Peace is the one and only panacea." Here a look of alarm comes into his face. Like a flash of greased lightning he descends from his top-lofty perch, and darts off the instant he hits the common earth. " Whither so fast away, O passionate pilgrim of peace? " you cry. Back comes the answer like a ball tossed over the head : " I have a daughter at home for whose safety I fear in these times when so many lustful brutes are abroad ! " Or, perhaps, the answer is : " My night watchman is sick abed. I must myself keep watch over my wife and children, my cattle, chicks and chattels, tonight ! " If the answer had been a twelve-pound shot and had struck you in the solar plexus, it could hardly have knocked the wind more completely out of you. To say that you are dumbfounded is to put it mildly. You are flabbergasted in the last degree. When you come to your pacifist friend has disappeared. You stand gazing in the direction in which he went, and then, if you happen to know it, the story of the old country fellow who met a camel face to face for the first time at a circus comes into your mind, and you say, with a feeling of relief, " Gosh ! there ain't no sich ! "

But you are wrong — just as wrong as old Reuben. There are people at large in England and America who talk and behave just about as preposterously as the sweet gentleman who called forth your explosive remark. And those people call themselves " Pacifists." That's the word they have invented or appropriated by which to call themselves. But they really are Paxomaniacs.

(The reader is referred to " Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There " — especially the chapters on Tweedledum and Tweedledee, in which the poem on The Walrus and the Carpenter appears, and the chapter called w It's My Own Invention," in which the story of the Red and White Knights is given — if he would understand the " pacifist " mind, or rather, let me say, if he would not be altogether obfuscated in his effort to understand it.)

I am sure the word " paxomaniac " is a better word to describe the sort of person I have in mind than is the word " pacifist " ; and I cannot but feel that it is fairer to the English language and to the large number of normal-minded persons of pacific temperament who speak it to designate this sort of a person as a paxomaniac rather than as a pacifist. Every well-disposed person is, or certainly humbly hopes to be, a pacifist ; — unless you give the word a strained, artificial, pathological meaning. To accuse all of the English-speaking race except the pitiful little flock of people who call themselves pacifists of being haters of or traitors to peace, is to write oneself down either as a fool or a fanatic of the most hopeless kind, and to slash to pieces with one's tongue both the Ninth Commandment and the Golden Rule. " The times have been," says Macbeth, " That, when the brains were out, the man would die." If these were such times as those, to think of making such an accusation would be positively suicidal.

Now these vociferous peace-at-any-price people who call themselves pacifists are not mere pacifists. They are pacifists run mad. They are pacifists who have " gone juramentado " — as we used to say about the fanatical Moro in the Philippines who took an oath to die killing Christians — and are running amuck. They are peace blinded pacifists. There is a saying among Mohammedans, " See Mecca and die," a variant of which is, " See Mecca and see no more." And it is said that certain devout Moslems literally obey these words by gazing at white-hot bricks after beholding the Prophet's tomb until their sight is destroyed, so that what they are pleased to call the " supreme vision " shall be their last earthly sight. These English and American pacifists who have peeped at Peace through a key-hole or rifle-barrel, or gazed at the big toe or the back of Peace, until they are peace-blinded — blind to everything else but Peace, and who have but a partial and distorted vision of Peace — are the spiritual kith and kin of these frenzied Moslem zealots. Psychologically, yes, and pathologically, they belong in the same category. Each is the victim of a religious craze. The peace-at-any-price pacifist is peace-crazy. He is no longer a mere pacifist. He is a paxomaniac. Mentally, he is a martyr to Peace, somewhat though not on the same plane as the Irish woman who said she was a martyr to drink.

PAXOMANIACS: OR PACIFISTS RUN MAD

II

Let us make it perfectly plain at the outset of this second article on " paxomaniacs " that I am not laboring under the delusion that all pacifists are victims of the insidious mental and moral malady I venture to call paxomania.

The paxomaniac, as I have said, is the pacifist run mad. He is the slavish purblind devotee of Pax, the mythical Roman goddess of peace, by whom he has been bewitched and unmanned, as the companions of Ulysses were bewitched and unmanned by the enchantress Circe.

Of course the ultra-pacifist or paxomaniac will say that it is before the Prince of Peace, and not Pax, that he prostrates himself. For the present I postpone further comment upon this claim than to say it seems to me the devotion of the paxomaniac is too lacking in masculinity and veraciousness to be inspired by, and too overloaded with femininity and freakishness to be very acceptable to, the Prince of Peace.

Such sentimental devotion might please a mythical, mystical goddess. A Real Man it could not please.

