If America fail; our national mission and our possible future

Front matter

OUR NATIONAL MISSION AND OUR POSSIBLE FUTURE

By SAMUEL ZANE BATTEN

The only nations which can have a future, the only nations which

Contents

PARTI THE RISE AND FALL OF NATIONS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. The Mission of America 3

Part II The Conditions Of National Success

VI. The Search for Justice 109

VII. The Conservation of Our Natural

Resources 124

VIII. The Practise of Democracy 145

IX. The Discipline of the Nation 164

X. The Preservation of the American

Family 187

XL The Americanization OF the People. . 206

XII. The Supremacy of the Spiritual 225

XIII. The Christianization OF the Nation.. 243

PART I THE RISE AND FALL OF NATIONS

" Where there is no vision the people perish." Right thought goes before right action. The picture is older than the paint and canvas. The plans and specifications are antecedent to the building. It is the light in the eye that gives purpose to the hand. Great and worthy things do not come about by chance. Moral ends are achieved by moral purpose. For a man and for a nation, the most vital fact is the ideal cherished, the goal sought, the conviction of a work and mission. The ideal Achilles, we are reminded, made the real heroes of Thermopylae and the Granicus. The conviction that they were . a chosen people made Israel the miracle of history.

That the American Republic has some meaning and mission in the world has long been a conviction with its people. Many of the men who founded the colonies felt the hand of God upon them, and wrought as in the Great Taskmaster's eye and for his purpose in the world. ^ Adopting and adapting the words of Oliver Cromwell,^ " We are a people with the clear stamp of God upon us, whose appearances and providences are not to be outmatched by any Judah whatsoever." This justifies the word of Emerson : ^ " America is but another name for op-

1 Bancroft, " History of the United States," Vol. I, p. 214. ^ Cromwell, " Fourth Speech in Parliament." ' " Miscellanies," p. 279.

portunity. Our whole history appears like a last effort of Divine Providence in behalf of the human race." If there is a God in history who calls nations and determines the course of events, then America is indeed a called and chosen nation.

The nation that would fulfil its high destiny must believe that it has a mission and must consciously seek to realize that mission. In a real sense the nation is but the person writ large. For generations it may be, a people lives a more or less instinctive and undeliberate life. It is conquering its territory, building cities, developing its resources, growing in numbers and power, and assuming a place among the nations of the earth. It is dimly conscious of the fact that it has some work to do and some mission to fulfil ; but it does not fully know what these may be. There comes a time, however, when it awakes to full self-consciousness and begins to ask why it is here, what it has to do, what it has to fear, and what it may hope. As with the person, so with the nation, such a time is usually one of storm and stress, of painful self-scrutiny and doubtful mind. But by and by the light breaks through the mist, and the people gain a sense of direction and know the great thing they are called to do.

The American Republic has come to such a time of self-discovery. Two sets of causes combine to make the present a turning-point in national destiny; they are compelling us to reconceive our national ideal and are giving us a sense of direction. First, is the need of a clearer national vision. We have done great things in the past whereof history will tell "till the last syllable of recorded time." We have developed a continent at an incredible rate and have created wealth faster than any other people. We have gained our independence and preserved our national unity. And just when one might expect the nation to feel proud of its achievements, we Americans have grown uncertain of ourselves. We have discovered that many things are wrong in the nation's life; that influences are at work which divide the people and make us of doubtful mind concerning our mission and our future. We have discovered also that the accepted maxims of the nation are primitive and provincial ; that our policies and programs belong to a nation of villagers rather than to a nation among nations.

Secondly, the World War marks the close of one era and the opening of a new chapter in our history. Hitherto we have lived much to ourselves, and on the advice of the Father of his Country have avoided all entangling alliances with European nations. We have approved the policy of the Monroe Doctrine and have limited our interest to the Western hemisphere. This has implied our natural separateness and has meant that we have no part in world affairs. But the World War taught us that we can not stand apart as mere spectators; it has called us out of our isolation and has given us a stake in world life as an active participant. From this time forward things will be different with us, and a new national policy is imperative. Thought, life, trade, diplomacy have become international and world-related. America, it is now clear, is a part of the world and must live as a nation in the family of nations. There can be no going back into the old isolation ; henceforth for good or ill we must live in the world and play a part in the world's struggle. B

