fibss ID 6*3^ Book '17 4- ' Copyiiglitl*!?. CiXESRIGUT D£H)Sm The Citizen's Library of Economics, Politics and Sociology =============== New Series ■ Edited by RICHARD T. ELY, Ph.D., LL.D. Professor of Political Economy in the University of Wisconsin THE WORLD WAR AND LEADERSHIP IN A DEMOCRACY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO THE CITIZEN'S LIBRARY OF ECONOMICS, POLITICS AND SOCIOLOGY edited by Richard T. Ely, Ph.D., LL.D. Professor of Political Economy in the University of Wisconsin NEW SERIES The Progressive Movement. By Benjamin P. De Witt, M.A., LL.B. The Social Problem. By Charles A. Ellwood, Ph.D. The Wealth and Incoivie of the People of the United States. By Willford I. King, Ph.D. The Foundations of National Prosperity. By Richard T. Ely, Ph.D., LL.D.; Ralph H. Hess, Ph.D.; Charles K. Leith, Ph.D.; Thomas Nixon Carver, Ph.D., LL.D. The World War and Leadership in a Democ- racy. By Richard T. Ely, Ph.D., LL.D. Budget Making in a Democracy. By Major Ed- ward A. Fitzpatrick. The Citizen^ s Library THE WORLD WAR AND LEADERSHIP IN A DEMOCRACY BY KICHARD T. ELY, Ph.D., LL.D. Professor of Political Economy in the University of Wisconsin Jl3eto gorfe THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1918 All rights reserved ■-%i - -S^ Copyright, 1918 By the MACMILLAN COMPANY Set up and electrotyped. Published, September, 1918 ©aAr)U620i PEEFACE This little work has grown out of a patriotic lec- ture delivered at the University of California, November last, and repeated with certain variations elsewhere. The book still shows traces of its origin in the form of the direct address and the use of the pronoun in the first person. At first there was no intention of publishing the lecture but, as it has grown, my friends have urged its publication, en- couraging me to believe that the book will render a real service at the present juncture. While the lecture has been very greatly elaborated, the book is still very brief. Each of the several chapters could be expanded to an entire treatise. Perhaps, however, what is needed now is an out- line programme for present use. It is not without certain regret and sadness that I have written that part of this work which relates to Germany. Those who, like myself, have lived in Germany, have had German friends, and have ex- perienced a good deal of kindness in Germany, will readily enough understand my position. I have given the same answer to the question, '^Should I publish what I know by my own experience and ob- 4? Preface servationf that others similarly situated have given. I have felt that I had no option. President Wilson has frequently separated the leaders of Germany from the great mass of the German people, and others have done the same thing. As time has gone on, we have come to see that there is not the separation that we had supposed there was, but we have come to see that the great people as such has gone wrong. After the war it will become apparent that there has been widespread disap- proval on the part of many Germans of the things that we abhor, and many who have not been able to take the right view of the situation will have their eyes opened after the illumination of defeat. The inconsistencies in life are puzzling. This is a trite saying, but the truth of it is something that comes again and again to those who have long known Germany and have studied her past and present. It is for the psychologist, however, rather than the economist to explain the union of qualities that seem incompatible. I well understand that some things said in this book seem quite inconsistent with other things, but the inconsistencies lie in the facts. We have been disappointed in the German uni- versities. After the war it is my belief that we shall find that the best leadership in Germany will come from the universities and that it is to them that Germany will have to look more than to any other one source for leadership and regeneration. Preface 5 I have not tried to underestimate Germany's strength. Surely nothing is to be gained by so do- ing. It is a pity that her strength was not fully understood before the war. Many have said since the war began, ''Why were we not told before about Germany's plans? Why did not the men who lived in Germany and who were familiar with Germany tell us about what was going on?" There are many who gave the warning, but they were preaching to deaf ears. This applies to Germany's strength along economic lines as well as to her military strength. There is not much satisfaction in saying, ''I told you so," but there are many who are in a position to say this. Lord Eoberts in England went up and down the land sounding the alarm, urging military preparation, but although it was a noble spectacle to see the efforts of this patriotic old man, he was looked upon as a veritable Cassandra. Whatever I did has no significance except as an indication of the situation. I remember, however, that when I was in England in 1913, I urged the importance of mili- tary preparation, but the English seemed to be blind to what was going on. When I went to Germany from England, the Germans asked, almost in a whisper, ''What do the English think of us? What are the English doing?" They seemed to have a perfect obsession of England. Had I told them the truth, I would have said, "The English are thinking 6 Preface little about you and saying still less/' and the more the pity. The English had their own troubles. They were thinking about Ireland, the great British Commonwealthj the problems of labor and capital: all sorts of things, but not about Germany and not about universal military service. I talked with those who were high enough in authority so that I am con- fident they represented the opinion of the Govern- ment. They told me that whatever happened, it would never be necessary for England to send sol- diers out of the country; their navy was quite ade- quate for all their needs so far as any possible European war might be concerned! It is to be hoped that we and our allies will now study calmly and fairly the German sources of strength and learn in time from our enemy the lessons that we need to learn. Many friends have been sufficiently interested in this work to read my manuscript and to them I am deeply grateful for criticisms which have helped to give it such merit as the gentle reader may find that it possesses. Three names I must especially men- tion for their careful detailed examination of the manuscript. These are, Mrs. Olin Ingraham, form- erly as Miss Sydney E. Horsley, my secretary; Pro- fessor E. A. Eoss, who has twice read the manu- script with care and also the proof; and Professor Edward D. Jones of the University of Michigan, Preface 7 who has given many valuable suggestions, some of which have found expression in the notes, and espe- cially has written the appendix on ' ' The Danger of Illusions." RiCHAED T. Ely. University of Wisconsin, Madison, August, 1918. TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE Chapter I — Prelude: — Personal Experiences and Observations . 15 The problem of racial antecedents. Only one side for an American to take in this world war. Chapter II — AVhy We are at "War 18 Causes of the war found in the implications of Ger- many's tribal religion and tribal ethics. The American missionaries contrast the conduct of the Germans and Russians as seen in Armenia. German autocracy as viewed by the kings of Prussia. Frederick William IV refuses to receive the crown from the people in 1848. Religion in Germany. Prussia and Germany contrasted. Why we must fight until a military conquest is achieved. Illustrations of German brutality. , The cult of war in Germany. . The young lieutenant who desired war. Bluntschli and Knies and their work for international peace and good will typical of Heidelberg in the seventies and eighties. The exclusive nationalistic tendencies gain the upper hand. German war propaganda. Germany as a republic. Chapter III — The Forces of Darkness Gain the Upper Hand 36 German exploitation of foreigners. 9 10 Contents PAGE Inability to understand the psychology of other nations. Professor Brentano's position in Munich in 1913. Max Harden's plea for war. Germany desires war and prepares for it. The German emperor desires to be Emperor of the World. Chapter IV — The Characteristics of a German "World State 45 Prussian Poland illustrates what the conquered may ex- pect from Germany. This is also illustrated by Schleswig-Holstein and Al- sace-Lorraine. The exploitation of Russia by Germany as seen in 1879. War between Russia and Germany predicted. English colonial administration illustrated by my ex- perience in New Zealand in 1914. German colonial administration illustrated by the atti- tude of the natives of Samoa. Great prosperity of Germany in 1914 and the needless- ness of the world war. Chapter Y — Sources of the German Strength . . 54 Germany's strength as found in her army. Germany's strength as found in her civil service. Leadership in Germany. Excellence recognized and rewarded and thus leadership encouraged. Encouragement of leadership in the German university. To win the war and solve present and future problems we must systematically develop leadership in America. Chapter VI — The Struggle for Equality of Oppor- tunity IN American History 65 The eighteenth century social philosophy of equality and its consequences for leadership. Contents 11 PAGE The simple economic life of the eighteenth century and the earlier part of the nineteenth century in har- mony with the social philosophy of the time. The absence of social legislation in our early history. The twentieth century and the struggle for equality of opportunity. The social implications of biological science. Inequalities among men and their significance in the struggle for equality of opportunity. Consequences of the eighteenth century philosophy as seen in our schools. How it has come that we look down upon manual labor and fail to provide education to correspond with the differences in natural gifts of men and women. Responsibilities of the superior. Leadership growing in significance as our economic and public life expands, particularly as public expendi- , tures increase. Encouragement of excellence in England and Germany. The educational ladder in these countries and in the United States. Equality of opportunity includes opportunity for the few as well as for the many. Chapter VII — Tests of Actual and Proposed Social AND Political Mjbasures ...... 91 Primary elections condemned in a complex democracy as not promoting leadership of a high order. Direct legislation suitable for a primitive democracy but not for the complex American society of the twen- tieth century. Representative democracy to be encouraged. The short ballot a progressive measure. The recall condemned as opposed to expert leadership. Fixed terms of elective office favored but longer terms de- sirable. Administrative office should be professional in character and afford a career. Labor, Business, and Leadership. 12 Contents PAGE Chapter VIII — The Foundation of Leadership . . 103 The foundations of leadership are found in the individ- uals led. Significance of education as a foundation of leadership. Individual character and leadership. Religion and leadership. All social classes must co-operate. The kind of vision needed. Americanization. Universal service and leadership. Universal military service not the cause of militarism in - Germany. Other kinds of service than mihtary service, especially for women. Eugenics as a foundation. Leaders and the led. The demagogue and the true leader. Appendix to Chapter VIII — The Duty and Discipline Movement in England. A similar movement needed in the United States. Chapter IX — Ideals of Leadership 123 Leadership and spoils politics. The Bolshevik ideals of leadership. Leadership and eugenics. Spiritual leadership. Leadership of the best. How shall we secure this. Leadership of kings in general and the Hohenzollems in particular and the terms of peace. Chapter X — Leadership in Public Life .... 133 Military life and civic life. Obedience and its significance. Discipline in the army and its results. Legislation and administration. Leadership and legislation. Administration and leadership. Contents 13 PAGE The professional office-holder and the honor office. How to cultivate initiative and invention in the civil service. An esprit de corps must be cultivated. The pseudo-efficiency expert and the deeper underlying causes of efficiency. The university and leadership. The future of the university and its relation to leader- ship. Special training schools for public service needed. Democratic sources of honor. Chapter XI — Six Lamps op Social Progress . . . 157 Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity briefly discussed. The consequences of an undue emphasis on equality. Fraternity as a lamp of progress. Unity in diversity. -^ Leadership of the wise and good. The ideal of service as a lamp of progress. Liberty and its nature. Equality of opportunity as the goal. Appendix — The Danger of Illusions 164 Communication to the author by Professor Edward D. Jones, University of Michigan. Notes and References 171 THE WORLD WAR AND LEADERSHIP IN A DEMOCRACY CHAPTER I peelude: peesonal expeeien^ces and obseevations FiEST of all, let me state my own personal position. We are all Americans. But we or our ancestors have come from many ditferent parts of the world. Indeed, in our citizenship nearly all the nooks and corners of the world are represented. America is described as the world's great melting pot in which we all become fused into one product. It is a matter of frequent comment, however, that the melting pot has not been doing its work so well as we had thought. We have among us not only residents but citizens whose heart is against us in our struggle for our liberties and for those things which to most of us make life worth living in this world. We have spies, traitors and near-traitors among us. They come from all lands, and unhappily they do not all be- long to the newer immigrants who might find a meas- ure of excuse in the shortness of time they have had for Americanization. It may be freely conceded that the blood which flows in our veins from our ancestors 15 16 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy must make itself felt more or less and should make itself felt, not, to be sure, in anything even suggest- ing disloyalty, but in a rich diversity in unity. It is then perhaps proper to give my own racial point of approach and to say that I am of English ancestry. Doubtless the knowledge of this fact has its influ- ence upon my world-outlook. On the other hand, my university education, as distinguished from college education, was practically altogether German, and I have drawn inspiration, as well as instruction, from able German professors. Eepeatedly I have been in Germany since I finished my university studies, and have had many friends there. When in Ger- many I have eschewed largely things American. I have read German newspapers and German litera- ture and associated with German people. I have written articles on German life and German institu- tions and have a high appreciation of the excellencies of Germany. Before we were drawn into the War and even since then I have said several times in pub- lic that, however the War might terminate, certain German ideas had already conquered the world. As I look upon the present situation one of the sad fea- tures of the War is that it will be so much harder than it would be otherwise for us in this country to learn the lessons which we ought to learn from Ger- man experience, for it is my belief that our civiliza- tion will never be safe until we have learned thor- oughly certain of these lessons. Prelude. Personal Experiences and Observations IT But it is because I know Germany so well that in spite of my admiration for the good things which we find in Germany, I felt from the very beginning of the War that there was only one side for Americans to take. As time has gone on it has become clearer and clearer that we are fighting for freedom, — our own freedom and the world's freedom — and for our very civilization itself. I may also say just at this point that I have come rather slowly to the convic- tion that the Hohenzollerns and their connections must go, meaning thereby, of course, that they must lose their occupations as sovereigns. And when we root out the Hohenzollerns and their connections, it means practically that we are ridding the earth of monarchs, czars and emperors. Some may be left to play a useful role, like the King of England and the King of Belgium, but the dangerous, grasping, self -crowned rulers of the Hohenzollern type must disappear. I say that I have reached this conclu- sion slowly and somewhat reluctantly, as I have had in the past a high appreciation of the present Ger- man Emperor's efficiency and the fine work that he did in promoting the prosperity of Germany up to 1914. He has, however, shown himself an enemy of the world and should follow the great Napoleon to a lifelong exile on St. Helena. CHAPTER II WHY WE ARE AT WAR We are at war because Germany has embraced a false religion, worships a false tribal god and prac- tices false tribal ethics. She does not recognize equal rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of hap- piness on the part of other nations. The Germans look upon themselves as the chosen people of God, especially dear to Him and destined through con- quest of the world to give us the benefits of a higher and to us alien civilization. All students of history will be able to cite examples of other nations which have considered themselves favored by the Almighty and which in carrying out their religious ideas have devastated large areas of the earth. Germany sug- gests in this respect Turkey, her ally, and the re- semblance is in many particulars a close one. We have on the one hand, little Belgium with all the horrors of that unhappy country since she has been groaning under the iron heel of the brutal conqueror, and, on the other hand, we have the massacres by the Turks of the Armenians which have occurred from time to time, the most brutal and devastating of them all being those that have taken place under 18 Why We Are at War 19 German auspices since the alliance of Turkey with Germany. Is there much to choose between Bel- gium, on the one hand, and Armenia, on the other, as examples of the bloody and ruthless savagery of military conquest? Missionaries in Armenia at the time that the fierc- est conflicts were going on there between Eussia and Germany had occasion to contrast the brutality of the Germans with the good conduct of the Eus- sians. When the Eussians had the upper hand all the wounded were treated well in their hospitals. The Countess Tolstoi, the daughter of the great Tol- stoi, with the missionaries ministered to all who needed ministration. When the Germans came in, then began needless and unspeakable barbarities. Missionaries during the devastation of the country and the massacres of the Armenians have said in their amazement ^ ' To think that a word from the Ger- man Emperor could stop all of this !^' But the con- duct of the German Emperor and of the Turks under his leadership is in entire harmony with these often quoted words of the German Emperor which the civilized nations of the world should never forget: * ' Remember that you are the chosen people ! The Spirit of the Lord has descended upon me because I am the Emperor of the Germans ! I am the instrument of the Al- mighty. I am his sword, his agent. Woe and death to all those who shall oppose my will ! "Woe and death to those who do not believe in my mission ! Woe and death to 20 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy the cowards ! Let them perish, all the enemies of the Ger- man people ! God demands their destruction. God who, by my month, bids yon to do His will ! " ^' ^ It adds to our compreliension of the foregoing to remember that the King of Prussia is self-crowned and in his opinion derives his power from Almighty God to whom alone he acknowledges full responsi- bility. The following quotation from a speech of Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg describes ac- curately the autocratic point of view of the Kings of Prussia : ^'The kings of Prussia are united to the people through a logical evolution of several centuries. That evolution did not take such a course that the people created its kingdom; on the contrary, by a labor almost unexampled in history, it was its great chieftains issuing from the house of Hohenzollern, it was this house which finding a firm support in the capacity and tenacity of its population, it was this house which forged the Prussian state. Upon the basis of this historic evolution the Prussian consti- tution knows not the conception of popular sover- eignty. That is why the kings of Prussia are, so far as their own people are concerned, kings by their own right. Gentlemen, your laughter does not change history. And, if, at the present moment, from the democratic side, the pretension is ener- getically raised that the king of Prussia is to be re- garded as a great dignitary established by the peo- Why We Are at War 21 pie, it is no matter for surprise if the king asserts with the same vigor his will never to submit to any popular sovereignty. The personal irresponsibility of the king, the self-sufficiency, original, autocratic, of the monarchical power, these are the fundamental ideas of the life of the Prussian state." — Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg in the German Eeichstag. No- vember 26, 1910.^ This quotation is in harmony with the views ex- pressed by the adherents of Frussianism on many oc- casions and in many different ways, and in no wise misrepresents the prevailing Prussian autocratic doctrine. To be king ^'by Grace of God" is a good thing in so far as it represents humble dependence upon Higher Power and a feeling of stewardship. It is then simply one manifestation of a general relig- ious idea. But to the King of Prussia, it means pre- cisely haughty irresponsibility to the people, in other words, autocracy. It should never be forgotten that in 1848 the im- perial crown was offered to William Frederick the Fourth, and was declined by the haughty Hohen- zollern, because forsooth it came as a free will offer- ing from the people as a result of the uprising of the people in their aspirations for liberty and unity. Great, indeed, was the year 1848 in its potentiali- ties, — the year called the ^^ Springtime of the Peo- ples," a year of revolution led by the wise and good, by men like our own Carl Schurz and others who ac- 22 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy companied him to America and becoming loyal Americans, heart and soul, took an honored posi- tion among our citizens. Had the Hohenzollerns led this revolution sanely and wisely they might have made Germany a leader among the nations of the earth in things immaterial as well as material, in things of the soul as well as things of the body. But to accept the crown from the people would have implied ultimately sovereignty of the people, and so it was rejected by the House of Hohenzollern, and a great evolutionary opportunity for Germany and humanity was lost. But war followed war^ — war with little Denmark, war with Austria and South Germany, war with France. To the Hohenzollerns war was holy and the fruits sacred and so the imperial crown was ac- cepted from the German princes after military vic- tories; and the German god, the leader of the Ger- man hosts, became to the Hohenzollerns the real source of the imperial crown, as this same god of the Germans, leader century after century in victori- ous robberies of the weak and unprepared, had been the source of the Prussian royal crown, both crowns untainted by the touch of the people.