The peril of hifalutin

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

Preface

I. The Duty of Criticism 3

II. The Use and Abuse of Partisanship . 8

III. The Art of Administration .... 14

IV. The Peril of Hifalutin 29

V. Ultra-Radicalism and the War ... 37

VI. " American Bolsheviki ' ' 43

VII. Ultra-Idealism and Diplomacy ... 51

VIII. Sentimentality and Reality ... 59

IX. Immigration and Labor 67

X. Reform and Restraint 72

XI. The English-Speaking Alliance . . 77

XII. Japan, Russia and the War .... 93

XIII. America, Japan and the War . . . 101

XIV. China, America and Japan .... 107 XV. War Diplomacy in Latin America . 113

XVI. The Colombian Treaty 117

XVIII. Socialization 145

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

XIX. New Nationalism 158

XX. A British Programme ...... 176

XXI. Human Nature and Social Theory . 193

XXII. An American View 209

XXIII. The War of the Unborn 216

XXIV. Some Phases of Foreign Policy . . 226 XXV. Faith and Works 234

Appendix: "Dollar Diplomacy' ' . . 240

PREFACE

The object of this little volume is to emphasize the need of attention by the average American to the necessity of a realistic and practical consideration of our national problems and to warn against the dangers to America in meeting such problems, namely, the dangers of hifalutinism, of unsound idealism, of wild radicalism, and of ultra-conservatism. If America is to be made safe, whether in war or in peace, the average American in his overwhelming numbers must rise up and combat these perils. If the average American fails to study the nation's questions and to acquire and insist upon a realistic and practical point of view in dealing with them, then he himself will bring upon his country the crowning peril of all; he will write down public indifference as the epitaph of democracy with constitutional liberty through republican representative government.

A desire to contribute, however slightly, to a realization of the perils mentioned, and to a realization of

PREFACE

the fact that only by vigilance and study can the average American combat them and himself help remove the unbounded peril of popular indifference, is the excuse for making the following comment available in convenient form. It will be quite evident that no pretense is made of an exhaustive study of the subjects treated. The aim is rather to try to develop a realistic, practical and really American viewpoint; to call attention to a few typical questions which are the battle ground on which hifalutinism, unsound idealism, wild radicalism, and ultra-conservatism are to be fought ; and to set forth some observations upon these matters which it is hoped may possibly be of some slight suggestive value.

My thanks are due the editor of the Public Ledger for his kind permission to include in this book various articles which appeared in that newspaper. There is included, also, as an appendix, a monograph from the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, November, 1916. Its attempted analysis of the relation of Government to foreign investment comprises some discussion of American diplomacy, — especially of the much misunderstood "dollar diplomacy,' ' to which allusion is made in the text.

Huntington Wilson.

Philadelphia, April 30, 1918,

THE DUTY OF CRITICISM

It is a duty of citizenship to give thought very earnestly to many questions of means to win the war and also to many large questions of policy that now brood over the future of our country. ' ' Stand behind the President/ ' " Don't rock the boat," etc., are good enough cries in their place ; but they cannot be made conveniently to cover the multitude of all our sins. To make of them an excuse for the indolent shirking of thought and responsibility is to abuse them.

At this time the one paramount national aim is victory over the Teutonic power. The President symbolizes that national aim. In it all citizens worthy the name give the Administration whole-hearted, unmurmuring support — ready to go "to the last man and to the last dollar. " But this is not the citizen's whole duty. To win the war is the country's substantive policy. It is its policy in re. That is beyond questioning discussion. Questioning discussion of it damages the national interest and is unpatriotic. Alongside but distinct from that is the broad field of the country's adjective policy, its policy in modo. In this field fall questions of efficiency in ways and means, and there also may be placed questions of policy concatenated with our new associations, problems and relations, present and future, arising out of the war and out of our paramount policy to help win the war. This field is a proper field for discussion. In this field it is not questioning discussion, but the neglect of it, that may damage the national interest and that is unpatriotic. Here lie many matters that must not drift to decision through default of any clear mandate of public opinion. If the President seeks to reflect public opinion rather than to lead it, how shall he be guided if public opinion remain uninformed or inarticulate? Here is what the President himself has said on this subject:

"I can imagine no greater disservice to the country than to establish a system of censorship that would deny to the people of a free republic like our own their indisputable right to criticize their own public officials. While exercising the great powers of the office I hold, I would regret in a crisis like the one through which we are now passing to lose the benefit of patriotic and intelligent criticism.' '

To the ordinary powers of the Executive Congress has by law added almost limitless ones. Unlike Ger-

THE DUTY OF CRITICISM 5

many, we have no legislative committee to participate in the framing of policies. Unlike France and Britain, we have no cabinet responsible to our Legislature. Unlike any other democratic country, our Cabinet cannot "fall" except at four-year intervals; our Cabinet secretaries are not interrogated on the floor of the House or Senate; we have no "appeal to the country' * through special elections; we have no nongeographical means of electing to our Legislature the wisest heads if they have failed of election in one constituency; we have no coalition cabinets.