The Prince of Peace might, out of pity, suffer it. He could not possibly enjoy it. He never wasted his time pouring rosewater on toads. He called Herod a fox. I would not venture to say what he would have called Bernstorff; but I have a strong feeling the epithet would have satisfied the most ardent patriot. And I would wager my eternal soul upon it that he would not have sent a bouquet to Bernstorff or a message of good will through him to his bad willed brethren who at the moment were plowing the breast of Belgium and sucking her blood like a vampire. The Prince of Peace was not a paxomaniac — either a real one or an imitation one. The peace-at-any-price palaver would have stank in His nostrils.

Before speaking further about paxomaniacs, let me say a few words about three other kinds of present day " pacifists " (by which I mean superor ultra-pacifists), who have been helping to make the welkin ring with peace cries and yells and screams and shrieks.

It will not be necessary to say anything at all in this connection about such reasonable and reputable advocates of righteous and disinterested peace as those who have figured in the meetings held at The Hague before the present war, or those who are identified with the movement for a World Court or with the League to Enforce Peace. The Emergency Peace Federation, with its disingenuous demand for a " popular referendum vote," is altogether too hysterical, if not too hypocritical, to be classed as reputable. It smells too strongly of German cologne. It is too full of pro-Prussian peace piffle, which sticks in any honest throat even when spooned up and crammed down by " Mrs. J. Sergeant Cram, For the Committee." And Amos Pinchot with his paste and pinch-beck peace propaganda is perfectly preposterous. Amy is a scream.

First I shall speak of such " pacifists " as Henry Ford and Dr. Kirchway. And yet there are recent indications that both Henry and the Doctor have at least heard Wisdom crying on the sea or in the streets, and have come to repentance and a better mind. Since that frightfully patriotic offer of his to the President, from the standpoint of a paxomaniac Henry is a shameful outlaw seeking to imbrue his hands in the blood of holy Huns and to interfere sacrilegiously with their pious piratical plans. And since Dr. Kirchway has fallen from grace in the eyes of those with whom he has been flocking and vociferating by saying " There is no question as to the duty of the President to protect American rights on land and sea ... I believe in peace so long as we can have it with honor. When we can't, I want to fight " — the New York Times speaks of him as " a pacifist with lots of company," meaning us.

But as it is still a question as to how soundly converted Henry and the Doctor are; and as their hearts are still fluttering at the thought of what might have been accomplished by their voyage and vociferation if only this world had been populated with the sort of people that that sort of thing appeals to ; and as they are in some measure responsible for the vagaries of their quondam shout-fellows ; and as they are representative of a class of people whose emotions sometimes run away with their common sense so fast and far that it is difficult for Wisdom to call them back, and yet who have that in them to which Wisdom could make an effective appeal once she was given a hearing — it seems to me fair that mention should be made of them.

But of course they are not paxomaniacs. They were threatened with paxomania, at one time they seemed to have an alarming number of the germs of the disease in their brains, but they managed to thin them out sufficiently before they were completely victimized. They escaped by the skin of their teeth. The fact that they escaped (let it be said in passing) keeps alive in one's heart the hope for one's friends who are in the incipient, or even secondary, stages of the malign malady.

Secondly, I must mention the " pacifist " whose devotion to peace-at-any-price is the outgrowth of his social or economic theories, rather than of his religious convictions. He is probably a Socialist, and apt to be affiliated with the Socialist Party. He is pumped full of such historic slush as that all wars are of capitalistic origin and are waged at the cost of the working-class for the benefit of the capitalist class. Sometimes he is so far gone that he speaks of the flag of his country as the capitalist's flag, for which he has little or no respect. He resolves, partly for his own sake, partly for the sake of the working-class, not to assist in any way in fighting the battles of capitalism. While his resolution is not without a touch of humaneness, especially towards those of his own class, the dominating motive back of it is one of policy. " Pacifism is the best policy for the proletariat " is the one big thought in his mind. Cut out war and the proletariat will win out in its fight with the master-class, he thinks. I do not call this social or economic pacifist a paxomaniac, as he is in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred ready enough to fight — if he is allowed to stage the fight. Just as a matter of social policy, of social strategy, he coolly decides to resist as far as possible the pressure brought to bear upon him to make him fight for the powers that be. Their fight, he thinks, is not, cannot be, his fight. " Let them fight their fight, and I'll fight mine." Of course he might take this same view about paying taxes, with no worse show of reason ; or, for the matter of that, the view of the philosophical anarchist, and ask, with a shrug of the shoulders, Why a State at all?

It is hardly necessary for me to add that though I call myself a Socialist I take precious little stock in this ignorant and ignoble phase of Socialism. To call the man a fool or a knave who claims the privileges of American citizenship, and yet foams out his shame by talking of higher loyalty to some other flag than the Stars and Stripes, seems to me to be giving him more honor than is his due. Whatever attitude the State might take toward such tainted citizenship in peace times, in war times, the State would be justified in requiring its citizens without exception to make choice between the Stars and Stripes and the bars and stripes.