^ Americans have been shocked by the attitude of religious leaders in Germany with respect to the present War. If they had been more familiar with the position which religion occupies in the minds of German intellectual leaders, they would have been Why We Are at War 23 better prepared for what has happened. No one would want to say that there are not in Germany many truly religious people to whom religion means a sincere belief in spiritual things. Nevertheless, it remains true that religion is fostered by the state as an agency to keep the masses in order. Every one who has been a student in Germany and who is at all observant knows that such is the case. I well recall that soon after myiirst arrival in Germany, I learned what position was taken toward religion by one of my favorite professors. He did not go to church, but thought it well worth while to keep up religion as something appropriate for servant girls. The religious bodies are subsidized in Germany and know very well what is expected of them. We are at war then with Germany because the Ger- mans as a mass are brutal, and especially are they brutal under the leadership of Prussia. Now, just a word at this point about Prussia and the relations of Prussia to other German states. The harsh mili- taristic leadership and the brutality in the treatment of inferiors, foreigners and all helpless persons, are characteristic of the Prussians. Prussia is hated very generally throughout Germany. Any one who has lived in Southern Germany knows how true it is that even the sight of a Prussian and especially of a group of Prussians is disliked outside of Prussia. I remember well certain conversations in 1911 and 1913 in which ridicule was poured upon the Prussian 24 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy summer visitors by people living in Munich, and this ridicule had in it elements of very positive dis- like and contempt. Since the war it has been said by a keen-eyed observer of my acquaintance who has long lived in Germany and has had very unusual facilities for observation that the present aim of Prussia is to spare, so far as possible, the lives of Prussians and to sacrifice the lives of the Germans of the other states wherever this is feasible, and un- der all circumtances, this observer assures me, the great ascendancy in number of the Prussians 'must be maintained. Consequently, the Prussian policy is to award honor and peril to the Bavarians and Germans from the other states. Thej^ are allowed to enter cities in triumph, in order to keep them con- tented while they suffer special losses. We are at war with Germany because Germany is brutal, and it is only defeat that can put her on the right road of penitence and amendment. There will be no repentance unless the war is fought to the bit- ter end and the Allies are crowned with complete vic- tory. This brutality is exhibited above all towards foreigners, but it is manifested in the German fam- ily and in all German relations where there is strength and authority, on the one hand, and weak- ness and dependence upon the other. I remember well the cries of a German wife while she was be- ing beaten in the dwelling above the " pension '' where I once lived in Heidelberg with a colonel and Why We Are at War 25 Ms family. The colonel yielded to my entreaties for interference, but after all smiled in an indulgent way and did not seem to think the matter so serious, as, of course, it appeared to me an American. I remember also in Munich the cruelty and uncalled for harshness of a father to his daughter who was acting as his clerk and assistant in his store. All of these things are of daily occurrence, and every one who has lived in Germany can multiply examples without end. The kindly sentiments which in the past seemed natural to the Germans and which so many of us remember with pleasure have not been allowed to develop, to ripen, and to produce their proper ''flowers and fruits,'' because they have been re- pressed by Prussianism. It is by no means insig- nificant that the German language has no word for gentleman,^ and they have to borrow the English word when they attempt to express the idea. How far Germany is from understanding all that goes with the idea of gentleman — gentleness as well as strength — can be seen on every hand. Witness the German officers going down ''Unter den Linden" and pushing aside or off the walk in their arro- gance German women who take it meekly and American women who deeply resent it. Consider the brutality of the German officer as shown at the time of the Zabern incident when he brutally at- tacked a lame shoemaker, and although found 26 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy guilty of improper conduct was only nominally pun- ished, while the Emperor himself expressed ap- proval of this brutal insolence of the officer toward the common man by ostentatiously conferring spe- cial honor on the colonel of the regiment. Let me also narrate an incident which stands out clearly in my memory. It is a beautiful day in the Ehine- land. Nature is smiling on all. A party is taking an excursion up the mountain to see the National Monument (Nationaldenhmal) and the glorious view over the surrounding country. In going up the mountain by rail the desirable seats are those nearest the side of the coupes. Consequently, the passengers stand on the platform and wait for an opportunity to get their seats. An American lady has grasped the handles on the two sides of the en- trance and is entitled to get in first and to have her choice of the seats when a burly German, appar- ently an educated man, belonging to the upper classes, the kind of a man who in England or Amer- ica would be a gentleman, grasps this American lady and thrusts her aside, dragging in his meek German wife after him, thus beclouding and defiling the beau- ties of Nature. This is a sort of thing which might happen anywhere, but would happen ten times in Germany where it would happen once in England or America. It would be taken complacently in Ger- many, while in England and America it would arouse hot indignation. We are at war then with Germany Why We Are at War 27 because, while there are many fine gentlemen in Germany, the idea of gentleman is not a living idea in the German militaristic system. We are at war because Germany has embraced a false religion and worships a false god. A part of the religion of Germany and its most outstanding feature is the cult of war. Physical force as seen in war is worshipped. The religion of war is exulted in and is taught to children in the schools.^ It per- vades the entire life of Germany. We all have heard much of Treitschke, Nietzsche, and Bernhardi. I will not dwell upon their teach- ings which have been described to us by so many writers and speakers since 1914. I speak of things of less importance, seemingly trivial in themselves, but things that taken together form a consistent whole; they are things of which I have personal knowledge, confirming and illustrating what we have learned from other sources. When I was a student in Heidelberg shortly be- fore 1880 I lived with a rather prominent family of some culture, education, and social position. The husband had died and the widow owned the house in which she lived and took a few boarders and room- ers. She was titled, but not noble, being called Frau Eath. Her young son was a lieutenant in the army, and I recall how shocked I was when I heard him express a longing for war. I asked him why he wanted war, and he went on to explain the 28 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy slowness of advancement in time of peace and the desirability of war as affording him better prospects for promotion. He was entirely cold-blooded, not the slightest thought occurred to the young lieuten- ant of the horrors of war and of all the sufferings which it must inflict upon his own country as well as upon others. No one present, however, seemed to be the least surprised or shocked. This senti- ment in favor of war was undoubtedly widespread at that time and particularly in the army. What has just been said was, nevertheless, not typical of Heidelberg in my day. The note the young officer struck seemed to me then a discord- ant, jarring note, and it still stands out in my mem- ory as something out of harmony with the general situation. I like rather to think of Johann Kaspar Bluntschli, professor with the title of Gelieimrath, as typical of Heidelberg a generation ago. Blunts- chli was one of the great teachers under whom I studied in Heidelberg, a noble character and a lover of his fellow-men. Among his special friends were Laboulaye in France and Lieber in the United States. He liked to think of himself and these great friends as an inseparable trio, a clover leaf, and so they are represented in a little brochure on Bluntschli written by my colleague at the Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Herbert B. Adams. It was a grief to Bluntschli that the Franco-Prussian War caused an estrange- between him and Laboulaye. It is significant that Why We Are at War 29 Bluntschli's chief interest was international law. He wrote a code of international law, calculated to promote international good will and international peace. That was his great thought, international peace. Bluntschli in his lectures to us students al- ways delighted in holding up the good qualities of men in other countries. I well remember how warmly he spoke about the magnanimity of Eng- land in releasing the Ionian Islands to Greece. I recall also that he spoke about Heligoland, that little island in the North Sea near Hamburg as really be- longing to Germany and what a great thing it would be if England would relinquish Heligoland. Later, alas ! she did this, illustrating how disastrously mis- placed generosity may be in international relations when it implies a weakening of defense on the part of one nation that is not matched by generous appre- ciation on the part of the other nation. Many other evidences of a situation in Heidelberg during the late seventies very unlike the present situation could be cited. Three illustrations of a friendly feeling toward foreigners and a striving for international amity will be given, and it will be seen that Bluntschli 's code of international law was not something standing isolated and alone but one manifestation of sentiments common to his col- leagues — and I must confess that in the University of Heidelberg in my day I myself recall nothing out of harmony with Bluntschli 's thoughts and feel- 30 The World, War and Leadership in a Democracy ings. But Heidelberg was in Baden, and Baden was not then Prussia — any more than it is now — or even Bavaria ! Professor Carl Knies was my professor of poli- tical economy — my Meister — and a noble figure he was. A professor of olden type — a professor with idealism — a shrewd head, after all a little bit in the clouds. As Blunt schli worked for the establish- ment of international law, Knies worked for in- ternational money and wrote a little book called World Money (Weltgeld), advocating the getting together of nations for sound money with common features to facilitate international exchange. Knies deplored the action of Bismarck who was instru- mental in making the German mark just a little dif- ferent from the English shilling purposely to bring about a certain nationalistic peculiarity when it would have been very easy to secure a higher meas- ure of unity. A second illustration of the change that has come over Germany, and even Baden, since 1880 is seen in the failure of the efforts to introduce Eng- lish letters in printing and writing {lateinische Schrift). Very generally in my day the profess- ors in Heidelberg used our letters, but Bismarck and the ruling clique making war against this usage have succeeded by exhortation mingled with force in re- taining the distinctive German letters— awkward and eye-straining, but separate from the world move- Why We Are at War 31 ment and therefore part of their perverted loyalty "BeutscUand uher AllesJ' The third illustration is found in the expulsion of French words and phrases from the every-day lan- guage of the people of Heidelberg. These French words and phrases were natural and fitted in well with the soft musical tones heard in Baden. They enriched the language but were not distinctively "deutscW' and they had to go in Heidelberg^ as well as elsewhere— a special piece of Prussianism because the French influence was never so great in Prussia and the use of French words and phrases was not so general in that state; indeed, seemed less appropriate to the Prussian genius! German words must always replace the foreign words no matter how cumbersome, so they are but pure Ger- man products— ec/i^ deutscli, as they say.^ The following quotation gives an amusing illustration. ^^I was once sitting on the verandah of an hotel at Boppard, on the Rhine, when the commanding officer of the garrison of Ehrenbreitstein drove up in a motor-car. He pointed to a sign bearing the word ^Garage,' and said that if that word were not changed he would place that hotel out of bounds for all his officers and for all the men of his garrison. Next day, there appeared on the sign the word K raft wag eneinst ellraum— 'power-wa^gon- standing-in-room. ' ' ' This is not a joke ; it is not really even humorous ; 32 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy it is a very good instance of Prussian official atten- tion to detail. For the poor host of that hotel did not in the least want to do away with the French word. His principal clientele were French and Eng- lish to whom the word substituted would appear repellent and unintelligible. And this is merely a symptom of a vast process and of the vast struggle to which I have already alluded, and which has been continuing for forty years between the natural in- clination of the South German peoples towards the French language and French forms of culture, and the Prussian determination to Germanise any ter- ritory over which, by fair means or by foul, it can exercise an influence. ' ' "' But even as early as 1880 we had counter forces at work in Germany, forces represented by Bis- marck with his doctrine of ^ 'blood and iron'' {Eisen und_ Blut). Especially pertinent in this connec- tion is von Moltke's open letter to Bluntschli in which he said of Bluntschli 's striving for peace, ''What you wish is only a dream, and at that not even a beautiful dream." I am sure Bluntschli was very much grieved to find himself opposed by the great General von Moltke. Two different tendencies were struggling for the upper hand at that time in Germany. Powers of light and powers of darkness were in conflict, and the powers of darkness have won the upper hand during the regime of the present Emperor and un- Why We Are at War 33 der the influences proceeding from him and his asso- ciates. But on the whole in Germany and, particularly in Heidelberg", in 1880 the atmosphere was one of peace and of liberty. That was the impression which I had in Heidelberg — beautiful peace and spacious liberty. We are at war to restore in Germany the condi- tions which prevailed in older and better days and thus it is that we are at war for the German people, whose military masters we are determined to over- throw and utterly destroy. With her lost soul re- covered what a glorious federal republic Germany would make ! For with opportunity for a free, spon- taneous evolution, the better, kindlier qualities of the Germans would flower and fruit in good works at home and abroad. No other people have better foundations for national prosperity of a high order. Among these foundations may be mentioned re- spect for authority, ability to work together splen- didly in cooperative undertakings, love of learning, true admiration for the artist and scholar, and such a generous provision for research as perhaps no other land knows, and the best civil service in the world; exemplified particularly in the government of German cities, often democratic and liberal — a fine showing of Germany and the Germans at their best. But at this point a word of caution is necessary. When it is said that Germany would make a glori- 34 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy ous republic, it does not carry with it the meaning that if the form of government were changed, we could negotiate a peace with Germany. People and government are now united and even a change in constitutional forms will not produce an immediate change in the German outlook upon the world and German thought and sentiment toward other na- tions. The educational and religious work of gen- erations cannot be suddenly undone, and the Ger- man acquired characteristics changed. The point is that the hated characteristics are acquired, not innate, and that the processes of democracy with its different kind of leadership will make possible the acquisition of other characteristics, when once the Germans see and feel the suffering and loss of war, so that they will no longer proclaim the glories of war. We are at war because Germany has carried on a treacherous and insidious propaganda for genera- tions in preparing for war. This propaganda has until recently been little understood by the rest of the world and we have had only a faint glimmering notion of what has been going on. German spies have been placed everywhere. German business has been a means of propaganda ^ and preparation for conquest, and now we can see that the educational work fostered by Germany has been another one of the agencies of propaganda. As I am describing only what I myself have learned from personal ob- Why We Are at War 35 servation and conversation, I give merely two illus- trations of German educational propaganda. In- terested in the education of my children, I inquired about an opportunity for boys to learn German in France, and heard of a family living in Versailles to which German boys were frequently sent. As I now review all the circumstances I have little doubt that this family formed a connection for German propaganda and was probably a part of the detest- able spy system of Germany. I found, moreover, during my inquiries that Germany had seen to it that there should be a school in Brussels where good instruction was given in German in the German lan- guage, so that a child could go there and keep up his German and at the same time learn French. I have a clear impression, although it is not sup- ported by official documents that I have seen, that direct pecuniary aid was given to support German instruction in Brussels, and that this was a part of the plan for the wickedness of 1914. And re- cent revelations show that the German imperial budget contained a very considerable item for in- struction in German in foreign lands, quite confirm- ing the impressions gathered from personal experi- ences. CHAPTER III THE FOECES OF DARKNESS GAIN THE UPPER HAND One evidence of the great change that has taken place in Germany is the neglect of international law in recent years. The influences represented by Bluntschli and his code have now become very weak. A widespread and a sincere cultivation of interna- tional law implies a recognition of mutual rights and obligations among nations. The conception the Germans have had of themselves as a chosen people designed for world rulership has resulted in a dis- taste for international law rather than a love of this subject and its cultivation as a great branch of political science.^ The Germans exploit foreigners as they have op- portunity, at home as well as abroad. This is a broad general statement which is true in spite of numerous exceptions. All sorts of protestations of friendly feelings toward Americans were frequent enough before 1914, but anyone familiar with the real disposition of the German people knows very well that Americans have never been popular in Germany ; that, on the contrary, they have been held in more or less contempt, and that their presence 36 The Forces of Darkness Gain the Upper Hand 37 lias been sought for the sake of gain. There are dif- ferent scales of prices in Germany and always espe- cially high ones for Americans; but the exploita- tion of the foreigner is also felt in other ways, particularly in the matter of learning the German language. Everywhere in Germany the Germans have sought to learn English from the Americans, and it has been with difficulty that the Americans have found an opportunity to speak German after going to Germany to learn the -language. Protests avail little. The Germans disregard the desire of the foreigner and generally come back to his exploi- tation in this matter of language. The American who went to a German family with the expressed un- derstanding that German was to be spoken found again and again that all agreements to the con- trary notwithstanding, the members of the family insisted upon speaking English, and that he was exploited. The last time I was in Germany I wrote a letter to the Munchener Neueste Nachrichten pro- testing against this practice. I pointed out that it was not fair, and that it would be to the advantage commercially of a city like Munich to give the Americans a square deal and a fair chance to learn the German language. The German newspaper to which the letter was sent never printed it and never made any reply. This exploitation of the foreigner and this de- sire to get the most out of him is something with 38 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy which all travellers are familiar, and of which they could give many illustrations. I give two instances out of my own experience. Once in Germany while still a student, as I was walking along the highway, I was overtaken by a man driving a team. There were empty seats in the wagon and he asked me if I did not want a ride. He was a servant attached to the hotel where I was staying, and I felt delighted be- cause I thought that for once a simple kindness had been shown to me from a German merely because I was a human being. It was such a thing as we take as a mere matter of course in our country. Alas, my disappointment ! When my bill was handed in at the close of my stay at the hotel a charge of three marks was put down because I had ridden in the wagon with a servant of the hotel. There was in- volved, to be sure, more than the exploitation of the foreigner, for a class distinction entered. It was not fitting that a young doctor of philosophy should receive a friendly attention from a mere servant, for that act of fraternity would have been too democratic. Probably a young German doctor of philosophy would have given a tip of one sixth of the bill handed the American and that would have ended the matter. I did not mind so much the money that I paid as I did the disappointment. In 1913 when I was again in Germany and was studying the land problem, I desired to make a trip to the Bavarian Mountains to visit some farms and The Forces of Darkness Gain the Upper Hand 39 to become acquainted with conditions. A German whom I knew recommended to me a friend of his, a young lawyer, who would be glad to go with me. This young lawyer had been brought up in the part of the country we proposed to visit and he had rela- tives still living there. I naturally paid all ex- penses. Imagine my surprise when a very substan- tial bill was sent to me for services, as nothing had been said about any charge and as I took it as a mere act of kindness from one who in this case was presumably a social equal. Shortly after when in England I was shown the allotments and small hold- ings near Oxford by a young English student who was glad to go with me and who would have felt very much grieved if I had offered him payment for his companionship. Coupled with this dislike and exploitation of the foreigner, goes the astounding inability of the Ger- mans to understand the psychology of other na- tions. Cruelty and oppression attend all their ef- forts at colonial expansion. The civilized world now knows that Germans should never rule non- Germans and that to turn back to Germany her lost colonies would be a crime, a sin crying to high heaven. Is it not enough that she has handed over to those blood-thirsty butchers, the Turks, new regions of Armenia for renewed slaughter of helpless Armenian men and women, young and old, even babes? Another illustration of the change which has come 40 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy over Germany and wliich lias found its culmination in the unprovoked attack upon the world peace is found in the position occupied in 1913 by Brentano, professor of economics in the University of Munich. I mention 1913 because I was in Munich at that time and saw Brentano rather frequently and had in- timate conversation with him. Brentano in a sense was the last of the old guard. He was a tighter for liberty and desired a greater measure of freedom in international trade than Germany enjoyed. Brentano was also democratic in sentiment and an advocate of workingmen's rights. He had been in England and was not without admiration for Eng- lish institutions. He used to tell me when I ex- pressed admiration for Germany that I did not un- derstand the real situation, and he emphasized par- ticularly the fact that the old ideals of academic freedom were waning and were no longer in control in German Universities. He himself was attacked again and again and grossly slandered by representa- tives of merchants and manufacturers. Again and again he was obliged to protect himself and his good name by cases before the courts. While he won these cases, they were a great burden. I remember also his telling me that one of the young women of his family, a cousin or niece, had married a son of the great industrial magnate. Baron von Stumm. After her marriage she was told that she must ab- solutely cease all intercourse with the Brentanos. The Forces of Darkness Gain the Upper Hand 41 It was either in 1911 or 1913 that I heard Maximil- ian Harden lecture in Munich. The lecture was given in a large hall opposite one of the most fashion- able hotels of the city. All of the seats were taken and some had to stand. The audience consisted of fashionably dressed people, apparently representing the culture and wealth of Munich. The whole lecture was virtually a plea for war. The German govern- ment, including the Kaiser, was abused for keeping the German nation from fighting England. Had Harden been speaking for workingmen and given utterance to such sentiments as he then expressed in regard to the Kaiser, he might have been arrested and punished for Majestdts heleidigung. But as he was speaking for war and apparently representing the sentiments of the leaders of opinion, he was let alone. He reproached his fellow-country-men for being so supine. He expressed the idea that the Germans were willing to take whatever treatment was handed out to them by England and when she struck one cheek they turned the other. Every war- like sentiment was applauded warmly by the audi- ence. It was apparent that he voiced their opinion in his plea for war: There is no doubt about the sentiments of his audience.