To a less degree than almost any other country have we a population habituated to close study, conscious responsibility, keen interest and intellectual conviction on a national scale upon political and diplomatic subjects. In this unique situation, without the patriotic and intelligent criticism which he bespeaks, the position in which the President has been placed must become intolerable in the appalling responsibility of an almost autocratic isolation. Honest men will find a clear enough war-time rule, which may perhaps be put thus : Honest, constructive and patriotic criticism in modo; unmurmuring, unquestioning support in re (i. e., prosecuting the war for victory over the Teutonic power).

Acting upon some such rule the nation will give no aid nor comfort to the enemy. It will also put all its intellectual and moral power, as it has already put its physical and financial power, behind the Government to win the war. Thus will the nation perform an almost equally important duty by not withholding from its officials the advantage of the thought and feeling of the country upon all means to the end of victory and upon all the great questions of policy, which are incidental to the war and which it will be absolutely disastrous to our future to leave to the chance of any human being's personal predilection, or to drift, or to ephemeral expediency, or to haphazard determination through lack of the mandate of public opinion.

The press, the public men and the publicists of the United States, in the very fineness of their sturdy patriotism, are in danger of erring on the side of slighting that more laborious part of their duty — the duty of constructive criticism and suggestion.

Are the vast powers so generously accorded by the Congress being translated into swift action by skillfully co-ordinated administrative machinery? Is the labor problem being solved ? Is the shipbuilding programme progressing as well as it can possibly be made to progress? Is the agricultural programme perfected? Are our relations with the British empire being given their proper place as the cornerstone of a permanent understanding of the English-speaking peoples, which should be the fundamental of our

THE DUTY OF CRITICISM 7

future policy, the keystone and the solid nucleus of a league in defense of our kind of civilization?

Such are examples of questions of means and questions of policy linked to, but distinct from, the paramount and unquestionable policy of prosecuting the war to victory, in which latter the nation is bound to unanimity. People outside the Government are generally not very accurately informed in the wide field of those lesser questions of modes of action and of corollary policies. They take a great deal on faith. To do so is good. Never had an Executive a freer hand in a great task. But faith cannot take the place of watchfulness and of constructive criticism and suggestion on the part of the nation 's leaders and the country's press as a steadying help and an inspiration to the Government in its trusteeship of the vast interests of the nation. The safeguarding of the nation's vast interests and the real furtherance of the Government's efficiency in the promotion of those interests alike demand honest, fearless, patriotic and constructive criticism.

II The Use And Abuse Of Partisanship

How, then, is public opinion to be brought to bear in a way to promote attainment of the aim of the war and to help bring the policies and ways and means pursued by the Government up to ever higher standards of wisdom, foresight and efficiency? How is really constructive criticism to gain a hearing and to effect anything? Individual citizens can do little. Press and periodicals and such organizations as the National Security League, the American Defense League, the American Rights League, and others, particularly if they work together, can do more. But it is admittedly difficult for any of these to reach the Administration under present conditions. Thus it is to the Congress as a forum and to a political party as an organ that public opinion must look for means to become effectively articulate. And this fact invites honest, unsentimental consideration of the question of the rights and wrongs of partisanship in this perilous time of war. Perhaps there can be found

USE AND ABUSE OF PARTISANSHIP 9

here, too, a formula as clear as the one already found to divide beneficial from injurious criticism.

It is easy enough to waive aside all partisanship as wrong. A fine patriotic impulse commends so handsome a gesture ; but a dangerous habit of not bothering about important distinctions, even when they introduce essential differences, may lead to danger, if every meaning of "partisanship" is to be indiscriminately banned. It is a sad commentary upon the political life of this country that the acquired meaning of "partisanship" and "party politics" is so largely that of adopting opinions, standing for policies, and, whether in office or in opposition, striving, condemning, attitudinizing and contriving with a view to keeping or to gaining power merely for power's sake. Good Americans will have no patience in these days with such merely selfish partisanship. Without virtue in itself, it may in time of peace work some incidental good; but in time of grave crisis it should be treated with equal contempt whenever found to characterize the party in office or the party out of office.