No reliance upon former convictions, " no restatement of older principles, no fumbling among past precedents, no patching up of older policies will answer the challenge of the future." *

The American Republic stands at the crossroads of history. Different roads leading to diverse destinies are open; but the options are few. Manylights shine before us; some are fixed stars, some, mere will-o'-the-wisps. Which way lies success? What is the ideal we should set before ourselves? What is our real mission in the world? What kind of conduct shall we require of ourselves? What shall be our national policy for the future? What must we do to make our calling and election sure? The practical thing for the traveler who is uncertain of his path, is not to proceed with all speed in any direction, but to stop long enough to inquire for the right road. So the wise thing for a nation to do that has stumbled upon a turning-point of history, is not to behave as if nothing had happened, but carefully to consider whether what it has done thus far is the right thing. Rational human life demands conscious and rational action. It is necessary therefore that we catch a vision of our goal, come under the spell of a dominating ideal, understand our work, and move in the right direction. Nations as well as men, have mistaken an ignis fatuus for the pole-star and have followed it to their own undoing. A wrong ideal may be quite as fatal as no ideal at all. How then can we know our true mission and distinguish the light of heaven from a will-o'-the-wisp?

" The Bible of every nation," says Carlyle, " is its

* Usher, " The Challenge of the Future," p. 17.

own history." The history of Israel we have learned to believe is a sample and type of God's dealings with the children of men. In the case of Israel we find the evidences of God's presence in the history of the people, and in and through events we read his purpose. We are not given in advance any key to our history, and we have no Isaiah or Jeremiah to read the inner meaning of things. But using the history of Israel as a key we may interpret our own history, and in and through the prophetic events of our national life we may read the will of God for our land.

We shall notice very briefly some of the events in the discovery and settlement of this country we call America ; then we shall read the significance of these events, and this will suggest some of the meaning of America.

I. The Conquest of the New World

To the end of time the honor of discovering America must be given to Christopher Columbus. But Columbus was after all a child of his age ; if he had not discovered America when he did, some one else would surely have done so in a short time ; and perhaps would have done it more thoroughly. The conquests of the Turks in the East had closed the old trade-routes to India, and so men were perforce driven to find another way to that land. For a long time many men believed that the earth was round, though all supposed that it was much smaller than it proved to be.

The hour came when the Genoese set out on that memorable voyage which has had such momentous consequences to the human race. Columbus was a devout Catholic, and he went forth with the blessing of the church to find new lands for the Church of Rome and for the sovereigns of Spain. History gives us the account of the voyage, how day after day his vessel was headed toward the North Atlantic coast, how finally the sailors grew rebellious, and it was only a question of time when they would break out in open mutiny. Then one day the sailors saw a flock of birds of beautiful colors and delicate wings flying toward the southwest. At once the vessel's course was changed, and for some days they sailed southward. Surely if there is a Providence in the fall of a sparrow we may well believe there is a providence in the flight of a flock of parakeets. At last the sailors saw the welcome land, they went ashore, raised the cross, and took possession in the name of the Catholic sovereigns of Spain. In a later voyage Columbus landed upon the South American mainland, but to the day of his death he did not know that he had discovered a new hemisphere. In 1493 Pope Alexander VI issued a bull partitioning the non-Christian world into two parts. In a rather indefinite way he gave Spain all lands west of an imaginary meridian one hundred leagues west of Cape de Verde Islands, while to Portugal was given all lands to the east.

The story of the settlement of this continent is full of deep significance. A strange fate seemed to defeat the efforts of Spain to found colonies on the mainland of the north. Nearly a hundred years passed, and yet Spain had only a few missions in the far southwest. Later she attempted to plant colonies in Florida ; but the French, seeking footing in that land, exterminated the Spanish and held the country. The French also attempted to make settlements in various parts of the land, but a fate no less strange defeated their efforts. They established a number of trading-points in Canada, but they made few attempts to colonize the land for a hundred years or more. The French and the Spanish each opposing the other held back the work of colonization till the beginnings of the seventeenth century. By that time the Mayflower had anchored in Massachusetts Bay, and the English had begun to plant permanent colonies. From one cause and another the real colonization of the North American continent was delayed till the English people came.