^ ^ My experience after I returned once from Eng- land to Germany throws light upon German inten- tions and aims. I told my German friends that it was a great mistake to think of England as decadent, 42 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy that as a matter of fact she was strong and virile and impressed me as unconquerable. I spoke also about my impression of the tremendous strength of Germany, and then I ventured to commend the plan of the father of the present Emperor, namely, the Emperor Frederick III, ^'the Noble," for a triple alliance of Germany, England and the United States. Such a combination, I said, could keep the peace of the world. The idea, however, of keeping the peace of the world was not well received and after I had mentioned it once or twice, I desisted. It was very evident that my German friends did not want the peace of the world kept, but they desired war and conquest. They took the position that they had come late into the world as a separate nation and did not have their share of the earth's surface, and that they must gain it by the ''good German sword," ^ ^ the phrase they use with exultation. I might mention other evidences of the prepara- tion for war. They were abundant for those who could understand what was going on. The heaping up of gold in the banks in 1913 was one evidence. I did my modest banking business at the Munich Branch of the great Deutsche Bank. It was diffi- cult to get even the small amount of gold that I wanted. Paper was forced upon the customers, and after a small amount of gold had been paid out, it was said that they did not have any more. The Forces of Darkness Gain the Upper Hand 43 After the War broke out in 1914 I received a pamphlet written by Karl Eathgen, of the Kolonial- Institut, of Hamburg. Professor Rathgen is a very amiable, mild-mannered man, and yet in this pam- phlet he used these words, '^War is glorious, even if we lose, war is glorious; but if we win, war is unspeakably glorious." I know nothing which has impressed me more strongly than this utterance of Rathgen. When a man like Eathgen can glory in war, it shows how the gospel of war has entered into the very life blood of the German nation. It is a part of their false religion and a part of their worship of their false tribal god.^ What the Germans want is woirld empire.'^ I recall in this connection something that I heard from Professor Bluntschli of Heidelberg, and which, so far as I know, has never appeared in print. The Emperor Frederick III, then Crown Prince, was working with others on a design for a crown for the German Emperor. The sketch made by the Crown Prince Frederick had Eoman emblems which clearly suggested the succession to the world-throne of the Caesars. I remember the smile of Professor Blunts- chli as he told us about this sketch. He made no comment and none was necessary. There can be no doubt that the present Emperor has often thought of himself as crowned at Eome, Emperor of the world, successor of the Caesars and of Charlemagne.^ 44 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy He desires ardently peace, but it is a new Pax Romana imposed upon the world by the German Emperor of the world. And note, Kaiser is simply the German word for CsBsar ! CHAPTER IV THE CHAKACTEEISTICS OF A GERMAN WORLD STATE If Germany conquered the world, what kind of a world would we have? Germany has conquered parts of the world, and we know something about the lot of the conquered in these regions. More than one hundred years ago the conquest of Poland was com- pleted, and parts of Poland have remained for more than a century under the dominion of the King of Prussia. The Poles are still unreconciled and ir- reconcilable. The treatment the Poles have long received and are still receiving throws light upon German methods in Belgium. The aim now is to secure peace in Prussian Poland by dispossessing the Poles and replacing them with Germans. This is part of the policy of the much vaunted Prussian land reform which has been described to us as ^'en- lightened German land policies. " Against their will the Polish land owners are bought out, and dis- possessed of their ancestral homes and the land is sold under favorable conditions to German colonists. It is considered next to a crime if a German sells land in Prussian Poland to a Pole ; it is regarded as 45 46 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy a proper cause for dismissal from the public service if such a thing is done by one in that service.^ The same policy is pursued in the northern part of Schleswig-Holstein which was conquered from Den- mark in 1864. Harsh, indeed, has been the Prussian rule in that part of Denmark which was annexed to Prussia, and the Danes to this day do not appreciate their privilege in being under the Prussian yoke. Alsace-Lorraine was wrested from France nearly fifty years ago. A policy of dispossession has gone on there as it has in Prussian Poland and, as it is now taking place in Belgium. The French have been crowded out by Germans, and many of the original French inhabitants long ago left their ancestral homes, no longer able to endure German ruthless- ness. Even yet, however, Alsace-Lorraine groans unhappily under the iron heel of the conqueror.^ I have just spoken about the brutal treatment of foreign nationalities within the German Empire. To understand fully, however, the attitude of Ger- many towards other countries and her plans for world domination it is well to consider her penetra- tion into Eussia long before this War and the plans which she made there as well as elsewhere in the world for the world-war, in which we are now en- gaged. In 1879 I was a student in Germany, and there, as also in Switzerland, I met many Eussians — some of them students and some of them older men. I found that the Eussians uniformly hated the Ger- The Characteristics of a German World State 47 mans. This hatred was so intense that in an article which I wrote for the New York Evening Post and which appeared on November 1, 1879, I predicted that war was inevitable between Eussia and Ger- many. I based this prediction not upon the efforts of the governments to bring about war, but upon what I had learned about the oppression of Eussia by the Germans. The German landowner had planted himself in Eussia and was harsh and overbearing. The German capitalist already was at work in Eus- sia, preparing the ground for the domination of German capitalism. The German bureaucrat had control of the government in Petrograd. The Ger- mans were even then in the saddle, having large con- trol, and this they used to keep down the Eussian people. In 1918 my colleague, Professor E. A. Eoss, travelling in Eussia, was told by the German Luth- eran pastors that the Eussians were not fit for self- government ; that they were intellectually an inferior people, and that it might take two or three centuries for them to reach a point where they would be cap- able of self-government.^^ Precisely this speech was heard in the period to which my New York Evening Post article belongs. But in predicting a war, I made one serious mistake, and that is, I thought it would come a great deal sooner than it did. I pre- dicted, however, that the war could not take place while the two old emperors, William the First, of Germany, and the Czar^ Al^^^ander the Second, of 48 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy Eussia, were living, on account of their friendship and relationship. Although I believe I discerned one of the fundamental causes of the present war, which as predicted is shaking Europe to its foundations, it did not occur to me then that it would shake the whole world to its foundations. I quote as follows from the article in the New York Evening Post (November 1, 1879) : ^^The essence of the whole matter is this: The Kussians long for constitutional liberties, and they believe that the Germans are instrumental in caus- ing a continuance of the present autocracy. The Czar's mother was a German, a sister of the Ger- man Emperor, making him, as is well-kno^m, the nephew of the latter; his wife is also a daughter of Louis II of Hessen. His sympathies are all German, and lead him to pass considerable time in Germany and surround himself in St. Petersburg with Ger- mans. These favorites whose positions depend alone upon the Czar's will, would lofee all importance if the Russian people had a voice in the govern- ment. They feel this, and do all in their power to prevent it, flattering the Czar and preaching inces- santly the old doctrine of the ^unripeness' of the Eussian people for free institutions. ^The Eus- sians,' explained a Eussian gentleman in Geneva to me, ' are ruled over by a set of German foreigners, whose only interest in the country is in what they can make out of it. They fill the offices, rob the people The Characteristics of a German World State 49 of their earnings, oppress them, preach continually the ignorance and inability of the Eussians, and prevent in every way the Czar from becoming ac- quainted with his people and learning their noble and excellent qualities. The Czar himself is in real- ity a foreign ruler ; he is German in sympathies and taste as well as in blood. ' We have in this explana- tion, which, whether correct or not, is believed by the Eussians, the true interpretation of their hatred of the Germans. . . . ^^The feeling of the mass of Eussians is not a mat- ter of doubt. Even the Frankfurter Zeitung ad- mits that the Eussian journals express only the senti- ments of 'their readers, and the Kolnische Zeitung asserts that the prospect of peace stands in an in- verse ratio to the weight of the voice of the Eussian people. ^'What will be the result of this agitation of the 'German-haters'? It is ultimately bound to direct the policy of the government. . . . With this feeling on the part of the Eussians, a growth of years, the question of war with Germany is only one of time. Even now speculation is rife in regard to the way the different powers will range themselves in what it is supposed will be a general European war. The personal friendship existing between William I of Germany and his nephew may possibly keep the na- tions at peace until the death of these two aged monarchs. Then, at the farthest, the two people 50 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy will come together with a crash which will shake Europe to its foundations.'^ Let us direct our attention to some contrasts. Less than twenty years ago England conquered South Africa, but in this war a South African Boer General has been the leader in wresting from Ger- many her African possessions. Germany in 1914 little understood the ties binding together the dif- ferent countries forming the wonderful British Em- pire. It was said to people in New Zealand and elsewhere, ^^Now is your chance to escape, '^ but happily they did not desire to escape, but were eager to fight for what they truly conceived to be the com- mon cause of civilization. At the very outset, New Zealand, fortunately having had universal military service, was ready for the War; it may be doubted if greater loyalty and readiness to fight were shown in England than in New Zealand. In 1914 I took a journey from Vancouver to New Zealand and Australia. In Wellington, New Zea- land, I had an interview with the Prime Minister, Mr. Massey. While waiting in the ante-room for my turn, three Maori chiefs came out of Mr. Mas- sey 's office, their faces wreathed with smiles. They had previously been told that they could not enter the War with England and they were greatly grieved. They were delighted because they were then told they could make common cause with the British Empire, and they were very happy. What a con- The Characteristics of a German World State 51 trast between the Maori in New Zealand and the Samoans in German Samoa! German Samoa, as it will be recalled, was conquered early in the War by New Zealand. On the return trip we stopped at American Samoa, where I may remark, first of all, that I was deeply impressed by the warm af- fection shown by the American Samoans to the American Government and to the naval commander and governor who was just leaving his post. Their demonstrations of affection were very touching, and I was told that when the Princeton went down in the harbor, Samoan chiefs wept as if Uncle Sam were a real living personal friend and had suffered a great loss, two Americans got on board at Samoa who had been spending some time in German Samoa. One of them told me that the Samoans were full of joy when Samoa was conquered by New Zealand, and they were able to get out from under the harsh German rule. The Americans, however, made it their business to go about among the Samoans and tell them that German Samoa might be reconquered before the end of the War and warned them to make no demonstrations, but to go quietly about their work so that in case the Germans should re- turn there would be no excuse for punishing them. We did not then understand German f rightfulness as well as we do now, but these Americans even at that time had an appreciation of the fate which might befall the Samoans should Germany come back. 52 The World War a7id Leadership in a Democracy They did the right thing in warning them not to let the Germans know how happy they were to escape from their harsh control. Do we want to fare like Prussian Poland and Al- sace-Lorraine? If we do not want to be helots, we should tight to the bitter end. The world is not safe until Germany is conquered. It is only con- quest that can cure the German people of the malady which afflicts them and from which the whole world is suffering. There is nothing for America and her Allies to do save to dictate the terms of peace in Berlin. But how needless this War from the point of view of Germany, provided only she desired economic prosperity and room for economic expansion! The whole world was before her. No one stood in her way, although she was pursuing narrowly national- istic methods of aggrandizement. Without conflict of arms Germany was steadily gaining ground in all parts of the world. There was wonderful peace, wonderful prosperity at home. People were well clothed, safely sheltered in sanitary homes under wholesome conditions, except with some overcrowd- ing to be sure in the great centers, and they were fairly well fed. Even socialists had to admit in- creasing prosperity at home. There was relatively slight unemployment, and in a city like Munich such abundant provision to take care of all needing work and charitable relief that there was little suffering The Characteristics of a German World State 53 of an economic character. Vocational education was training the youth of the land towards still greater prosperity. German commerce and industry were invading all lands and nowhere encountered seri- ous barriers. German ships were found on all seas and in English waters as well as in the waters of all of the countries of the world they came and went freely. But the envious masters of Germany were not satisfied. The lust for dominion and world conquest called a sudden halt to the greatest prosperity Ger- many had ever known, and possibly to the most rapidly increasing prosperity the world has prob- ably ever seen. The Kaiser and his military asso- ciates in 1914 plunged Germany and the world into an abyss of calamity as a result of their worship of their false tribal god. They longed, as they still do, for the glory of war, and they talked, as they still talk, with exultation of the work of the ^'good German sword" and like butchers gloating in butch- ery they prate about sharpening the German sword.^ To them war is still glorious. Perhaps they would not now say with Eathgen, ''War is glorious, even if we lose,'" but doubtless they still shout ''if we win war is glorious; but if we win, war is unspeakably glorious. " ^ CHAPTER V THE SOURCES OF THE GERMAN STRENGTH We are at war with the mightiest military nation the world has ever known. What are the sources of her strength? Military preparation for war obvi- ously suggests itself as one of the prime sources of her strength. The German army before the War was the most perfect piece of human organization and mechanism the world has ever seen. Even to the layman nothing could be more impressive than to see the German military maneuvers. As a stu- dent I remember seeing the maneuvers in Berlin on the Tempelhofer Feld in 1879 or 80. As I recall it, there were some forty to fifty thousand troops gathered together. The old Emperor, William the First, his son Frederick, Crown Prince, and the lat- ter 's son now William the Second were all present. The perfection of movement, ^^the shining armor," and the whole display filled me with awe and admira- tion. Probably the spectacle could not have been equalled anywhere in the world. This German army is the result of German thoroughness, German dili- gence, and German leadership. It is well for the world and particularly for the 54 The Sources of the German Strength 55 United States to understand the hard work of offi- cers and men in the German army; nor should we fail to admire the sense of duty which keeps them at this drill, drill, drill in every nook and corner of Germany ; even if this sense of duty is narrow and has towards other nations perverted aims. Year in, year out, in heat and in cold, in fair weather and in foul, the tramp, tramp, tramp of the soldiers, infantry and cavalry, is heard. And work of the mind goes with the work of the body and the passage of well-nigh fifty years of peace saw no slackening of toil, no letting up in military sternness. The world has never seen the like.^ Let us take to heart this lesson, and be equally faithful in our prepara- tions for the works of war and peace, equally watch- ful for our liberties, equally quickened by a stern sense of duty in all our public activities, both civic and military; for today it is just as true as it was when the words were first uttered: ^^ Eternal vigi- lance is the price of liberty." But the military preparedness of Germany was only one part of her preparedness. This was strongly impressed upon me when a student in Ger- many. One saw preparedness at every turn. It came out very strongly in the discussions for the pur- chase of the Prussian railways by the state of Prus- sia in the years 1879-1880. This discussion I fol- lowed with care at the request of the Honorable An- drew D. White, then American Minister, who gave 56 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy me the opportunity to make a report on it for our Department of State. The plans which had been formulated aimed to bring the railways into the closest harmony with the organization of the army and at the same time to promote in every possible way German economic development and to further German commerce with foreign nations. I called at- tention in my report to Bismarck's idea that the German troops should march into one end of the station as civilians and ride out the other end of the station in their uniforms ready for war. Prac- tically this very thing was seen in 1914, and a lady who was in Hamburg at the time tells me how im- pressive it was. The German army officers are a select body of highly trained men. This is not necessarily an evil in German life; it is an evil that they should be given such complete ascendancy over all other eco- nomic classes and professions.^ Nevertheless, the German civil official, the Beamte, is also well con- sidered in Germany. He is carefully selected, highly trained and occupies an honored position, even if not quite like the position of the Oifizier. How- ever, the Offlziere and the Beamten must be men- tioned together as the two great pillars of the German State. The civil official, if he occupies any one of the higher posts, is a man with university training, who enters his career as a young man and who wins his The Sources of the German Strength 57 way step by step. The civil official is the same kind of a man that we find in our universities. With our complex modern life it is only in this way that excellence of service can be secured. Men prepare for a career in the civil service just as they prepar^e for a career in the practice of medicine or in the Church. They are able to do this because they have security in their positions; otherwise it would be impossible. The services performed when the ad- ministrative side of government is highly developed are so specialized that the one who trains himself to perform them properly is not likely to find em- ployment in private life. Let us suppose that a man gives years of his life to the postal service and acquires a high degree of knowledge about postal arrangements in all countries and becomes a real expert, comparable with an expert in our best man- aged industries. He has only one em^ployer, namely, the government, and he cannot afford to prepare him- self adequately unless he has security during good behaviour and efficient service with a prospect of advancement in return for meritorious and excel- lent service ^ and finally a pension for retirement when he is incapacitated. This is not an exclusively German idea but one more fully carried out in Germany than elsewhere. It is to be noticed that the pension system is eco- nomical, as salaries are much lower than would be required if each one were obliged to insure himself. 