But partisanship has another meaning. It is taking sides upon questions of policy. Aside from the national war aim, as to which there can be no two opinions, the whole field of policies and of ways and means is as open to honest patriotic and constructive difference of opinion as it is to such criticism. Such opinion, jointly held by those like-minded, becomea justified partisanship. Expressed in political action, it becomes justified party politics, — something quite different in quality and purpose from the selfish " partisanship " and "party polities' ' of popular phrase, which is so rightly condemned. A safe criterion would seem to be this: — Attack or opposition by reason of partisanship is to be condemned ; attack or opposition by compelling reason of patriotic duty, based on conscientious conviction, is to be commended. If it gains efficiency in being done through an organized political party, it should be all the more commended, even though it may then be called in one sense partisan. There is slight danger indeed that a single-minded patriotism will not always be circumspect, in the discharge of the duty of criticism by a political party, to measure with a due regard to the adventitious effects of the action taken the good sought to be achieved.

The efficiency and wisdom of men and of measures are the two legitimate subjects for cleavage of political opinion. In such countries as France and Great Britain, where the machinery of democratic government is more resilient and more constantly accessible to public opinion, we have seen such cleavages arise during the war and work beneficial changes in both fields. In our own more rigid system, in which executive personnel is fixed for four-year periods and

USE AND ABUSE OF PARTISANSHIP 11

is only slightly touched by the Senate's confirming power or by the potentialities of possible legislative thumb-screws, political action as to personnel is confined almost entirely to elections to the Congress at fixed intervals.

Thus, in the United States, political party action is mostly remitted, between elections, to questions of policy. In a country so evenly divided in party membership it would be absurd to assume that official opinion or the opinion of one political party, could alone be of use in contributing wisdom and efficiency to the conduct of affairs of unusual difficulty and unprecedented importance to the whole nation. By collecting, scrutinizing, making articulate and standing for whatever is good in the unofficial opinion of the country; by organizing constructive criticism and suggestion; by broaching policies of foresight, a minority party has an opportunity to serve the country. To receive consideration, opinion must be organized. Hence the great use of party even in wartime. It can assure that the whole, not half, of the national thought shall be brought to bear upon the national problems. It can act as a balance wheel that the machinery of government can ill dispense with in time of stress.

Speaking generally, coalition, " opposition/ ' or stultified uselessness are the only courses open to a party not in power. Denied coalition, even in the form of an advisory war council, there remains to a minority party, " opposition.' ' Since the war began the role technically known as the "opposition" has been acted with an entire freedom from evil partisanship that has been beyond praise. If there has been error it has lain rather in a somewhat too great avail of the theory that deprivation of power carries with it freedom from the duty of uniting upon a programme of constructive criticism and suggestion. In the Senate, especially, a small section of the party in power has shown, on occasion, a correspondingly praiseworthy disposition to sacrifice slavish " regularity, ' ' just as the opposition has always sacrificed malicious partisanship, when great issues were at stake.

Partisanship and party action, like criticism, if honest, patriotic and constructive and directed to no selfish end but solely to the advancement of the national interests and the national aim to which nation and Government are pledged, will strengthen and safeguard the common purpose. In times like these, above all, the nation is all; parties of themselves are nothing. It is in the great things of statesmanship, not in the trivialities of " politics/ ' that the nation is concerned; and it is only through the question of their utility to the evolution and carrying out of the best possible policies that we can be expected to think at all of party at this time. A conscientious "opposition" without malice or selfishness and a party in

USE AND ABUSE OF PARTISANSHIP 13

power which, will not altogether sacrifice conviction to " regularity " should make possible alignments able to make opposition effective when surely demanded by the country's interests, while assuring that hearty support all Americans are eager to give the Administration on every occasion when they can conscientiously do so. The very regrettable failure to create a coalition war council still leaves a heavy obligation upon a minority party that counts half the population in its membership, and at the same time it increases the vast responsibility of the party in power. Partisanship, except the partisanship of an honest, fervid patriotism, is something the country will hardly excuse on the part of either.