It has been suggested that Providence times events in the interests of his kingdom. Certainly there was a remarkable timing of events in the early decades of the seventeenth century. During the years that Englishmen were struggling to gain a foothold in America, England herself was becoming democratic and free. Great events were transpiring in the mother country — the overthrow of the Stuarts and the establishment of the Protectorate — and these changes at home diverted attention from the colonies. During this time, however, several colonies obtained charters in which Protestant principles were fully recognized and democracy was made possible. After the death of Cromwell and the restoration of the monarchy colonization almost wholly ceased. But the seeds had been planted in the new land, and for nearly a hundred years they were allowed to grow with very little interference from the old world.

It is easy to see a special significance in this whole process of settlement and colonization. If America had been colonized at the time of the discovery by either French, Spanish, or English, it would have been Catholic and monarchical. If it had been colonized by the English in the time of Elizabeth it might not have been Catholic, but it would not have been fully Protestant, for Church and State were united and democracy was not born. If colonization had been delayed for a few years it would have been impossible under the Restoration to obtain such liberal charters. If colonization had begun at almost any other time it would have been undertaken by a very different kind of people, with a different religious faith, with different political ideals, and for very different ends. For a hundred years after the fall of the Commonwealth the colonies had time to plant themselves, to grow in their own way, to develop individuality and freedom. In the various colonies there were various types of religious life and political institutions, but practically all were intensely Protestant and largely democratic, and the founders, predominantly men of deep religious feeling, had the profound conviction that they were instruments in the hands of Providence.^

In the earlier years of colonization of North America, peoples of various nationalities were represented by different colonies. Rivalry inevitably existed, and perhaps was necessary to detect the strains that should survive. In the course of time the Spanish colonies fall out of the race so far as the possession of North America is concerned. The English colonies absorb the Dutch and Swedish, and the issue settles down to a struggle between the English and the French. We need not here consider all the fac-

» Bancroft, " History of the United States," Vol. I, p. 214.

tors represented by these two peoples ; but they are two different and opposite types.

The French colonies located in Canada represented monarchy and autocracy in government, which was paternalistic to the last extreme. Never perhaps were more faithful efforts made to keep a people loyal than were made by the French king. The French colonists were petted and coddled in every possible way by the home government. Everything that government could do for them was done ; in fact the government was altogether too solicitous. It would be incredible were it not attested by such abundant evidence, that the affairs of any people would be subjected to such minute and close supervision as were the affairs of the French colonists in Canada." More than that, these French colonists were intensely Roman Catholic in their religious faith. Never perhaps was greater zeal and devotion shown than was shown by the Jesuit missionaries in Canada and around the Great Lakes. But missionaries and people were most loyal to the pope and most intolerant to other faiths.

The English colonies, as we have seen, were founded by men of a different faith and received very different treatment from the home government. As a rule, the English colonies asked nothing of the mother country but to be let alone; and for nearly a hundred years England had enough things to divert her attention, and so the colonists had their way. Here in America they planted the seeds of the old Saxon institutions and developed these to meet a new situation. The New England town meeting that had its prototype in the forests of

« Parkman, " The Old Regime in Canada."

Germany two thousand years ago^ flourished in the colonies and became an established institution. The people of each community were accustomed to meet and consider together their common affairs with perfect freedom. By the very nature of the case such people became independent in thought, and their institutions became democratic in form and spirit. Not only so, but these people were most intense Protestants; and they carried their convictions to the limit. It is true that in Massachusetts colonies an attempt was made to establish a kind of church government which, while democratic in form, was autocratic in spirit. Roger Williams expressed the feeling of many when he declared, " I came from England to escape the tyranny of the Lords Bishops, and I do not intend to subject myself to the tyranny of the Lords Brethren." When at last he was " enlarged " out of Massachusetts colonies, to use the euphuistic phrase of Cotton Mather, he established a colony in which full civil and religious freedom was guaranteed. The idea made way, and in time it became prevalent in all of the colonies.

The time came, as it was bound to come, when the issue was joined between these peoples for the final struggle. For a generation and more, during the early eighteenth century, there had been skirmishes here and there. Finally the hour struck when the question must be decided one way or the other and once for all. The war line shifted back and forth between Canada and the colonies; at last the forces met for the decisive struggle around Quebec. In the number of men engaged, the battle on the Heights of Abraham was a trifling affair; in the fateful issues at stake, it takes rank as one of the most decisive battles of the world. John Fiske declared that the victory of Wolfe is the greatest turning-point yet discernible in modern times. In that struggle it was decided whether America should be French, autocratic, and Catholic, or Anglo-Saxon, democratic, and Protestant.