58 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy The pension provides support for time of inability to render service on account of age and for tlie fam- ily in case of death. We have then in Germany a highly organized, integrated society under trained leadership. The civil service is the best the world has ever seen. Leadership does not have very high pecuniary re- wards, salaries are barely sufficient to maintain life in accordance with accepted standards, and in the case of the army are even below this, so that an officer, unless he has money of his own, is obliged to marry a girl with money. But low salaries are supplemented by generous recognition of merit. Germany has not neglected the individual. She has trained him and developed his powers as a mem- ber of her highly organized integrated society. It is a mistake to suppose that attention is not given to the cultivation of initiative on the part of the individual. Emphasis is laid upon this in the army and elsewhere, but perhaps especially in the army. Nevertheless, the still greater emphasis is laid upon the whole, and the individual must bring his powers of initiative and action into harmony with others to produce united action. Always and everywhere leadership is emphasised and rewarded. This holds with regard to private life as well as with regard to public life. It holds with industry, as well as with education. The sovereigns of the German state are not as a The Sources of the German Strength 59 rule especially gifted men. Some of them are prob- ably rather dull and slow of wit, but in so far as I have been able to observe, they are very generally on the lookout for excellence and glad to honor it. This system of recognition which goes through German life is wonderful. A man starts in a career as a small merchant. He enlarges his business, is solid, substantial, upright, is ready to serve his com- munity. In due course with pecuniary success comes also non-pecuniary recognition. One day a crown is seen over his door, and he is Hoflieferant. Let us suppose, as time goes on, that his business grows and he manufactures supplies for himself and others. In his special line he comes to play a considerable role in the commercial world; and he distinguishes himself, perhaps by generous contributions to hos- pitals and by building model homes for his working people. He may receive a higher title and be made Commerzienrath. This is a proud day for him and perhaps still prouder for his wife, who no longer plain Frau Schmidt or Frau Schulze, becomes Frau C ommerzienrath or Gnddige Frau. There are many other grades still higher, but with these we need not now concern ourselves. Let us contrast this condition with that which a few years ago in the heyday of the muckraker ob- tained in the United States, when success was penal- ized by suspicion and denunciation, and when on the part of not a few political aspirants for public favor 60 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy bad motives were always imputed to explain the ac- tions of great business men even when good motives offered an equally logical explanation. No one would want to say that the muckraker was alto- gether uncalled for nor that big business as a whole was not guilty of many sins ; but suspicion and in- discriminate abuse do not bring desired reforms. Encouragement of excellence is pedagogically cor- rect. Wisely placed praise and generous recogni- tion call into play men's best powers. We have rea- son to be proud of our business men ; let us hold up their merits for emulation. In the German University there are also honors to be dispensed as a recognition of merit and these likewise encourage and strengthen the leadership of the learned. Herr Professor is something, but Herr Geheimrath is higher. Let us consider other and more fundamental conditions in a Ger- man university having like tendencies. First of all, notice that the German professor is appointed for life like a justice of the United States Supreme Court. His retirement cannot be forced, nor can he be dismissed without cause. He has a title to a position like his title to his house. This naturally makes the position a prized one and attracts talent to the service of the university. Mistakes may be and are made in appointments, but nevertheless, un- der this system, the state receives more for each dollar expended than it could under any other sys- The Sources of the German Strength 61 tern. But one special feature to which it is now de- sired to direct attention is the celebration of the seventieth birthday for the man who has won any distinction in the service of the university. Prepa- ration for this celebration often begins two or three years before his seventieth birthday is reached. Former students plan a work to be issued as a part of the celebration of the seventieth birthday. The portrait of the man may be painted by some dis- tinguished artist, and when the seventieth birthday arrives, friends and neighbors unite to do honor to the man who has reached his three score and ten years. Those high in the state, perhaps even in- cluding the king (in a state like Bavaria) show ap- preciation. It is an event in the life of the com- munity as it is in the life of the individual. The celebration stimulates a man before he reaches his seventieth birthday, and it puts him in a psychical frame of mind and disposition to carry forward his work beyond what is called the allotted span of life. Very generally the German professor is active in his university work after his seventieth birthday. I recall an incident in Munich when I visited Pro- fessor von Meyer in his office in the University. The celebration of his birthday had occurred the year before. I had been given a picturesque de- scription of the celebration and saw in my mind's eye carriages driving up to his door leaving con- gratulations with flowers, etc. The face of the old 62 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy man brightened when he told me about his celebra- tion, and as he showed me the two volumes, The History of Statistics in Germany, which had been prepared by his students and admirers as a part of the celebration, he said to me, ^^What a great thing it is when by the mere lapse of time a man can bring into existence such a work as this. ' ^ Unquestionably, there are all sorts of wealinesses in human nature revealed in the bestowal of titles and honors in Germany. It has its ludicrous side and lends itself at times to the cartoonist and the writers for humorous papers, but at bottom it is sound. It places before men other ideals than those of mere money-making. It gives other rewards than pecuniary rewards. It awakens talent and har- nesses it to the chariot of progress.* The world over we see that it is not mere numbers that count. If they did so, how great a role would Russia be playing to-day! Leadership is the great thing. The benefits of wise and good leadership are all-pervasive. A wise and great leader lifts his whole community and may lift an entire nation. We have had happily in our country wise and great lead- ers. Confining ourselves only to the past, we think of Washington and Lincoln. What a blessing they are to us all ! Leadership is the great word now. We have seen leadership in an autocracy. To this as a condition of a great and independent national life we must The Sources of the German Strength 63 oppose leadership in a democracy. Leadership is a condition of winning the War. It is a condition of meeting" the stupendous problems which confront America now and will confront America in the new world which follows the War. If we would live in a world of American ideals instead of a world of Bolshevik ideals, we must cherish the ideal of leader- ship among" and for people closely knit and com- pacted together as a nation composed of strong, highly trained individuals with diversified gifts united into a society capable of acting together for the attainment of common ends. Eeviewing the ground thus far covered, it is clear that the outstanding feature of German life is leader- ship. Leadership in an autocracy has carried with it preparedness in all the social life-spheres in Ger- many, both civic and military life-spheres. This leadership has plunged the world into woe and threatens the civilization of all free democratic coun- tries. Now turning to the United States, we find a different situation. We are lacking where Germany is strongest; and in the following chapters atten- tion will be directed to a description of this actual situation with its weaknesses and its potentialities of betterment. There is in the American people suffi- cient intellectual and moral strength and will-power to produce the needed changes in our institutions and to produce that leadership which will overwhelm the autocratic leadership of Germany. Our popula- 64 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy tion is greater, our amazing natural resources over- shadow the natural resources of Germany; and for conquest in the present War with the aid of our Al- lies and for future security with ever increasing prosperity in material and immaterial goods we only need that leadership which will gather together and unify us as a nation. We turn then to Ameri- can leadership. CHAPTER VI THE STRUGGLE FOR EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY IIST AMERICAN HISTORY In the course of the history of our country many different social currents may be observed. The forces which have striven for ascendancy in the United States have not all been harmonious. Some- times they have been mutually antagonistic, and not always has it been clear at the moment what forces would gain social control. When, however, in the twentieth century we look back on our history to the time of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, we can see that on the whole the struggle for equality of opportunity has been dominant. This striving runs through our history like a red thread and gives it unity. It has not always been clear exactly what content should be given to the idea of equality of opportunity any more than it has been always obvious what means we should take to reach the desired goal. Certain clear outlines of this struggle for equality of opportunity are now becoming easily discernible. When we began our separate national history in 65 66 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy the latter part of the eighteenth century, a pretty well rounded-out social philosophy was dominant. It was the era of natural rights, and the philosophy is called the philosophy of natural rights. Nature ruled, it was held, in society, and she established cer- tain beneficent social laws. These acted in the in- terest of all, and for men there was nothing but to learn these laws and to obey them. Man's political activity was pernicious if it went beyond the main- tenance of law and order. Included also in this philosophy was the idea of the harmony of inter- ests. Each one, it was held, in pursuing his own in- terest promoted necessarily the interest of all. An- other marked feature of this philosophy was the doctrine of equality of men not merely in rights and aspirations but in powers. Equality as fact rather than as goal was the dominant thought of the lead- ers of eighteenth century America as well as of the leaders of France and England. These ideas found expression in the writings of men like Adam Smith, Blackstone, Turgot, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jeffer- son, and many others. The radical economic think- ers, like Eobert Owen, particularly emphasized them. Inequalities were held to be artificial. The chief activity of government, if confined within its proper limits, consisted in the removal of artificial inequali- ties, in order that natural equalities might assert themselves. We find one pronounced exception, however, to the The struggle for Equality of Opportunity 67 idea of the passive policy of government and laissez- faire, in the educational policy of great leaders like Turgot and Jefferson. Both of these grand men sketched out schemes of education which perhaps we have not yet fully realized in all particulars. These men might have claimed that their educational poli- cies were after all in harmony with their general social philosophy because they thought that in or- der that men's naturally equal powers should be fully realized it was necessary that these powers should be developed by education, and that education was something that could not be provided individ- ually, but could be provided adequately only by the establishment of tax-supported public schools, in- cluding even the university as planned by Jefferson. To understand the role of leadership as it would naturally evolve from the eighteenth century philoso- phy we must also consider in our own country par- ticularly the kind of economic life which we find in the eighteenth century and early in the nineteenth century America. The life itself was a very simple one, being chiefly rural and agricultural. There were almost no banks, and this is significant for every bank means economic ties, and it is only as economic ties develop and as society becomes com- plex that banks multiply and flourish. Banking is then a good test of the complexity of economic so- ciety. The following figures in regard to the banks of the United States have then great significance. 68 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy Number of Banks in the United States ^ 1774 1784 3 1804 59 1820 307 1860 1,562 1879 3,335 1899 9,732 1909 22,491 1917 27,923 The loan and trust companies and savings banks are included; these are mostly of comparatively re- cent origin. The affairs of government were very simple, and it was not unnatural that the man going from the plow to the highest political office should be a popular ideal. The idea was widely entertained that any citizen should be able to hold any office. Manu- factures at this time were insignificant as were great corporations. Manufactures mean in modern times great gatherings of men with the resulting social problems, including the conflict of labor and capital. Large corporations mean increasing social control as seen in our laws and institutions. The control is first found in a little legislation here and there — this legislation constantly growing until it terminates in powerful commissions, established to regulate and direct and control the operations of corporations and thus to control the use of a large proportion of all The Struggle for Equality of Opportunity 69 of the wealth of the United States. We have our state railroad commissions, Interstate Commerce Commission and Federal Trade Commission, cited merely as illustrations of the movement. During this evolutionary process administration constantly grows in significance as contrasted with legislation. It is easily explicable that when our forefathers established this Republic they thought comparatively little about leadership, and that the constitutions adopted and the institutions established under these constitutions were not such as to lay emphasis upon leadership and to encourage its development as a great essential political necessity. An entire volume could be filled with an account of the way in which the struggle for equality of op- portunity has worked itself out in our history. Negative measures were first those chiefly insisted upon and made to prevail. Titles were abolished and hereditary offices, both being opposed to natural rights, as the doctrine of natural rights was held at the time. Equality of inheritance was also se- cured and the special privilege of birth-right, giv- ing to the oldest son a peculiar position in the in- heritance of property, was abolished. This was in Virginia one of the great achievements of Jeffer- son. Special privilege of any religious organiza- tion was also abolished, all religious organizations were made to stand on the same footing, and all were denied special public aid and assistance. 70 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy The absence of labor legislation in our earliest his- tory and the small amount of labor legislation during the entire first half of our history are noticeable as also the too frequently hostile attitude of courts to- wards labor legislation as it gradually came into ex- istence. If all men are equal as fact, then legisla- tion passed on behalf of any economic class consti- tutes favoritism and class privilege. Each one is quite able to look out for himself if you give him a chance and do not interfere with his right to con- tract freely with others. Perhaps the most instructive of all is the attitude of abolitionists very generally towards negro slav- ery. The aim of the long struggle for emancipa- tion, as they conceived it, was to strike the shackles off the slaves. A widely prevailing view was that if those laws were abolished which established slav- ery, if the negroes were given the same political rights which the whites possessed, if they enjoyed the advantages of the same laws and if at the same time they were made to obey the same laws equally, the negro problem would be solved. I have heard it said by a woman acquainted with many of the leaders of the abolitionists and who was acquainted with the one who said it, that this leader felt that the social problem had been solved when slavery was abolished, and that there were no other great social questions pressing for solution in the United States. This was also the attitude of other leaders The Struggle for Equality of Opportunity 71 as one will readily ascertain by reading the files of certain well-known periodicals during" the last three decades of the nineteenth century. It was under the influence of this thought that men talked about the ^^ so-called labor question." Great leadership, still more, specially selected and highly trained leader- ship lacked appreciation as one of the foundations of national prosperity. The twentieth century reveals us still struggling for equality of opportunity, but this struggle is com- ing to be dominated by quite different controlling so- cial ideas, and these new social ideas give an en- tirely new significance to leadership. The progress of biological science in recent decades, particularly of the science of heredity, has given us new data concerning human faculties, and new views regarding the innate differences among men from which have been deduced a new social philosophy and a new outlook upon life. The great outstanding fact is that of inequality among men. We now know that men are born unequal in their powers, and that educational development and the experiences of life very generally increase rather than remove these inequalities. Two great words in our social philosophy are nature and nurture. Formerly we took nature as a constant, equally op- erating force among men and attributed indefinite and almost unlimited powers to nurture. Now we understand that nurture can develop only 72 The ^¥orld War mid Leadership in a D^emocracy what nature lias implanted, and tliat tlie gifts of nature include different potentialities of develop- ment. If we take a group of school children, say at the age of ten, and test them in their mathematical powers, we find tremendous inequalities. If we give to all the best education possible for two years, we shall find that the differences among them have grown.^''' This is a very simple statement of facts, but the facts have most momentous consequences and lead to new ideas in regard to the nature and possi- bilities of human progress. If men are so unequal in their gifts, they cannot secure equality of oppor- tunity by equal treatment. The social situation is well summed up in these few words of the late Pro- fessor Anton Menger: ^' There is no greater in- equality than the equal treatment of unequals.'' A similar thought is found in Plato and doubtless in many other writers. Expanded and practically ap- plied it leads to radically different action from that which has resulted from eighteenth century ideas. The question is ; how shall we secure equality of op- portunity for men of unequal powers? When the facts of inequality are so obvious that they thrust themselves upon us at every turn, it is surprising that the philosophy of equality as fact could ever have gained such ascendancy as it has gained in the United States, and that in the twentieth century it should be only gradually making way for the philosophy of inequality as fact. We have The Struggle for Equality of Opportunity 73 the ricliest diversity among men with respect to powers and talents, and one of the greatest social problems is to secure unity of underlying purpose and social harmony with diversity of specific functions. As men are so diverse in their capacities and have consequently different careers and destinies before them, there should be a corresponding diversity in our educational institutions. The old philosophy gave us a school system through which all must pass regardless of diversities in gifts and necessary varia- tions in careers. Not only must all take the same studies, but the gifted, mediocre and dull must be placed in the same classes, whereby all suffer loss, the inferior as well as the superior. On this subject let me quote at some length from a man, who perhaps stands as high as any man in the edu- cational history of the United States, President Emeritus Charles William Eliot, of Harvard Uni- versity. *^I found my sample grammar school very inter- esting from another point of view. It was not one of those unfortunate schools in which fifty-six pupils are assigned to one teacher. The number of pupils to a teacher was less than fifty-six, though still too large. Since there were pupils in that school of various nationalities, religions, and conditions in life, every set of pupils of the same grade assembled in one room contained a large variety of individuals 74 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy of different powers and capacities ; yet tliey all had to be treated in precisely the same way, except as the ingenuity of the teacher might discover means of escape from this disastrous uniformity. There were children who could do the set tasks in arithmetic in fifteen minutes, and other children who could not do them in fifty-five minutes ; and there were all varie- ties between these limits. I suppose the worst fea- ture of the American school is this grouping to- gether of children whose capacities are widely dif- ferent. I am told that this evil is not so generally left without remedy in the Western schools as it is in the Eastern; but I have had no particular ob- servation of Western grammar schools. In my sam- ple grammar school there was no official, public, regulation remedy for this most serious condition of things. What was the unofficial private remedy provided by the ingenious teacher? Simply that when a bright pupil could get through in fifteen minutes what the programme allotted fifty minutes to, the teacher endeavored to give that child some- thing else to do — a book to read, other examples to solve, or pictures to look at; but she had so many children before her that she could not possibly deal with all of them in that way. This is the daily com- monplace evil which exists in every grammar school room, I suppose, in Massachusetts. What is the remedy? No remedy seems to be possible except grading by proficiency and capacity. I know that The Struggle for Equality of Opportunity 75 this is a remedy which the average school committee dislikes. We cling very hard to the delusion that, after all, men and women may be pretty nearly equal. We are flying in the face of nature when we conduct our schools on such a theory. We must learn, on the contrary, that the only possible equality among men is equality before the law. If we are to have good schools, we must remember that children are individually very diverse, and that the community suffers much loss when the quick children are made to keep pace with the slow. Not only the children themselves sufPer loss, but the community to which they belong loses heavily and incessantly. We ought to seek a regulation remedy for this state of things, not leaving it to the good feeling and ingenu- ity of the individual teacher. Through this grading by proficiency quite as much good would be done to the slower pupils as to the quicker. There is noth- ing more depressing, and, on the whole, degrading, than a hopeless contest ; than the sense of remaining, day after day and year after year, a dunce, without expectation of promotion, and without gain in mental power. We must not imagine, therefore, that in at- tempting to further the interests of the superior chil- dren we should fail to further the interests of the in- ferior. We should do both these good things simul- taneously."^ And to what self-contradictions has not this idea of equality as fact led us ! If we find that some men 76 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy have the situation, environment and gifts which would make them good blacksmiths, carpenters, and bakers and then we establish special schools and facilities to train them to achieve excellence in the kinds of work indicated, it is at once denounced as undemocratic. What does this mean except that the occupation of the carpenter, blacksmith and the baker are necessarily inferior and to be looked down upon socially? The true democratic idea is that these occupations are honorable and that the man who does his work well at any calling for which na- ture seems to have destined him and for which he has been especially trained has an honorable position in the community. Democracy means that the man who does his work honestly, thoroughly and effi- ciently as a farm laborer occupies an honorable posi- tion in the community and so do men who occupy all positions up and down the economic scale. We need farm labor. It is one of the great crying needs of the present time, but we have no special preparation to train men as farm laborers, to give them a good outlook upon life and to surround them with condi- tions of life attractive for them and promising for their children. Doubtless some mistaken zealots of democracy might consider it undemocratic to offer rewards for the best kept farm laborer 's cottage and grounds and rewards to land-owning farmers who should especially distinguish themselves in the solu- tion of the farm labor problem with respect to the The Struggle for Equality of Opportunity 11 farm laborer, farm owner and society. Yet in a true democracy there must be some place offering possibilities of wholesome life for those on every rung" of the agricultural ladder, as well as of the economic ladder in general. Now what is the result of this falsely idealistic, Utopian and unrealistic interpretation of the con- crete agricultural situation?