These have
little sympathy with democracy; they have even been heard to declare that
we have no right to dictate to another nation, even an enemy nation, what
form of government it shall assume. We have no right to demand, when
peace comes, that the negotiations must be with the representatives of
the German people. These are they who deplore the absence among us of a
tradition of monarchy, since the American people "should have something
to look up to." But this state of mind, which needs no comment, is
comparatively rare, and represents an extreme. We are not lacking,
however, in the type of conservative who, innocent of a knowledge of
psychology, insists that "human nature cannot be changed," and that the
"survival of the fittest" is the law of life, yet these would deny Darwin
if he were a contemporary. They reject the idea that society can be
organized by intelligence, and war ended by eliminating its causes from
the social order. On the contrary they cling to the orthodox contention
that war is a necessary and salutary thing, and proclaim that the
American fibre was growing weak and flabby from luxury and peace,
curiously ignoring the fact that their own economic class, the small
percentage of our population owning sixty per cent. of the wealth of the
country, and which therefore should be most debilitated by luxury, was
most eager for war, and since war has been declared has most amply proved
its courage and fighting quality.
Pages:
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35