We are not here discussing the question whether the Anglo-Saxon race is superior or inferior to others. Such discussions no longer have any meaning or value. National traits, like individual aptitudes, are different. Perhaps each one of the great races of the world is as necessary to the completeness of humanity as any other. Each people, we may believe, is called to utter some syllable of the manifold wisdom and many-sided purpose of God. It takes all of us together to spell out the meaning of the world and to fulfil the whole task of history. Then too, we have no standard with which to measure such values. Without discussing the profitless question of English superiority or inferiority from the point of view of universal history, we note that men of the English race, rather than any other, gained control of this section and planted here certain great institutions. This race, we all admit, has some great and glaring defects of temper and character; its institutions represent but one type of national life. But it has some qualities that gave it preeminence in America; and its institutions as developed here have some meaning and value in universal history.

II. The Meaning and Mission of America

We must read the divine purpose for our nation as it is disclosed in and through the events of our history. The supremacy of the English-speaking race in this part of North America known as the United States is a fact of prophetic significance; in the institutions they developed and the ideals they cherished we find some clear intimations of our national mission.

1, We are called to develop democratic institutions. The people who came to the New England colonies were lovers of freedom and were determined to build their institutions upon democratic lines. In the cabin of the Mayflower these pioneers drew up an agreement for the new colony which was a true expression of their deepest life. Bancroft grows eloquent over this simple transaction and declares that in the cabin of the Mayflower humanity recovered its rights and instituted government on the basis of equal laws enacted by all the people for the general good. It must be said, however, that these Pilgrims and Puritans of New England did not succeed in establishing a pure democracy. It remained for Roger Williams in Rhode Island to carry the principle to its conclusion and establish a government that was democratic in the fullest sense of the word.

2. We are called to create and realize the democratic state. The term democracy as applied to a form of government is old; but the reality back of the word belongs to recent times. There were so-called democracies in ancient Greece, and Aristotle has devoted a large part of his treatise on " Politics " to discussion of this form of government. But careful study reveals the fact that democracy in the better sense of the word was wholly unknown in the ancient world. In the so-called democracies of

Greece more than one-half of the people were slaves and only a small proportion had any voice in the government. Democracy in the best and fullest sense of the word is a Christian product and finds the origin of its principles and ideals in the great truths of Christianity.'^

Democracy in the words of one of its best representatives, is " government of the people, by the people, and for the people." This great and significant statement defines democracy in its political aspects. But it does not carry us back behind the form to the inner and vitalizing principles, and these are all-important here. Democracy, according to many modern thinkers, is a general term and includes the three elements, liberty, equality, and fraternity. This shows that democracy is at once a confession of faith, a principle of action, and a form of government. " What is democracy? " asks Brooke Foss Westcott, and he says : *

The idea of democracy is not, if we look below the surface, as much a form of government as a confession of human brotherhood. It is the equal recognition of mutual obligations. It is the confession of common duties, common aims, common responsibilities. True democracy — and in this lies its abiding strength — substitutes duties for rights. This substitution changes the center of gravity of our whole social system and brings the promise of stable peace.

As such he maintains it is the modern equivalent of the three great principles of the kingdom — righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. This is the great, glad, new truth which the Stars and Stripes announce to the world.

^Jellinek, "The Rights of Man and the Citizen." » " The Incarnation and Common Life," p. 349.

3. We are called to develop a free religious life. The term Protestant that is sometimes used to characterize this form of religion and life, is an unsatisfactory one. It is a negative term, and such terms are always partial, local, transient. Being a negative term, it falls short of the larger truth implied in our national life. Beyond all, in its historical meaning it has a certain church in view and is a reaction against papal assumptions. There have been times in the past when it was necessary to protest against the assumptions of Rome and to insist upon the separation of Church and State. But after all, this is but a partial and negative aspect of the larger truth which must always be kept in mind. For our purpose we prefer the term here used — free religious life.