Ill

Good administration requires constant and adequate motive power applied to a good machine to make the power effective. The motive power consists in clear purpose and strong, decisive will to achieve that purpose. But the power must not be like latent heat ; it must be harnessed to its machine. Executive ability has been spoken of as "the art of passing the buck." The seeming slight hints a truth and an ability without which good administration is impossible. There are men of much ability whose idea of heaven would be to stand on a hill completely surrounded by stenographers and themselves to dictate every detail of the vastest affairs. Men of that nature can never be good executives. The passion for doing things oneself may be a virtue so long as the task is within the power of one human being to perform. When the task has passed beyond that modest compass, then the man, however brilliant, who cannot pass on his work to others, retaining only so much as is appropriate to the capacity of one man and choosing well the part he will retain, is not a good executive. Much of the motive power that is his remains latent. It is not applied to the machine. The machine is inevitably, by just so much, paralyzed. The product of the machine is, by just so much, reduced.

Executive ability, then, aside from talent, clear purpose and intellectual power, is judgment of men and faith in them — the choosing of the wisest collaborators and the delegation to them of great responsibilities. Through them the full motive power will reach the administrative machine. Otherwise a great part of the power must inevitably be lost because of the simple fact that in vast affairs the task of applying all the power to the machine is infinitely more than any one man can perform.

At the top of an administrative machine, then, is its executive, having as councilors as many trusted lieutenants as necessary to keep the whole of the motive power of clear purpose, prompt decision and quick transmission continuously operative. The principal executive can thus confine himself to "touching the high places" of policy, to orders, to approving in principle, to ratifying or amending finished plans presented to him, to the guidance of work along broad lines. His councilors distill from the mass of questions presented the compact essence of what he must pass upon. His time is saved for this highest function and is not frittered away in attention to details.

The body of the administrative machine proper consists in a number of administrative entities corresponding to the number of broad subjects into which the work is divided. Each should comprise the best ability obtainable for handling every phase of the subject with which it is charged. At the head of each should be a general direction, resembling on a small scale the general direction of the whole machine already indicated. Each of these machines should gather to itself all that there is to be done in its field of work. Its functions should be logically divided below for the efficient performance of details and specialized tasks. The finished product of its functioning should automatically be united, sifted, simplified and co-ordinated in the process of reaching and being passed upon by the general direction at the top of any given department.

Within a well-organized department there are rules and checks to assure necessary consultation in order that there shall be no conflicts or overlappings and in order that it shall be impossible for a piece of work to go forth unless it shall represent the views of all the subdivisions within the department which are concerned with its subject matter. In a good administrative machine there is similar careful provision for interdepartmental conference in the early stages of a project during the course of its working out, and finally when it has reached the departmental head and is ready for final discussion between him and the heads of other departments concerned.

Government is the most complicated of mundane affairs. For a Government it is, therefore, pre-eminently essential that the laws of good administration be observed. They make the difference between efficiency and chaos. If the foregoing attempt to indicate the nature of an administrative machine conformable to those general laws has had the least success, it will be seen that an executive department of government is in structure a miniature of the whole executive branch of government. Each department has its head, with his lieutenants and councilors. Those officials comprise the general direction of the department and the court of last resort in infradepartmental decisions. Below them is the departmental machine proper, with all its bureaus, divisions, offices, etc. Each of these strives to advance the work as far as possible toward the finished product. Every one of these, with exceedingly few exceptions, has its divisional organization and may be regarded, in a way, as a microcosm of the department or, indeed, of the whole executive branch of government,

From this fact it may fairly be concluded that the laws of good administration are natural ones, hardly more to be trifled with than are the laws of the biological cell. Some of their essentials are these : Responsibility and authority must be united in equal measure. Authority must be distributed until all of it can be used, that is, until it is all operative and no one man is charged with the use of more than it is physically possible for him to use to the best advantage. Those among whom the power is distributed should be those best able to use it wisely and to form the best possible general direction of the administrative machinery and the wisest councilors of its individual head. All work of one general kind should be concentrated in direction and subdivided in special aspects. Every agency interested in any phase of a subject should be invariably consulted upon that subject, and all such agencies should work together for the common aim. The machinery should be kept as simple as is practicable.

To use a happy phrase of General Crowder, there will also have some day to be instituted in this country a great deal of "supervised decentralization. ' ' Instead of piling officialdom sky-high at Washington, perhaps the States can be grouped in zones for the administration of increasing Federal business. But that is another story. It will be more to the point now to examine the present state of affairs at Washington by the standard of these few simple principles of businesslike administration.