^ Instead of self-re- specting and respected farm laborers, occupying fitting positions in economic society, we have wander- ing, degraded, and demoralizing ^^ hoboes" furnish- ing a considerable proportion of the nearly always inadequate supply of farm labor. It is worth while at this point to quote at some length an objective realistic picture of farm labor as presented by Ham- lin Garland in his book, A Son of the Middle Border. Speaking of his father whose occupation had taken him away from the farm in June of one year, Gar- land says that his father returned at harvest time to take command of farm operations and then he describes the harvest laborers whose character made the return necessary. These are his words: ^^As harvest came on he took command in the field, for most of the harvest help that year were rough, hardy wanderers from the south, nomads who had followed the line of ripening wheat from Missouri northward, and were not the most profitable companions for boys of fifteen. They reached our neighborhood in July, arriving like a flight of alien unclean birds, and 78 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy vanished into the north in September as mysteri- ously as they had appeared. A few of them had been soldiers, others were the errant sons of the poor farmers and rough mechanics of older states, migrating for the adventure of it. One of them gave his name as ^ Harry Lee,' others were known by such names as 'Big Ed' or 'Shorty.' Some carried valises, others had nothing but sm-all bundles contain- ing a clean shirt and a few socks. ''They all had the most appalling yet darkly romantic conception of women. A 'girP was the most desired thing in the world, a prize to be worked for, sought for and enjoyed without remorse. She had no soul. The maid who yielded to temptation deserved no pity, no consideration, no aid. Her sufferings were amusing, her diseases a joke, her future of no account. From these men Burton and I acquired a desolating fund of information concern- ing South Clark Street in Chicago, and the river front in St. Louis. Their talk did not allure, it mostly shocked and horrified us. We had not known that such cruelty, such baseness was in the world and it stood away in such violent opposition to the teaching of our fathers and uncles that it did not corrupt us. That man, the stronger animal, owed chivalry and care to woman, had been deeply grounded in our concept of life, and we shrank from these vile stories as from something disloyal to our mothers and sisters. The Struggle for Equality of Opportunity 79 '*To those who think of the farm as a sweetly ideal place in which to bring up a boy, all this may be dis- turbing — but the truth is, low-minded men are low- minded everywhere, and farm hands are often crea- tures with enormous appetites and small remorse, men on whom the beauty of nature has very little effect. *^To most of our harvest hands that year Satur- day night meant a visit to town and a drunken spree, and they did not hesitate to say so in the presence of Burton and myself. Some of them did not hesitate to say anything in our presence.'' ^ Let us direct our attention a moment to the word servant and the work of domestic service in the United States. The word servant carries with it in the public mind less that is desirable and more that is undesirable in our own country than in any other country. Does not this mean that we have got far away from the substance of real democracy! What a useful position does a good servant in a good household occupy ! In many circumstances servants are required to enable the household to perform its proper function in the community. There are times also in humble households when a servant is re- quired. If household servants had to disappear, it would mean a large increase in boarding houses, hotel life and flats and apartments. Why should it then, be regarded as undemocratic to have schools to train girls to be good household servants ? There 80 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy are advantages and disadvantages in domestic serv- ice. Why should not an effort be made to increase the advantages and remove the disadvantages and to make this useful occupation honorable in the pub- lic estimation? Much has been done in old communi- ties and more can be done everywhere in this direc- tion. Prizes and public recognition can be given to those who serve long and faithfully, and they can be held up as worthy of esteem. It is highly de- sirable to exempt from taxation bequests left by employers to household servants. There are in the world millions of persons who would be benefited by being brought into such a relationship under right conditions. We have not yet got to the place in the world's history where there is not something touch- ing and appealing in the relationship of reciprocal affection binding together the old household servant and the family in which she has served. But let us look at this problem of the servant in the home from yet another angle. There is a rising science of domestic economy. There are beautiful opportunities for art in this most intimate personal relation. An education in hygiene and practical nursing might well be provided. The terms of serv- ice, and the reciprocal rights might be defined and grouped into a variety of standards practical for different conditions. That these things are not done is a sign that our enterprise is paralyzed by the idea that there is such a thing as a great class of The Struggle for Equality of Opportunity 81 useful work wliicli is beneath the dignity of a free- born citizen to endeavor to do efficiently. We have already secured a great body of labor legislation based upon implicit if not explicit recog- nition of unequal powers of the different economic classes in the community. Gradually our courts are coming to recognize actual inequalities of economic power and resources and are thus helping to solve the problem of equal opportunity for men with un- equal powers. This means a new point of view for legislation and judicial action. Very reluctantly have our legislators come to a realistic interpreta- tion of the actual economic situation and shown themselves ready to pass necessary progressive leg- islation. Still more reluctantly have our courts come to recognize the situation to which this new legislation responds. The social philosophy of the twentieth century places a heavy responsibility upon those who have superior natural gifts and opportunities. The idea of stewardship has perhaps in some quarters been popular just in proportion as it has been vague and indefinite and supposed to have a religious sanction only, — something applicable on Sundays and in spheres remote from the farm, workshop and marts of trade. It is seen now, however, that it has the strongest social sanction. It is not a matter of merit that one has inherited gifts from his ancestors any more than it is a matter of merit to a man that he has 82 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy inherited $1,000,000. Both alike impose upon the fortunate recipient of gifts duties to his fellows less favored. And coming back to our central theme, leadership becomes essential in a prosperous and progressive society, particularly when this society is one which on account of the intricacy and complexity of all economic and social relationships faces problems of life and death and of such difficulty as to tax all our best mental and spiritual resources. Reflect for a moment on these problems. First and chief among them is winning the War. This means, as we now know, the massing and unifica- tion of all our spiritual powers for this supreme pur- pose. We have then involved in winning the War all the economic tasks of the pre- War period, but they are intensified and magnified. And proposals which ^YQ short years ago seemed Utopian have become practical politics. Great industries, including the railways, are already operated by the government and a control is exercised over our food that would before the War have been regarded as impossible. In 1910 the various political units of our coun- try, that is national, state and local, expended something like one-tenth of all the wealth produced — in other words, that proportion of our wealth was spent by social agencies and our return con- sisted in services secured. Now probably at least a fourth of all our income is expended by govern- The Struggle for Equality of Opportunity 83 mental agencies, and while after the War public expenditures will decrease, they will never go back to the old figures. What does this signify! It sig- nifies, first, that our welfare depends on the wis- dom with which these vast sums are expended; sec- ond, it signifies direction given to our activities; and, third, it signifies a powerful influence upon the distribution of wealth and incomes as between eco- nomic groups and classes, as well as geographical sections of the country. Are not the tasks involved fairly staggering, as one thinks of all the potentiali- ties for good and evil involved? Then we have be- fore us the permanent public ownership and opera- tions of vast monopolistic enterprises as present de- batable propositions, all leading up to other pro- posals of socialism. The more strongly we advocate extended functions of government or believe a vast extension inevitable, the more sharply must we in- sist on sound leadership and a broad scope for sound leadership. Looking at this situation from a some- what different angle, it may be said, that radical economic policies can be successful only when ac- companied by conservatism in politics. Yet this requires explanation to avoid misunderstanding. Political measures for a country with rapidly ex- panding economic functions must be carefully con- sidered, the administrative organization of the coun- try must be highly elaborate and must be operated by strong, capable and specially trained men. 84 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy Are we not then prepared to accept this general- ization: The problem of leadership, at the same time the chief problem of our American democracy is this, — to secure the services of the feiv having val- uable superiorities in behalf of the many with more modest gifts. This is not the whole problem of democracy, for the processes of democracy include many other prob- lems; it is simply asserted that it is just now the most pressing problem, and it cannot be solved with- out carrying with it the solution of our other urgent problems of democracy. "When we emphasize lead- ership, we do not imply a neglect of the masses ; quite the contrary. Leadership does not stand out as an isolated social phenomenon, but it has its roots in a sound and thriving society. The tragedy of Rus- sia is due to isolated and unworthy leadership and in the time of storm and stress, Russia fell with a great crash, she crumbled into pieces. For all time, the Czars of Russia must face this awful verdict of his- tory : ' ' Weighed in the balance and found wanting. ' ' The struggle for equality of opportunity as we have defined it means opportunity for all in propor- tion to their capacity. If the men of lower grades of intelligence and the ranks of mediocrity have full op- portunity and the highly gifted do not have oppor- tunity in proportion to their faculties, we do not have equality of opportunity in any real sense. Society is deprived of that which is peculiarly precious, the The Struggle for Equality of Opportunity 85 fullest possible social contribution of talent and genius. To bring out the situation in America clearly, it may be well to contrast some features of the life of England, Germany, and the United States. England values talent and rewards magnificently generous achievement. No other country perhaps has ever excelled England in recognition, both social and pecuniary, of distinguished service in the great fields of human activity. A recent writer uses these words: ^^I do not know that it is any special merit in England to be an island, but I do know that there is special merit attached to the nature of the Eng- lish in their ability not only to produce, but to pitch upon leaders of men.'' ^ What shall we say of the opportunities afforded in England to the great mass of men? England has always been generous so far as private benevolence is concerned, but she has never provided education at public expense to make broad the way to success. The educational system of England is particularly weak so far as educational opportunity for all is con- cerned. It has exhibited the hit-and-miss of private effort, and there have been latent gifts in all ranks which for lack of opportunity have gone unculti- vated. The English laissez-faire system has been particularly to blame, with the result that private generosity has not been matched by large public taxation for education to establish ladders reaching 86 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy from the lowest to the highest social and economic strata. The sentiment in England has not been democratic. Birth has been appreciated to the full, but the wide distribution of gifts and the potentiali- ties of the average man have not been understood. Great improvement has taken place, but England is still far behind Germany and the United States in the provision at public expense of educational op- portunities. On the other hand, one merit of the English aristo- cratic system is that only one son inherits the title and rank of nobility, and the others are commoners. This has prevented that sharp separation between classes which exists where all the children inherit noble rank. When we turn to Germany we find in her educa- tional institutions many apparent inconsistencies. Germany has never been a land of laissez-faire but a land in which public activity has been favored. The educational system has from top to bottom been a tax-supported system, and the German people are very much inclined to look askance upon educational institutions that are purely private, although such institutions exist. It is doubtful if a university in Germany with the independence of public control that we find in the case of Yale, Harvard, and Colum- bia would be tolerated because of the keen apprecia- tion in that country of the broad social significance of a real university. The Struggle for Equality of Opportunity 87 Is there free movement in Germany from bottom to top of the educational ladder? It is true that the number of poor boys who rise to high positions is far greater than is generally understood. There are scholarships and various helps to aid poor stu- dents in the university, and the fees are small. But as we go from bottom to top we find the way to the highest education sharply narrowing when we reach the secondary schools. They are expensive. One has early in life to begin marching along a certain route, and not a very broad one, to reach the uni- versity. If peculiar talent is discovered, there may be those from above who will reach a helping hand down to the gifted boy: but there is a constant dread of an over-production of university graduates as their occupations are somewhat narrowly limited. There are some express provisions limiting the op- portunities of the universities. For example, in my day it was one of the by-laws of the University of Heidelberg that day laborers (Taglohner) should not be admitted to lectures. Doubtless we have few day laborers attending lectures in American uni- versities, but an express provision debarring them as such would not be tolerated. In Germany also we have a country in which all children inherit rank, thus creating a great gulf be- tween different social strata. While merit counts for much, after all, it cannot be denied that espe- cial privilege attaches to the nobility (Adel) for 88 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy whom the very highest offices are generally reserved. It is illuminating to turn to the struggle for edu- cational equality of opportunity in the United States. It required a struggle to establish free tax-supported common schools. Those are still living who have heard them denounced as involving an improper ex- penditure of public moneys. There still lives a very distinguished man who has denounced them as no better than free soup houses. The struggle to es- tablish universal education through the common school has practically closed in the United States although in most parts of the country attendance is not compulsory for all children, and this means that many lose the opportunity. Later on, and in the memory of men who are still in middle life, the controversy concerning the propriety of tax-sup- ported public education raged largely around the high school. It was said that it was proper to sup- port common schools at public expense but those who wanted to go beyond the common school should pay for their own education. In other words, it should be paid for by the parents of the pupils. The strug- gle has been won so far as the high schools are con- cerned, and at last it has been won in nearly all states of the Union so far as college education is concerned. The point of controversy at the present time concerns the highest education, namely, the education at the university as distinguished from col- lege education. The university involves large ex- The Struggle for Equality of Opportunity 89 penditures for research, but that means opportunity to serve society. Perhaps it cannot he said that in any part of the United States the battle has been fully won for the universities although it is certainly being won. Many tax payers, probably in some states the majority, would hold that the highest edu- cation is a matter of private concern, although this is the kind of education which yields the largest direct social benefits, as is pointed out elsewhere in this work. We now reach the point where democracy is being tested at the present moment. Will democracy af- ford equality of opportunity to all orders of intel- lectual, moral, and social gifts, to those who have talents in science, in music, in the fine arts gener- ally? Will democracy learn to appreciate fully the highest products of men's genius and provide op- portunity for. their full growth and expansion! Some doubt this, and their faith in democracy halts just at this point. Some features of American life are a little dis- heartening. The demagogue has great opportuni- ties in resisting the full development of democracy. Elections may be won by taking up the cause of mediocrity, but championship of the gifted few is not so sure to win 'a majority of the voters. Yet Ameri- canism means precisely this faith that there is to be opportunity for all in proportion to capacity in the United States and that as time goes on we shall 90 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy have an increasingly high level of leadership in all our social life-spheres. Let me give an illustration. Years ago a great struggle was going on in the leg- islature of Wisconsin in regard to an appropriation for a magnificent library building for the University and the State Historical Society. I was present at the joint session of the legislature when the vote was taken, and it was not by any means certain what the issue would be. Finally, in a distant part of the hall, an old man arose, who spoke in broken Eng- lish and looked like a typical old-world peasant. I thought to myself, ^^Now we shall have a negative vote." Quite the contrary. He made a splendid two-minute speech for the bill. He said he would not be able to use these great collections of books which should be suitably housed, but he had chil- dren who, he hoped, could profit by them and when the time came to vote he would vote ' ' Aye. ' ' This is ideal Americanism. CHAPTER VII TESTS OF ACTUALi AND PKOPOSED SOCIAL AND POLITICAL MEASUEES Our twentieth century social philosophy furnishes us with tests of different legislative measures, actual and proposed, and of general schemes of reform and improvement. Let us consider some of these vari- ous measures and proposals. Primary elections are found in many states of the Union. They have been advocated as progressive reform and have been hailed with joy as real achieve- ment. They are, however, reactionary measures and are the outcome of the eighteenth century phi- losophy. They remove from the sphere of careful deliberation the selection of candidates for office. They put a premium upon certain qualities not al- together desirable, for they give success to the glib talker or to the man who has leisure and wealth to cultivate a vast constituency and conduct campaign after campaign. A card catalogue system of voters flourishes with the primary election. So also is the door open for all sorts of manipulation on the part of those who are shrewd in the mechanism of politics of the lower sort. Candidates are multiplied, votes 91 92 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy are divided and the situation becomes so bewilder- ing- that only men with keen gifts and experience in political management can 'understand fully what is going on, and even in their case the chance element looms large. The party manager becomes central and pivotal and is rewarded in a variety of ways, not altogether wholesome, but especially by a privi- leged position in the dispensation of patronage. Moreover, the primary elections as developed in many parts of the country make it almost impossible that the elective office should seek the man. The man must declare himself a candidate and enter upon a contest of a kind which cannot be predicted in advance and involving him in unknown expendi- tures of time, strength and money. Strong men who should be leaders are too inclined to shun the con- test involved in primary elections, and a general level of mediocrity is about the best that can be hoped for in the long run with primary elections. It is not intended by this to defend all that went with the caucus and the party convention, for much of it is very bad; but the old system of selecting candidates in conventions of some kind did bring it about, at least occasionally, that the elective office sought the man, and that the man sought was a very strong man. Perhaps the fair-minded historian will say that it is not enough to speak of the office seek- ing the man as occasional under the convention sys- tem. Our historians have shown that the conven- Tests of Actual and Proposed Political Measures 93 tion system has given us very many strong and magnificent leaders. This work is not the place in which to describe precise political methods. It is enough to say that any political machinery which does not lead to careful deliberation of competent men in the selection of candidates for public office is defective. Instead of throwing away by revo- lution old methods the right way was their develop- ment and improvement.