This free religious life rests upon certain fundamental principles and carries definite, important corollaries. The great Reformation of the sixteenth century was inspired by two great ideas and projected on two great lines — justification by faith, and the priesthood of all believers. According to the first, each man has the privilege of access to the Eternal without the intervention of any priest ; and so his faith stands in his own personal vision and choice. According to the second, every man redeemed by Christ's blood is made a priest and king unto God ; and this honor have all the saints. These great truths are veritable thunderbolts of God breaking in pieces many of the assumptions of men. " The principle of justification by faith alone brought with it the freedom of individual thought and conscience against authority." ^ The priesthood

» Bancroft, " History of the United States," Vol. I, p. 178.

of all believers affirms the sacredness of man and the equality of all. There is no special class of men with authority to rule over their fellows or to claim homage from them. The first of these great truths, then, is the Magna Carta of liberty of conscience; the second is the eternal guaranty of equality among men.

And this free religious life carries with it three important corollaries. First, it recognizes the right of every person to see and think and believe for himself without the constraint of any priest, council, or government. Secondly, it implies the competency of each to find truth for himself and to know truth from error. Finally, it declares that Church and State are both divine institutions, each serving a necessary purpose in human redemption, both seeking the same great kingdom of God, but separate in function and different in method. This does not mean that each man by himself, without any aid from his fellows, can find all truth and have all wisdom. But it does mean that this aid should be freely sought and freely given. And this does not mean the separation of religion from political affairs, than which nothing could be more unchristian and dangerous. But it does mean that religion concerns all life and all relations, that Church and State work by different means, and that the best results for the kingdom of God are attained when the two are separate in function and each is free to do its own work.

4. America is called to create a Christian civilization. This very term is at once a confession and a challenge. The world knows what we mean by civilization — the development of social and political life, the subjection of nature to man's uses, the establishment of social order, and the creation of civil institutions. In a general way the world knows what we mean by Christianity, that whole system of life and truth and power that is revealed in the person and teaching of Jesus Christ. But thus far the world has never known what we mean by a Christian civilization. For Christianity has been largely limited to the individual and the church and has never been interpreted and applied in the wide ranges of man's social and political life, and civil and industrial society has developed without the inspiration of the Christian ideal or the power of the Christian spirit.

Thus far, owing in part to a partial interpretation of the Christian ideal and in part to the opposition of men, there has been a dropped thread in the loom of history ; and as a result the fabric of civil society is imperfect. But the purpose of God in our world compels us to believe that men and nations are here to accept the good news of the kingdom and build a Christian social order. In a real way, it is our calling as a nation to take up this dropped thread of history; to interpret the Christian ideal both in Church and State, to incarnate it in our national institutions, and to create a truly Christian civilization. To see this ideal is faith, and to work toward it is success. To fall below this ideal is better than to succeed in any lesser purpose.

5. Carrying out this principle, we may say that we are called to fulfil a Messianic service among the nations. It is not possible to discuss this Messianic idea in any detail. But in brief it signifies that life means service and that man is called to be a servant and agent of God in the process of human redemption ; that man is here not to be ministered unto but to minister and to give himself a ransom for others ; that power and wealth, opportunity and life, are to be held in trust for all and are to be used in service of mankind.

In the past, men have been content to give the great Messianic principle of Christianity a personal and limited scope and application. And in so doing they have missed the larger meaning of Christianity and the true calling of nations. The principles that are true for the person are no less true for society. A nation, no less than an individual, exists not to be ministered unto but to minister and to give its life in service of others. The nation, no less than the person and the church, is to live for the same purpose as that which moved Jesus Christ up Calvary.

6. In fine, we are called to he a righteous and ministering people, to seek after the kingdom and its justice, to bless the family of nations, and to use our strength not in rulership but in service.

There have been powerful nations in the past ; but not one has ever been righteous in all of its ways; not one has ever interpreted the idea of national righteousness. Some have sought to dominate the earth; others have sought to control the world's trade. Each and all they have exalted themselves and despised other people. Many of them have relied upon armies and have trusted in navies; they have envied the weak neighbor his bit of land and have not hesitated to seize it by force. And in so doing they have mortgaged their future and have gone down in failure. It is our calling to do a great, new, and wonderful thing in the world. We are here to serve the family of nations, and to make our national policy the expression of this truth. We may extend our trade, but trade must serve humanity. We may have great influence in the world, but it is to be the influence of righteousness and not the rattling of the saber.