In attempting some constructive or at least suggestive criticism of the machinery and functioning of administrative work at Washington there is danger of injustice through either overrating or underrating defects which seem patent to an observer. This is due to the incredible difficulty of gaining up-to-date official information as to the organization, functioning or product of the great engine through which the nation is trying to execute the tasks of governing itself at home and of carrying on its part of the greatest war in history. Nine-tenths of the information referred to could not, it would seem, be of the slightest value to the enemy. Indeed, results obtained, if thoroughly satisfactory, would tend rather to discouragement than to "comfort to the enemy. " It would seem that there must be some way of withholding from the enemy information that would aid him which need not involve at the same time depriving the American public to so great an extent of the facts even as to almost routine matters, to say nothing of questions of principle involved in important policy. It is rather singular that in the United States there should be enforced ignorance and lack of public discussion or political attention to so many matters which are the subject of unrestrained, spirited and constructive discussion in the countries of our allies. Aside from dangers of inaccuracy due to the above considerations, the appalling bulk of our augmented governmental machine excludes from any comment of reasonable length all but the rough indication of a few aspects and examples of the problem.

The evolution of the departments at Washington had been from the first through a rather haphazard accretion of new functions to one department or another, with illogical results, whose defects had long been recognized. President Taft had put to work some of the country's most experienced efficiency experts who were to perfect a budget system and also to plan a far-reaching department reorganization which would undoubtedly have involved much redistribution of functions and perhaps some rearrangement even of the names of departments and of some of the broad division of subjects which those names should connote. Unfortunately, this work was not continued, and the country had to face the war without the strengthening of executive machinery which might otherwise have preceded the crisis. "With the creation of a Shipping Board and a Council of National Defense and some other things, a gesture was at last made toward preparedness.

With the coming of war there were summoned to Washington a great number of men. Congress gave the President every desired power. The country made superb response in unmurmuring acceptance of every innovation and sacrifice and the President fronted his stupendous task having at his disposition as many as he chose of the country's ablest men, willing to sacrifice every selfish interest to patriotic service. The spirit shown by Congress and the country has been one to hearten and bring pride to Americans, and the President in his appalling responsibilities has received, as he should, the nonpartisan support of all citizens in the work of winning the war.

The question is, Are all these fine potentialities by this time being swiftly translated into action of the greatest attainable efficiency to win the war? And if not, why not? There is nothing to be gained in publicly slurring over what are generally admitted in private to be glaring defects of our administrative machinery and its functioning. The great talents and intellectual ability of the President embodying as he does the tremendous motive power of a great nation's high resolve and endowed by law with unprecedented authority are not being liberated as they should be for the national advantage. This fact is undoubted and is a grave detriment to the country. The obvious remedy would seem to be the creation of a true council of national defense or war council, composed not of specialists, but of men of the greatest wisdom, judgment and knowledge of affairs that can be found in the country, irrespective of political party.

Through such a council, with leisure for great questions, whom he could trust implicitly and to whom he could intrust all but the final touch of approval of great projects, and only through such an agency, can the President really mobilize and make promptly effective for the country's good his own great abilities and the powers he possesses, which otherwise remain slow and halting in their operation, through no fault of the President's, but from the simple fact that there is an absolute limit to the matters to which one human mind can give adequate attention.

The present Council of National Defense is a council in name only. It is composed of members of the Cabinet and of a few advisers in special fields. Espepecially in the avalanche of extra work due to the war, heads of departments and special advisers have in their regular duties every ounce of work and responsibility that they can bear if they are to perform satisfactorily their indispensable functions. Each of these officials must very properly concentrate upon the great work for which he is responsible. None of them as individuals, nor all of them as a body, can possibly be transmuted by a name into a war council or a real council of national defense. Such a council must be in constant touch with the President and must, like him, survey the whole field with a broad view, prepared to compound differences of opinion, to outline and pass upon the tasks of special departments, to adopt or reject recommendations and to energize the whole of the war and governmental machinery. With such a council we should hear less of the needs of priority boards, of the dreadful lack of co-ordination and co-operation, of duplication of effort, of interminable delays.

The original Council of National Defense did good service and deserves the thanks of the country for its work in the directions of mobilizing industry, stimulating labor and systematizing the Government's purchase of supplies with a view to economy and quick delivery, and also in stimulating and centralizing almost innumerable bodies of medical, scientific and other workers called upon to contribute to our war efficiency. In industrial and commercial matters, due doubtless to a law excluding interested parties from participation in contracts on behalf of the Government, much of the organization working with the Council was later inverted, so to speak. From being governmental agencies many units of personnel became formally the agents of the industries or trades. This interesting adjustment seems simply to call for the creation of official points of contact to meet the former governmental units now metamorphosed into private ones. And this was presumably done.