^ What shall we say about the initiative, the referen- dum and direct legislation generally! These are methods of primitive democracy and hark back to simple rural conditions. They are tolerably sat- isfactory in a remote mountainous canton of Swit- zerland, like Uri, where all the voters can come together in an open field or in the old town meeting in New England where the citizens could gather to- gether and discuss their affairs, because citizens are few and affairs are very simple. But even in such circumstances the results are not altogether satis- factory, although much belauded by those to whom pictures of a state of nature have a romantic ap- peal. It is not to be implied from the foregoing general rejection of these measures of direct legislation, that they have no place at all in a great modern common- wealth with all its complexities. The American con- stitutions very generally are amended by popular vote and the model constitution of an American 94 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy state, whenever we have the model, will probably provide for a referendum in certain simple questions, capable of answer by yes or no, when strong and self-conscious popular support is needed as a con- dition of the successful administration of a law. Legislation with respect to the liquor traffic serves as illustration. Eepresentative democracy or the republican form of government as distinguished from primitive democracy is that devised by the Founders of this Eepublic, and its abandonment in principle is far from having produced the predicted felicity. Evo- lution instead of revolution is called for with re- spect to representative government, for that is the only kind which can work well in a complex modern society such as we know in the United States in the twentieth century. It is the kind of government to develop that wise and strong leadership upon which our safety and prosperity depend. Let us apply our test to the short ballot. Here we find a real progressive measure. When there are few candidates the character and capacities of these candidates may be studied and become known by the voters, and in casting their ballots for them they are in a position to make choices in proportion to their mental and moral capacities for making wise choices. The voter's real power is increased by the short ballot. Probably no voter should be called upon to vote for more than three men in a year, even as a Tests of Actual and Proposed Political Measures 95 maximum. We may turn to foreign countries for an example of good government with a short ballot. This is a partial explanation of the good government found in German cities. If attention is called to the fact that it is unusual when a citizen of Munich is asked to cast three votes in one year, namely, one for a member of the Municip'al Council, one for a member of the Bavarian Legislature and one for a member of the Eeichstag, the natural reply would be that here we have to do with something autocratic and something undemocratic. Without stopping to argue the question and endeavoring to show that in a German city like Munich, we have to do with one of the most progressive and least autocratic features of German governmental affairs, let us ask our- selves the question. What do we find in our own federal government which was instituted by as able leaders as we have ever known! We vote for the President of the United States indirectly in theory, but practically we vote for him directly. The de- sign of the makers of our Constitution was that the citizen should elect electors, and that they should carefully select the best man for president. We vote for two members of Congress although origin- ally for only one directly, namely, the member of the House of Eepresentatives. By recent constitu- tional amendment we vote directly for United States senators. So we vote for three men and generally every other year we vote for no one at all for federal 96 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy office. The President selects liis Cabinet and the members of the Supreme Court are appointed for life. This gives us the ideas with respect to the ballot of the Founders of our Eepublic. We have not a perfect government, but more voting would not improve it, nor make it more progressive, nor in- crease effective control of the people. It is signifi- cant that the ablest and — a few unfortunate deci- sions to the contrary notwithstanding — the most progressive court in the land is a court of men ap- pointed for life, the Supreme Court of the United States. Here again we do not have perfection, but improvement will come through evolution rather than revolution. Let us apply our test to the recall. How does this affect leadership! When one thinks about it and all its implications it is seen that it is one of the worst blows ever suggested to the development of leadership. We have a very complicated industrial and social life. We wish suitable men to prepare themselves for their functions as leaders in this life. Because life is so complicated and its prob- lems so difficult for even the best minds to compre- hend in all their bearings, it is certain that leaders who do what is right are going to be misunderstood at times. Even Lincoln, the great leader of democ- racy, said: ^^You can fool all of the people some of the time''; and it would be difficult to name very great men who have not encountered the hostility of Tests of Actual and Proposed Political Measures 97 the mass of the people at some time. To discharge their functions as leaders, men must have better in- sight than those who are led; they must be able to go ahead and to do that which they see to be required at a particular time and place and let the people ^^howl/' sure that in the end they will be justified by the outcome of events. There are times when true leaders make mistakes, and they must be willing to take necessary chances, but they should not be sub- ject to the momentary impulses of the people and still less to the caprice of the mob. All this our fore- fathers saw clearly enough in giving fixed terms of office to those selected by election. The President of the United States is as secure in his office during the term for which he is elected as any monarch could be ; and, indeed, it is open to doubt if any sovereign to- day sits so securely on his throne as does President Wilson in the presidential chair during the term for which he has been elected to office. We have an orderly method of impeachment where there has been gross and wilful culpability, but no president of the United States has ever yet been removed from office. Happy, indeed, is it for this land that such has been the case! This irremovability has made firm and solid the seat of authority occupied by Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Woodrow Wil- son. But in keeping our terms of elective office very short we have not lived up to the spirit of the found- 98 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy ers of the Eepublic. Where life is very simple, the duties of office may be easily learned and the simplic- ity of our early life suggested short terms. Short terms were also a reaction from European conditions and were furthermore favored by the social philoso- phy of equality which has already been described. To enable men elected to office to initiate and carry out policies in the twentieth century the terms of elective office should be much longer, say fr^e years for state legislatures, the national House of Repre- sentatives, and governors of states, and seven years for the President of the United States. The last named change would not be feasible, but we are now considering what is in itself desirable. If we can establish as a fixed iDrinciple the reelection of men who have done well as presidents of the United States, that will help to make the situation better. We have now been discussing elective offices. When we come to consider administrative offices, the recall is bound to act far more adversely. Adminis- trative offices are generally speaking appointive of- fices. For these offices there should be preparation in schools and by apprenticeship. There should be advancement as excellence is achieved and a career for talent. Let us take the case of a professor : who could prepare himself properly for a professorship in a university if subject to recall by popular vote? Salaries are not large. On the contrary, they are Tests of Actual and Proposed Political Measures 99 small relatively, as they are likely to be in a democ- racy. But so long as a career is afforded with se- curity of tenure, the position of a professor has its attractions, and it may have such surroundings and conditions as to attract even higher talent than it generally does at the present time, and this because now some of the conditions attached to a professor- ship are not sufficiently favorable to counteract a low salary and some other adverse circumstances. The recall then stands condemned by our tests. All our economic arrangements both as to labor and capital should be regarded with reference to the development of leadership. At last organized labor is beginning to develop capable leadership, and we have in President Samuel Gompers, of the American Federation of Labor, our tirst labor statesman. It is not necessary to endorse his laissez-faire policies, so far as government is concerned and his rather narrow ideas of the functions of government. It is a great thing for this country that we have in him in our present crisis a loyal labor statesman. In this as otherwise the organization of labor has justiiied it- self, and we tremble to think what would be the result if any inferior and disloyal man now occupied such a position as Gompers holds. Always and everywhere we must apply our test to the organization of labor and inquire about the qualities of leadership which it develops. 100 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy Business in the United States has been guilty of much misdoing, and this misdoing has furnished fruitful soil for the muckraker. It has been fre- quently selfish and unscrupulous, but this is only one aspect of the situation. Take them by and large, probably no country has, on the whole, a finer and more honorable class of business men than the United States. The rewards of business have been great, and business has attracted talent. Men who elsewhere would have gone into professional or pub- lic life have in this country devoted rare gifts to business. The vast riches of an undeveloped conti- nent have been placed at the disposal of capacity — even thoughtlessly and recklessly so, — and the result is seen in mammoth fortunes and big business con- ducted on a huge scale. Titanic is a word Avhich suggests itself when we consider business in the United States. Business has ^^made good" in the development of leadership, and this leadership is helping to save the government and the world for civilization at the present time. It has developed largeness of vision, and there has been in many quar- ters a splendid response to patriotism. We find men neglecting their business and new opportunities to acquire fortunes in order to serve our government at large pecuniary sacrifice. We may cite as one of many possible illustrations, Charles M. Schwab, ^^ leader of men," and Director-General of the Emer- gency Fleet Corporation.^ When we consider busi- Tests of Actual and Proposed Political Measures 101 ness in the United States with reference to leader- ship, we have its strongest feature. On the other hand, the point of view of private business is different from the point of view of public business. One has only to think concretely of fre- quently recurring- situations to see how true this is and to appreciate its significance. Here and now attention is directed simply to the time element. In arrangements where the public interest is involved, we must take a long-time view. We must look much farther ahead than the life of any living being, think- ing about what is going to happen a hundred or more years from the present. Success in public affairs implies a certain way of looking at things, as well as an appropriate training, just as much as does the management of any great industrial enterprise. We have the splendid leadership of business men at Washington and elsewhere, but it is more or less one-sided leadership and is not adequately matched by corresponding capacity on the part of men holding office and particularly administrative office. In other words, we do not have a civil service manned by officials who are able to take great leadership such as is demanded by the present situation. Upon those in our civil service are imposed tasks upon the satisfactory performance of which in large measure the future of civilization depends, and we have not as a rule in the civil service office-holders who are splendid leaders equal to their tasks. 102 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy "We shall consider this further in our chapter on *^ Leadership in Public Life/' First, however, we must discuss the foundations of leadership and what goes with leadership. CHAPTER VIII THE FOUNDATIONS OF LEADEKSHIP We must have leadership in war and in business; for without it we perish. This, it is hoped, has already been made sufficiently obvious, but, if not, it is trusted that it will become so as we proceed in our argument. Now let us consider the foundations of leadership. So important is leadership in war that when we mention the great leader we scarcely think of the others who have cooperated with him. The leader- ship of Germany, bad as it is morally, has been strong from the military point of view. Austria col- lapses, and again and again the Germans with their leadership enable the Austrians to come back to the conflict and to win victories. Germany's leadership transforms the Turks and strengthens all her allies. Nevertheless, it would be a sad mistake to suppose that leadership did not rest upon foundations in the individuals led. This has been recognized also by Germany, for she has done more than any other country to provide strong material for leadership. No other country has so high an average of men 103 104 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy trained intellectually and physically for the tasks of industry and of war. Men and women who are in- ferior physically are not good material for leader- ship. A sound physique is one foundation for lead- ership. Another foundation of leadership is found in trained minds. Ignorance is a poor leader and pious aspirations cannot replace science nor do we have to go to Germany to learn the importance of education. If education is important in an autoc- racy, it has a double importance in a democracy. Adam Smith, although an adherent of laissez-faire, emphasizes in his Wealth of Nations the importance of education in a free government and, although con- trary to his general principles, so impressed was he with the importance of education, where the people control, that he concedes the soundness of taxation for the purpose of education. Our o\vn George Washington is very clear in his public utterances concerning the necessity of education in a democracy and in his wonderful Farewell Address — which every school child ought to memorize — he uses these wise words : ' - *' Promote then, as an object of primary impor- tance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowl- edge. In proportion as the structure of government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that pub- lic opinion should be enlightened." But intellectual enlightenment is not enough. One of the foundations for" sound leadership must be The Foundations of Leadership 105 found in the clmracter of the individual and this can- i not be emphasized too strongly. It is after all individual character which is the foundation of all social achievements. Individual character sets the limit to what can be done through all social agencies. As John Stuart Mill, one of the wisest Englishmen of the nineteenth century, well said, we must test all social reforms by their effect upon the individual character. It is quite certain that we do not have as good a government as we could have, but nevertheless the character of the men and women who live in a given society sets limits to all the possibilities of social and political achieve- ments. If under these circumstances we improve government, we have a reaction upon individual character. Here we come upon the truth so well enunciated by the great Greek historian, Thucydides, who said that the explanation of all history is this : A causes B, B causes A. In other words, we have action and reaction in a never ceasing evolution. By all means let us strive for the best possible govern- ment, but remember that, if the individuals in the nation are rotten, the government is also bound to be rotten, and that every improvement in individual character makes possible a further social advance. But Washington knew full well that the character ^ of the individual must rest back on a religious foun- dation. He realized that without character the foundations of the nations, must be rotten, and that 106 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy character without religion could not persist. Let us quote again wise words from his Farewell Address : ''Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indis- pensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to sub- vert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice! And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious princi- ple. '^ Leadership in a democracy must be grounded on the cooperation of all social and economic classes. Widest diversities must be unified in that working together which will enable us to make our full force as a nation effective wherever and whenever needed, for only thus can America be made invincible. Our Councils of Defense, our Eed Cross societies, and The Foundations of Leadership 107 other patriotic organizations are a magnificent begin- ning of that cooperation which embraces the entire nation. These Councils of Defense include richest diversities of talent, all effectively united in one grand whole. They are bringing us together and organizing America as a nation. Under no circum- stances must they be allowed to lapse after the War. They are a foundation for leadership which at the same time they cultivate and develop. Another foundation of leadership is that vision without which the people perish. All classes must have the vision of light. We find a" vision growing in our schools of all grades and reaching a splendid climax in our universities which are gaining in spiritual riches far more than they are losing other- wise at this time of national crisis. The employing classes and the rich men of the country are gaining a vision which separates this war by the widest gulf from all previous wars in our history when profiteer- ing went unrebuked and rich men could hire poor men as substitutes to go to war and be shot for them — a thing now abhorrent to our moral sense. The well-to-do classes are gaining a vision of strong edu- cated working classes, whose children are not to be exploited, but are to be regarded as having every opportunity for worthy development, according to their capacities. Thank God, we are now all think- ing about the desirability of wholesome work, duly limited and adequately rewarded ; but our foundation 108 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy would be rotten if the toilers themselves thought only of high wages and short hours. Much of the talk we hear is an insult to the wage-earners, because it is based upon the hypothesis that they alone are to gain by war, that their wages are to be increased and hours shortened, and that they are not to be called upon to make sacrifices for this civilization of ours upon which their future well-being and prospect of advancement and their participation in the best things of life depend. It is not prudent that anyone should ordinarily lessen his capacity for work to- morrow by over work to-day; but we must all be ready to work day and night and to perish if need be in our work for the common good. Our vision of better things for those who have been regarded as the lowly, our vision of a happy future for the ex- ploited must not be a vision which will conceive them as not called upon to make sacrifices of every kind for the common good ; for such a vision is one which contemplates them as inferior human beings, not en- titled to share in the toils and sacrifices of all for the sake of the highest goods of humanity. The vision for which we fight is a vision of fellowship embracing all groups and classes, wage-earner and employer, cooperators in spirit, suffering together in adversity, rejoicing together in prosperity. The vision for which we fight is a vision of a society so organized materially and spiritually that there may be joy in work for all and that work may be worship.^ The Foundations of Leadership 109 We come now to Americanization as an absolutely essential foundation in our national life. Perhaps we may call it the very corner stone of our social structure. Upon it we must build leadership. Let us consider several things that Americaniza- tion means. It means loyalty to country based upon the profound emotional experience which is called love. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. This is no empty form of words to the patriot. In our day, however, we have a class of disloyal men who prate loudly about a supernational loyalty which obliterates loyalty to native country, or the country of one's adoption. These men deserve the deepest contempt and it is well that they are receiving it. Every true loyalty includes all other loyalties. The man who professes to love his country and is not loyal to those in his own family and his immediate circle, is not to be trusted. Loyalty to one 's own is the basis of loy- alty to those remote and to every larger circle of loyalty. The world is not yet organized as a whole and any realistic interpretation of the facts of life does not permit us to regard the time when national loyalty will not come first as a time near enough so that we need to concern ourselves with it. The world loyalty which is not based on national loyalty is a sham, a delusion, a snare. How shall we produce the needed loyalty? Many are working on this problem and much that is praise- worthy is being done. It is well to display the flag, 110 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy to stand as the flag" passes by, to salute the flag, and to carry the flag" in our church processionals where it is associated with things that we esteem most sacred and holy. It is well that the flag should float over every schoolhouse and be associated with childish memories as a very essential part of all education. In our American life we have not made sufficient use of ceremonies as outward and visible symbols of ''in- ward and spiritual" meanings. For the use of cere- monies and symbols in g-eneral is based on deep- seated and ineradicable traits of human nature. It is consequently well that to an ever increasing extent we have ceremonies when those of foreign birth are naturalized, impressing upon them what American citizenship should mean ; ^ and the sug- gestion is a good one that on reaching the age when the first ballot may be cast, a ceremony should accompany the induction into the privileges of the ballot. All this, however, does not begin to be enough. I well remember a conversation with the Honorable Andrew D. White when American minister to Ger- many. Speaking of Cornell University, of which he was then president, he said, ''We do not make a man a friend by doing something for him, but when he does something for Cornell he becomes a firm friend. ' ' This remark was based upon a true percep- tion of the psychical qualities of men. It is illus- trated in the relation between child and parent. The Foundations of Leadership 111 Parents are ever doing things for their children, and one may contrast the love of the parent for the child with the quality of the love of the child for the parent. Generally it will be felt that there is a warmer and deeper quality in the love of the jjarent for the child and frequently it is observed that the child first comes to appreciate the father and mother love when the child itself becomes a parent. When we all come to make real genuine sacrifices for our country, sacrifices of which we are conscious, then we shall first begin to have the right kind of loyal love for our country. We shall never get that kind of love merely by pouring untold bene- fits upon the citizens. For this reason, among many others, we may advocate a yearns service to society for all men and women born in the country or who are permitted to live in the country. Where there is capability for military service this should be in- cluded, even if it is not the exclusive service rendered. Where there is not capability for military service some other service should be rendered. Military service is put first because, as Washington truly per- ceived, this will always be needed as a condition of our national self-respect and independence. Those are idle dreamers who think that we are on the eve of an age when national protection will not be neces- sary. It remains just as true now as in Washing- ton's time that as a condition of our peace, we must prepare for war. We are not a military nation and 112 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy we shall never become one. We do not desire war, but only the maintenance of peace.^ Universal mili- tary service as a part of the education of all people does not mean objectionable militarism. It is not that which has produced the deplorable condition in Germany, but something else which has been already at least partially explained. Universal military service in Germany in itself has been a good feature of the life of that country. It has strengthened the nation in its intellectual and economic activities and has been an agency of prog- ress. Without it the marvelous prosperity of Ger- many would not have been possible. The caste sys- tem of Germany which reaches its highest and most offensive manifestation in the German army is no necessary feature of her universal military system, any more than is her gross materialism or her wor- ship of brute force. It is her tribal religion and her accompanying tribal ethics that are to blame for the attack on the world's peace and that have led to her own deep damnation. This cannot be too strongly emphasized, because we and our allies too seem so generally to fail to appreciate what the particular kind of cult of war that has been fostered in Germany may do to a nation. Yet have we not abundant illus- trations of the effects of peculiar religious beliefs in India and in Turkey? A certain view of life can become all-controlling and has so become in Ger- many, and this nationally egoistic view of life has The Foundations of Leadership 113 used as a tool the universal military service as it lias the educational system of Germany. Turning from the old world to the new world, we find that universal military service in Australia is one of the best features of the life there and may some time save Australia from dire national disaster. It produces splendid results in New Zealand and also in Switzerland, where it has existed for generations. Do not let us delude ourselvQs with thinking that we are going to come out of this war into a dreamland of lotus eaters. Such a dreamland is something that true men and true women with red blood in their veins cannot look upon as something desirable. Stern military virtues are a part of any true ideal of life. Well it is if we do not have to make war to defend ''our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor," but just in proportion as war recedes into the background, we must find substitutes for war that will give those virtues which war has brought to the human race. We need to keep alive the spirit of sacrifice and to keep the will vigorous by regularly pitting it against difficulties. Let us then cultivate a contempt for that unworthy pacifism which has been well nigh the undoing of our country, and let us learn to appreciate, as did George Washington, the impor- tance of military training. Surely the awful experi- ences of the past four years have sufficiently empha- sized the necessity of military preparedness as a con- dition of liberty. 114 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy Let us accord to the soldier due honor. He takes his life in his hands for the defense of his country and he deserves the consideration which is spontane- ously given him and against which only milk-and- water weaklings have raised their voices. We need military service to knit us together, to build up indi- vidual character and develop a strong nationality. Throw together our boys from all parts of the coun- try in military service, let them work together for the nation in military service and in other service when they are not capable of rendering military serv- ice, and we shall find that the melting pot will melt, and we shall not in the future have the deplorable conditions which now exist in so many parts of our country. As for the women, I would have them adequately trained for their merciful functions in human con- servation as associated with the Eed Cross, social service, child hygiene, etc. Another benefit of this service to native land is that it will bring all our human resources into view and uncover defects of every sort. It is a benefit which we are now experiencing from even the inade- quate service which we are at present enjoying. We have our census of farm animals, we have our soils surveys. Is it not of the highest importance that we should have constantly going on a survey of our human resources ? We then shall learn to know what kind of human beings we have as citizens and poten- The Foundations of Leadership 115 tial citizens. We shall then know where defects exist and we shall learn how to apply suitable remedies.^ As a part of the preparation of our human ma- terial we shall give increasing attention to eugenics. We know very little about race betterment as yet, but we do know some things of significance. We do know that heredity is a force which sets limits to all our activities, and which, if entirely neglected, leads to decay and ruin in the nation. We have got far enough to recognize that there are certain human beings who are absolutely unfit and who should be prevented from a continuation of their kind. We do know it is important that a superior stock should not be swallowed up and lost by a more rapid increase of the inferior stock. The following suggestive quo- tations from Professor Michael F. Guyer's book, Being Well Born, deserve the most careful consid- eration. ''Modern eugenists, although realizing that the constructive phase is of great importance, are making no attempt to map out any fixed mode of procedure for it beyond pointing out the desirability of larger families among the better classes. The need for individuals of superior physical, mental and moral qualities to multiply is so obvious as scarcely to re- quire comment. Yet the fact is that judging from all appearances these are the very ones who have the lowest birth-rate. Eugenics is mainly concerned with the relative rates of increase of the various 116 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy classes, not with mere fertility in itself. And the actual increase must be measured in terms of the extent to which birth-rate exceeds death-rate. If a high birth-rate is accompanied by a high death-rate then it is not especially significant in increasing a given class as a whole. All available evidence points to the fact that to-day the lower strata of society are far outbreeding the middle and higher, with an al- most negligible difference in death-rate, and just in the measure that these lower strata are innately in- ferior just in that degree must the race deteriorate. The seriousness of the whole situation as it exists to-day hinges, therefore, on the extent to which the lower strata are inferior to those above them. ''In evaluating these lower strata a matter of very great importance is whether the population is a se- lected or an unselected one. If the population has been long resident in a given region and has had fairly good opportunity for education then we will find in the lower reaches a larger percentage of sedi- mentation made up of the worthless and inferior stocks. If, however, a continual fomentation and geographical shifting of the population is in prog- ress as in parts of America, or if adequate educa- tional opportunities are lacking, as in some parts of Eussia, the poor and less well-to-do classes may con- tain, no one can tell how much, relatively valuable stock. ''Forel remarks on this point as follows: 'If we The Foundations of Leadership 117 compare the nature of delinquents, abandoned chil- dren, vagabonds, etc., in a country where little or nothing has been done for the people (Russia, Galicia, Vienna, etc.), with that of the same individ- uals in Switzerland, for example, where much has already been done for the poor, we find this result : In Switzerland, those individuals are nearly all tainted with alcoholism, or pathological heredity; they consist of alcoholics, incorrigibles, and congeni- tal decadents, and education can do little for them because nearly all those who have a better hereditary foundation have been able to earn their living by hon- est work. In Russia, Galicia, and even in Vienna, we are, on the contrary, astonished to see how many honest natures there are among the disinherited when they are provided with work and education. ' ^ *^ Although we can not sift out with certainty the superior from the inferior in our normal population by the property test or the educational standard alone, it is undoubtedly true that, on the whole, native ability, independence and energy are present to a higher degree in our well-to-do and prosperous fam- ilies than in the stocks which merely hold their own or which gradually decline, and there is no gainsay- ing the fact that in so far as the lower classes are where they are through actual deficiency — and there are enormous numbers in this category — they threaten our very existence as a race. It is impera- tive that the great middle class in particular establish 118 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy in some way a selective birth-rate, by increased fer- tility on their own part, and diminished fecundity on the part of inferior stocks, which will offset or more than offset the disproportionate increase of the so- cially unfit. ' ' ^ But our examination of the foundations of leader- ship presupposes the willingness to be led. Does such a willingness exist? Men are glad to accept leadership, and this can be seen in all stages of social evolution. There is sometimes, however, difficulty in distinguishing between the self-seeking demagogue and the true leader. The demagogue seeks to win the people for his own selfish ends, by lying and flat- tery and by imputing to them a degree of goodness and wisdom that they do not possess. On the other hand, the demagogue teaches the people to view with distrust and suspicion all those superior in capacities and fortunes, culture and education. Your dema- gogue loves to pull down all of the high elements in society and a favorite method is to follow up the flat- tery of the people by the imputation of base motives to explain the actions of true leaders, even when good motives would afford more logical explanation, his own unworthy soul serving him as a mirror that twists and distorts the envisaged image of his fellow- man. While the real leader is to be sought, the dem- agogue is to be shunned as the Devil's emissary. Our schools should include in their curricula the study of the character of the best leaders of men, our The Foundations of Leadership 119 great teachers, soldiers, statesmen, etc., so as to cre- ate an admiration for the high qualities of men, an admiration leading to efforts to produce, so far as may be, like qualities in themselves, while at the same time a detestation of the mean qualities of the dema- gogue should be inculcated. Character should be emphasized as essential to the true leader, and it should be pointed out how again and again plausible men with weak moral qualities and especially exag- gerated egoism play the people false sooner or later. It is also well to develop in school children a distrust of the one that is a mere glib talker, and glib talk should be distinguished from true eloquence. In short, we have here again a task of education as a preparation for true democracy ; and we see how vast is the function of education in society. It requires faith to believe that educational agencies will bo able to prepare us for the daily increasing difficulties of our growing civilization, but that faith is inseparable from true Americanism. Finally, we must not think of society as divided into sharply defined classes, namely, the leaders and the led. Those who are leaders in one capacity will be the led in another capacity. An infinitely complex interweaving of social strata will be found in our de- mocracy of the future, and there will be a continual movement upwards and downwards according to true worth."^ APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VIII In England a movement has been started called the Duty and Discipline Movement. It is suggested that if a move- ment of this kind is needed in England, it is equally needed in the United States. The following is taken from a circu- lar issued some time ago by the leaders of this movement.^ "The Movement . . . has been started to combat soft- ness, slackness, indifference, and indiscipline, and to stimu- late discipline, and a sense of duty and alertness through- out the national life, especially during the formative period of home and school training. ''The writings of Treitschke and Bernhardi and many other Teutonic writers of eminence, prove incontestably, that the Germans had, for many years before the present war, considered that wealth and prosperity and many long years of unshaken peace within the British Isles, had led to a softening of British moral fibre, which would render easy the transfer of the sceptre of imperial power from British to German hands. Subsequent events have proved that if there was any justifiable reason for believing that moral decadence had overtaken the British people, that decadence had been greatly exaggerated by our present enemies. Although the magnificent response which has lately been witnessed to the call of duty, to King and Country, show that the British race are in no way inferior to their predecessors in high moral qualities, the supporters of the 'Duty and Discipline' Movement believe that the national security demands, and at the conclusion of peace will more especially demand, that a continual vigilance be maintained 120 The Foundations of Leadership 121 in order that the demoralising influences of wealth and of its inevitable accompaniment 'luxury' which in the case of former Empires have invariably led to their destruction — be watched and restrained by the exercise of a strong, or- ganised, public opinion. ^'In this view the 'Duty and Discipline' Movement has been started." The objects of the movement are thus briefly summarized : ''(1) To combat softness, slackness, indifference and indiscipline, and to stimulate discipline and a sense of duty and alertness throughout the national life, especially dur- ing the formative period of home and school training. " (2) To give reasonable support to all legitimate author- ity." The movement deals with principles and not with meth- ods. It has published and circulated many Essays on Duty and Discipline. It has also a series called the Patriot Series and a series of fly sheets. These are all sold at small prices. Such subjects as these are treated : Our Children: Are We Doing the Best for Them? A ''Spoilt Child." Sentimental England. The Early Training of Boys in Citizenship. Duty and Discipline in the Training of Children. The Value of a Certain "Hardness" in Education. Wanted — A Fair Start in Life. Some Thoughts for Working Mothers. Endure Hardness. Discipline and Training in the Prevention of Nervous Diseases. A Magistrate's View of Slack Discipline. A New Way of Life. Moral and Religious Training. Thoroughness. 122 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy The Decay of Authority. A Voice of Warning. The Training of Delicate Children. Concerning the Home. The Curse of Sentimentality. How to Deal with Obstinate Children. Parental Neglect or Indifference. The Theory and Practice of Punishment. The Pert Small Girl. Disinherited — The Cry of the Spoilt Children. CHAPTER IX IDEALS OF LEADERSHIP Leadership of some sort we have always had and we always must have. The conditions of human exist- ence in a world like ours make leadership inevitable. The only choice we have is as to the kind of leader- ship. In the worst days of American ^'spoils poli- tics,'^ we had our political leaders and our class of office holders. I have seen letter carriers march by a desk and each one deposit two per cent, of his sal- ary for the campaign expenses of the party then in power. Our political life at that time had reached a low ebb, but we had our leaders and we had a class of office holders as we always must have. These office holders had their nominal and their true chiefs. They received their positions as a condition of service in partisan politics, and their first allegiance was to the political boss. Men then spoke of going into pol- itics just as they spoke of going into business and to go into politics meant on the lowest rung of the social ladder to become a ward heeler. It took a long time to arouse our people to the evils of this kind of lead- ership, but a body of men with high ideals, even though frequently with inadequate ideals, strove for 123 124 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy better things and we now have a better civil service, — one which has reached a comparatively high level in Wisconsin, where the Civil Service Commission has adopted as its inspiring motto, ^^The best shall serve the state/' Curiously enough, those who re- sisted the change from this state of public life, used demagogic appeals which influenced some well mean- ing people who were frightened by the words * ' class of office holders," although we had already a class of office holders. Many were the catch phrases used by demagogues to bolster up the bad system with its bad leadership. The modern Bolsheviki have brought to the surface in all parts of the world bad ideals of leadership. They have in Russia displaced from leadership in in- dustrial and public life all the upper strata and given control to those who constitute the lower strata. They attach merit to past failure to secure leadership in any of the various recognized forms of leadership. Failure is to them a ground for recognition. Now in any society it is likely that those especially capable will make their way to the top. In what has been quoted from Professor Guyer's book we see qualifications to be made in the case of a country like Eussia. Yet even here the men with the best moral and intellectual qualities have been largely thrust aside by the envious and insane malevolence of those who for the time being have gained the upper hand ; the old leaders in industry have lost effective control Ideals of Leadership 125 and factory production, as stated by Professor Eoss, recently returned from Russia, lias fallen one-lialf. The people are impoverished on account of bad lead- ership. Intellectual leadership is not enough. It must terminate in spiritual leadership or perhaps it is better to say it should be crowned with spiritual lead- ership. We are feeling miore and more the need of such leadership as a condition of our salvation as a nation. We hear much nowadays about inspirational leadership as something which should belong to all schools. Spiritual leadership is, however, the true term to be used, for this kind of leadership is neces- sarily inspirational. More and more we are feeling that in our public education there is something lack- ing because it does hot in adequate measure carry with it spiritual leadership. The capacity for such leadership should be one of the tests of fitness for work on the part of those who have positions of special responsibility in our educational system whether this be public or private. The ideal of leadership is leadership of the best. It is not an hereditary and spurious aristocracy such as has been fostered in the old world, but it is a true aristocracy towards which the best spirits in America have ever striven, an aristocracy of character, an aristocracy excelling in service. Everywhere we are beginning to glimpse this ideal. Business men are responding to it. This is precisely what it means to 126 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy put business on a professional plane. This is what it me^ns to appeal to labor to do its best in the service of all, — an appeal meeting in many places with a mag- nificent response. This is what it means to recognize merit in all ranks of society and to reward it. This is what it means to keep open always from top to bot- tom a broad avenue of success. This kind of leader- ship in industry and public life is becoming an in- spiration and for it men are striving. It is this thought which finds expression in the work of Profes- sor E. D. Jones of Michigan. See, for example, his book. The Business Administrator. From a letter from Professor Jones, the following inspiring words are quoted : ' ' I hope to see industry made more just and generous not only through a democratic process, but by the formation of a code of ideals of profes- sional competence for administrators — an aristo- cratic test with noblesse oblige in it." It is also this ideal of leadership which finds ex- pression in the book of Professor Charles A. Ell- wood called The Social Problem. This book fur- nishes an analysis of the social problem of "Western Civilization and finds that it consists in the establish- ment of right" leadership. We come again to the great problem of our day, the problem of twentieth century democracy. How shall we avail ourselves of the superiorities of the few in the service of the many! This is also the problem of religion and the Christian religion is the greatest of all religions be- Ideals of Leadership 127 cause the highest and best Leader man has qver known became the servant of all and put His life into the service of man. The leadership of sovereigns has in some cases been admirable and whether good or bad, it has played a great and necessary role in the evolution of human society. On the whole, probably it may be said that the Hohenzollerns as leaders have been con- spicuous for industry, thrift and efficiency. The English kings have apparently been less thrifty; and probably it may be said it has proved a great blessing to England that such has been the case. The English kings have dissipated their estates and had to resort to taxes for their own support and the maintenance of the functions of the state. This made it necessary to petition Parliament for taxes and Parliament com- mg finally to control the purse-strings gained ascend- ancy over the English royal house. The English people liked their growing liberties and exhibited ruthless sturdiness in maintaining them in opposition to royal inroads upon their rights. One writer said of the English kings that they were kings of devils because their subjects were so ready to revolt and depose them and even to behead them. The kings in the German states, being thriftier, maintained better their inherited dominions and fiscal prerogatives and have been thus able to keep political power in their hands to a far greater extent even to this day. One of the worst features of the kings as leaders 128 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy is that tliey form a separate caste and intermarry only among themselves. They are mighty above all others. The Kaiser is ^^All Highest" and he wor- ships the ' ' Highest. ' ' Even in England the kings do not intermarry with their subjects. The grandest and noblest of citizens, however high their rank, are below the royal caste and may not intermarry with members of the royal family. The kings may marry with the base, with the diseased, with inferior stock, with families in which insanity is too prevalent, pro- vided only that these families are sovereign families. The families may be descendants from deposed sovereigns, like the mediatized families of Germany, but if they have been sovereign families they form a part of this caste. The leadership of kings on this account is a very bad leadership and the terms of international peace should make a radical change in the situation just described. The Hohenzollerns should be deposed and the royal families of England, Belgium and Italy and of other allied countries, if permitted to remain, should do so only on condition that they intermarry with their own subjects who should be regarded not as subjects so much as fellow citizens. From a eugenic point of view this would be a vast improve- ment, but from the point of view of national leader- ship, it would mean still more. As things are now, the loyalty of sovereigns is a mixed loyalty — a loy- alty to family and a loyalty to the country over which Ideals of Leadership 129 tliey reign. There is a divided royal allegiance which in this War has proved most pernicious. The Em- peror of Germany thinks not only of Germany, but of his brother-in-law, the King of Greece, of his rela- tionship to the King of Roumania and of his connec- tions with other royal families, including that of the deposed Czar. He breathes out threatenings and slaughter to the Greeks because they ventured to depose the man who married his sister. Without ad- ducing other illustration of the situation produced by the caste of royalty in Europe, attention may be di- rected to the position of Holland at the time that this is being written. The Queen of Holland has married a German Prince. This German Prince has openly shown his leanings towards Germany, having at the very outset of the War given such personal assist- ance as he could to German officers and has received some kind of nominal punishment therefor. Is it conceivable that Queen Wilhelmina of Holland should be uninfluenced by her German affiliations even if it be granted that she sides with the Allies, whose complete and overwhelming victory would re- move the gravest menace to Holland's future. There is great danger that this connection may lead to disaster and impair the future of Holland. What- ever may be the feelings and hopes of the royal fam- ily, Holland, apart from this family and some of the families of the higher aristocracy, sympathizes with the Allies. The country has a magnificent past and 130 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy is republican in sympathy. Probably every one who spends any time in Holland has heard the statement that Holland would become a Eepublic were it not for the love they bear to the House of Orange, to which they feel they owe their liberties. The situa- tion is a dangerous one, and certainly if the royal family remains in Holland, it should be upon the con- dition already named, that is to say, intermarriage with the Dutch. It cannot then be too strongly em- phasized that the peace terms should democratize the royal families so that there should be a free flow of blood upwards and downwards even if royalty is hereditary. International family allegiances of sovereigns should cease. It is not that we wish to interfere with the internal domestic arrangements of foreign countries, but that this proposed measure is a condition of international safety and one step on the long and weary road towards peace. Before leaving this subject of kings as leaders, at- tention is simply called to the absurd situation in which most nations of the world have allowed them- selves to be placed with respect to sovereign families. It is ludicrous as well as tragic that certain families should have been allowed so to set themselves apart and above all the rest of the world as to refuse to intermarry with any other families and by inter- marriage among themselves to become an exclu- sive ruling caste with all the privileges pertain- ing to rulership. These families have made a busi- Ideals of Leadership 131 ness, or rather a profession, of rulersMp, and they have been able to induce highly civilized countries like England to sanction the exclusive claims, with the result as just stated that they go out- side their own countries to secure mates and that when a line fails in one country, other countries are turned to to supply rulers. This means, as things go, that Germany has almost a monopoly of sovereigns and has woven a network reaching out into all parts of the world. In nothing has German arrogance as- serted itself more boldly and more successfully. Think of this situation in the eighteenth century. England sends to Germany for a king and as a result we have George the Third, stupid and obstinate, who becomes responsible for the American Revolution and the loss to England of her choicest colonies. Eng- land has learned a lesson so far as her other colonies are concerned and the whole British Commonwealth now feels under obligations to America for asserting her independence. Nevertheless, even enlightened and democratic England still permits the royal fam- ily to assert -its exclusive matrimonial superiority to all other English families. Lloyd George recently acknowledged the loyal services of the English king and queen who are endearing themselves not only to the English peo- ple but to Americans. It is to be hoped and be- lieved that they themselves will be willing to change this feature of the English kingship and to socialize 132 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy tlie English royal family. And could the heroic King of Belgium and his noble Queen, who have endeared themselves to the Allied hosts of democ- racy, object to this salutary socialization of their royal family? We cannot but believe that our pro- posed measure, if adopted, would be welcomed by them as a happy release from the oppressions exer- cised by foreign, and especially German, royal families. CHAPTER X LEADERSHIP IIT PUBLIC LIFE Public life is divided into two great brandies, mili- tary life and civil life. We have already discussed the need of military service and have emphasized its importance as furnishing a foundation for leader- ship. It is not necessary to add much now and here to what has already been said about military life. The army and navy prepare for leadership and help to give us leadership. They teach obedi- ence without which neither sound private character nor sound public life is possible. They teach also the art of command. Citizens must both obey and command. Obedience and authority are essential in leadership. One of the good things which will come out of this war is the development of leadership through the army and navy. Obedience is a hateful word to misguided pseudo- democrats and anarchists who cannot perceive that without obedience any large constructive liberty is impossible. In the army and navy where obedience necessarily reaches a high pitch, we frequently find a development of beautiful character and warm af- 133 134 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy fection between officers and men. A few illustra- tions are given : Private Peat in his book says of Captain Straight : ^^We liked him. Later, we almost worshipped him. ' ' And in speaking of Captain Straight, leading the boys: '^We could not have failed; we could not have stopped. As one of our young boys said after- ward: 'Follow, I'd have followed him to Hell and then some.' " (p. 161.) '^ Discipline theirs is — strict discipline, among men and officers. Between officer and men there is a marked respect and a marked good fellowship which never degenerates into familiarity. ''There is love between the English officer and the English soldier. A love that has been proved many times when the commissioned man has sac- rificed his life to save the man of lower rank ; when the private has crossed the pathway of hell itself to save a fallen leader." (p. 76.) Mr. Charles W. Whitehair, sometime Y. M. C. A. worker with the troops in Prance, also gives similar testimony in these words: "We talk here at home about democracy. There is no democracy on earth like that of the trenches. It is true fellowship there. Social barriers do not exist among men who live that life. When you have gone over the top to- gether, there is something between you that wipes out social barriers. Leadership in Public Life 135 ''Your officers? They are your best friends. One of the commonest things you hear is 'Our offi- cers are the finest in the camp ' ! When a company goes over the top, a young officer is the first man out of the trench. It is the officer who is always working for the comfort of his men, looking after their health, trying to get them- a good billet ; and when the wounded come back, the officer takes his turn with the rest'' (at the dressing station).^ And notice well it is not the weak men in places of authority who fail to exact obedience that are loved and admired by those over whom they are placed. I well remember that the President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, described one of the greatest law teachers of this country. Professor Minor, of the University of Virginia, "John B," as he was affectionately called by his students, under whom he studied, as so exacting in demanding obedi- ence and so successful in securing it that, if he ordered an examination at midnight, every man would be in his seat by eleven o'clock. Probably few law teachers have been more loved and admired. While this description of Professor Minor by Presi- dent Wilson had in it elements of humor, it also con- veyed a deep truth. We turn now to our civil life. Our public life, so far as control is concerned, is divided between legis- lation and administration. Legislation has in our history received chief emphasis and has had a re- 136 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy markable, altliougli not altogether successful, de- velopment. It lias, at any rate, gone far aliead of tlie successful administration of the laws enacted.^ Those entrusted with legislation in our local political units, in our states and in our national gov- ernment represent the will of the people. It is their function to ascertain this will and to express it in law. They are not primarily engaged in public life as a profession, but they are taken out of private life to represent private citizens. At the same time it is desirable that some very strong men should remain indefinitely in legislative bodies, and it is one of the weaknesses of our arrangements that we do not give the strong leaders in our legislative bodies the same opportunity to remain in public life and to represent currents of opinion which many other countries give. Most countries allow the vot- ers in a district to choose their representative re- gardless of his place of abode, and consequently very strong men, like Gladstone in England, and such socialists as Bebel and the older Liebknecht, in Germany, remain in the Parliament of their re- spective countries indefinitely. If one constituency does not return a great leader, like Gladstone or Bebel, another constituency will. It is essential that for the best leadership in America like opportunities should exist, and in this connection proportional representation is suggested, as it would enable a section of the community having views seeking ex- Leadership in PuMic Life 137 pression to secure representation in our legislative bodies by bunching their votes. In our cities we are making progress in some cases by electing repre- sentatives from the city at large instead of from wards and districts. We come back also to the short ballot, which has already been discussed and which is an indispensable condition of wise leadership in legislation. It is for the administrative branch of government, so little developed among us, to carry out the will of the people as expressed in general terms by leg- islation. In administration we have difficult tech- nical problems which grow constantly more complex and difficult with the passage of time and the con- sequent social and economic evolution. To be a good mayor of a city means that a man must give his life to the undertaking. The property interests are vast, and the tasks are so difficult that after a life time spent in municipal life a man can still learn. A leader in the administration of a city, whether he be mayor or be called by some other title, must, if he is to reach the highest degree of success, have a good deal of general knowledge in regard to educa- tion, sanitation, public utilities, taxation and a mul- titude of other things. It is probably safe to assert that to be a good mayor of a modern city of half a million inhabitants makes as great demands upon a man as to be president of an important railway sys- tem ; probably greater, if a high degree of excellence 138 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy is to be attained because the tasks of the administra- tive leader of a large city are so varied. We meet with success in our administration just in propor- tion as we get men of character and of trained knowl- ledge in control. This means life long careers for men in the service of the people. We take it as a mere matter of course that a man cannot succeed in the railway service, unless he gives his life to it. If the railways are owned by the government and operated by the government, this produces no magic change. A condition of sound public life and good leadership means a sharp separation of legislation from administration. The world may be challenged to show a high degree of success in public life with- out at least some approximation to this separation, and where the highest success is achieved the sepa- ration is a sharp one. A word of caution is required at this point. We ought not to contemplate public life as led ex- clusively by professional office-holders. Private citizens should participate in public life and fre- quently occupy distinguished positions of leader- ship. The ^'honor-office" — the unpaid service of the capable and talented — ^must be emphasized to make administration of nation, state and city what we wish it to be. We in the United States have scarcely more than made a beginning in the sys- tematic enrollment of the private citizens, men and women, in the public administration. One of the Leadership in Public Life 139 best g-overned of German cities, Berlin, a city whose municipal council has long been composed largely of progressive and independent men, had in its ad- ministrative services thirty years ago over two thousand citizens, chiefly but not exclusively, en- gaged in administering poor relief in cooperation with the paid city office-holders. In our own cities, we find members of Park Commissions and some other boards holding ^'honor-offices" and rendering valuable and unpaid service. A magnificent begin- ning has been made by the federal and state gov- ernments in the enlistment of private persons in all kinds of war service — a beginning of which we may well be proud and which should be followed up sys- tematically and extended to all our administrative agencies, central and local. It is not merely that we thus multiply our forces and utilize them more fully than would otherwise be possible, but we quicken the public service by bringing in fresh thought and sug- gestions and promote mutual understanding and good will between citizen and professional officehold- ers. But it is not only in the honor office but elsewhere in our public life that we should have the cooperation of others than those who would make public admin- istration their life careers. Our cabinet members are chosen from distinguished private citizens in all walks of life, and this is well as this method brings in fresh views and ways of looking at things. 140 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy Also there should be opportunities elsewhere for bringing into the public administration men whose services in private life have fitted them peculiarly for some special work just as occasionally men in public life will leave their positions for private em- ployment for which their past careers have pre- pared them. It is necessary to be watchful with re- spect to both these movements lest the civil service should be a mere stepping stone to pecuniary emolu- ments in private service and lest also on the other hand, men should be brought in from the outside in such a way as to discourage those in the regular civil service. Vigor and freshness, initiative and invention are quite possible in the professional civil service. To one who has not looked into the matter, it is astonish- ing to find how easy it is to bring a magnificent spirit into the public service. Under the right leadership and encouragement, with a broad way open to the top, with a selection of men for merit and promotion on account of superiority of service, men in public office will work with the same spirit that we see in the University. Time will not be care- fully measured out, but lights will be burning in offices late at night where men are busily working, performing their tasks. This has been seen in the Capitol at Madison and just this spirit may be found here and there in Washington, more in one admin- istration than in another, all depending upon a cer- Leader ship in Fuhlic Life 141 tain esprit de corps going" from the top down to the bottom. As things are in many of the Washington offices, the faithfulness, the long-continued fidelity and dili- gence of the men in the civil service are highly credit- able to human nature. Men who are really experts labor long, year after year, with small remuneration and without a word of recognition and no democratic sources of honor to stimulate them and help them forward to higher planes of psychic effort. Here and there we witness the beginning of better things. The work becomes more personal, men are brought out individually, and a wisely placed word of recog- nition and encouragement produces wonderful re- sults. Occasionally a pseudo-efficiency expert comes in to improve the public service and he accomplishes just about as much as the muckraker has accom- plished in improving private business. Undoubt- edly certain gross abuses have been removed or lessened, but he does not have the first faint glim- mering idea of the fact that efficiency is chiefly a psychic product. An illustration may be taken from the early days of the Johns Hopkins University when it was a joy for a young man to work in the faculty. This was on account of the magnificent spirit, when one was working with an able body of associates and under a chief — unlike some of his contemporaries — more in- 142 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy terested in scliolarsliip tlian in football and wlio took pains to show appreciation of excellence. We may take the state university as a model for good government in several particulars. It shows us how we must secure good government and at the same time provides us with democratic means of getting leadership. The regents or trustees of a state university represent the people, and they de- cide along broad general lines what policies are to be pursued. Then through them men are appointed on the staff of the university faculty to carry out the predetermined policies. These men are appointed on good behavior. Generally they enter the service young, and they are gradually advanced in propor- tion to merit. Men who have made a career in other lines of work are brought in frequently from the outside as lecturers and occasionally are called to professor- ships. This brings in fresh life and sometimes a new way of looking at things. It must be confessed, how- ever, that experience has been such as not to encour- age the universities to extend this practice very greatly. We also have developed in the university on the part of students and faculty a true democracy, where excellence is admired as much as anywhere and where merit is rewarded. Not by any means that perfection is attained, but probably a univer- sity shows as near an approximation to it as can Leadership in Public Life 143 anywhere be found. It is by following methods like those of the state university that excellence is se- cured in city government. Other methods lead in- evitably to failure sooner or later. The state university has ^^rnade good" in this pres- ent world crisis as have all our universities. Sad, indeed, would be our condition in this country, did we not have that leadership and that splendid loy- alty which almost without exception have been shown by the American university on the part alike of faculty and students. Particularly noticeable and most gratifying is the courage shown by those living in the university atmosphere. Nowhere else has there been found such readiness to nail one's flag to the mast and to go down with the ship if need be. Outside the university circles too frequently have we been dis- appointed by weak-kneed patriotism unwilling to take a stand against those high in power whereas in the university we have found in department after department a readiness to sign loyalty statements which have *^ teeth'' and which are directed against those high in power notwithstanding threats of in- vestigation and dismissal. This courage is a real inspiration to all who have experienced it. The American university then affords training for leadership. It imparts a spirit of loyalty and courage. It gives training in obedience and the exercise of authority. It brings out capacity for 144 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy leadersliip on the one hand and an eager seeking for the leadership on the other. In the American university democracy finds its soul more than any- where else.^ But we have scarcely ^^ scratched the ground/^ so far as the work of the university is concerned. Large as have been the appropriations and en- dowments for the American university, they are not even half large enough to enable it to do its proper work. It is particularly in the matter of research that there has been the saddest deficiency. True it is that had we not enjoyed the facilities for research provided by our universities, the war might have been already lost; but, on the other hand, had the appropriations for research and the opportunities afforded those who have the capacity for it been what they should have been, the War perhaps might have been ended before this.* The appropriation for research results in direct benefits to the public. The appropriation for instruction accrues more nar- rowly to the benefit of those who receive the in- struction, although here there is an ample return for all expenditures in the diffusion of benefits through a highly trained citizenship of those who enjoy a university training. But researches are directly and immediately for the benefit of society as a whole. Anyone who has doubt about the statements in the foregoing paragraph would do well to read two Leadership in PuMic Life 145 illuminating articles that appeared in the American Review of Reviews for July, 1918. The first en- titled ''The Long Arm of Learning : How the 'Land- Grant Colleges' are Backing Uncle Sam" is by B. E. Powell; the second entitled ''The War Work of the University of Wisconsin" is by President Charles E. Van Hise. The following quotations are taken from these articles : "A nation at war, without an adequate army of scientists to back it up, is between the deep sea and that best friend of William the Mistaken. A soldier can be made in two years ; it takes twenty to make a scientist. "Fortunately for us of the United States, we have been producing, for a reason that will appear later, scientists upon rather a large scale for the past half-century. True, our comfortable egotism has kept us from utilizing them as fully as we might ; it has been among our traditions that 'made in Ger- many' plainly stamped upon the occiput was the hallmark of your genuine scientist. ' ' Then came April 6, 1917. The United States had her choice between producing her own scientists and having her head blown off by the nation that had been doing it for her. To give a single instance- in the business of being at war, dimethyl-gloxine, a rare and unusual chemical, an indispensable reagent for analytical work with nickel-steels, is a vital necessity. The United States always had depended 146 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy upon Germany for lier supply. It would come from there no more. Quietly university scientists busied themselves with the problem and now the chemical laboratory of the University of Illinois alone pro- duces a sufficient supply to fill the needs of the en- tire country. . . . ^'Let me tell you of a highly significant group of services along physical, chemical and engineering lines : ^^ Professor Max Mason, of the department of physics of the University of Wisconsin, is the in- ventor of a submarine detector. It was tried out on peaceful Lake Mendota. Experts witnessed the trial and carried Mason and his co-workers off to "Washington. Word now comes from those in au- thority that the device is being installed on vessels and that high hopes of it are entertained. ^'At Illinois recent air-propeller experiments by Professor Morgan Brooks, of the Department of Electrical Engineering, indicate that serious errors exist in the screw theory of air propellers. A new type of steel air propeller shows a greatly increased thrust for the same operating conditions. '' Professor Eichard C. Tolman, of the Depart- ment of Chemistry, University of Illinois, is chemi- cal-expert-at-large in the Ordnance Department. The work is under the general supervision of the National Eesearch Council, which is a committee of the Council of National Defense. Under his direc- Leadership in Public Life 147 tion tests are in progress on the small-arms am- munition. . . . *^From Wisconsin a professor of chemistry, J. H. Mathews, was chosen to investigate poison gases. He served four months abroad as chemical liaison officer with the British armies, securing information on the German poison gases. His laboratory was the front-line trench and storm-shelled ^No Man's Land.' He returned to the States with the data he had accumulated to work with other chemists on the poison-gas problem. ^'Consider the graphite crucible; for the business of war demands heavily of metals. Graphite cruci- bles are a necessity in all metallurgy from steels to gold. The clay used in the manufacture of these crucibles must be of high grade and possessed of special properties. Before the war this clay came from a particular locality in Germany, where it seemed to have been planted expressly for the pur- pose of strengthening the hold of the Kaiser and his best friend upon the world. When the clay was no longer available, therefore, must America do without graphite crucibles! There was a period of consternation, then university-trained scientists set to work with American clays and produced graphite crucibles not merely equal but actually superior to those made in Germany. ^^You remember how we despaired over the dye situation? The ladies were all going to have to 148 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy wear white and give the boys white neckties for Christmas gifts. A walk through any large de- partment store at present will make you wonder if the rainbow has offered us its services to help win the war, so varied and gorgeous are the colors. *'The truth is our unpreparedness in the dye sit- uation was, four years ago, rather appalling. At that time the firms engaged in the manufacture of dyes numbered about six, and these largely in con- nection with importation houses. Annually more than $10,000,000 went over seas for dyes. Now we have not twice six nor ten times six, corporations engaged in the manufacture of dyes, but one hundred and thirty ! In the first ten months of 1917 our ex- portation of dyes brought us in $13,500,000, Great Britain being our largest customer.'^ (Taken from Mr. Powell's article.) ^'The research work of the university relating to the war has included many fields, psychology, eco- nomics, history, industry, medicine, engineering, foods, gas, aerial work, and the submarine. Space does not permit a summary of it. As illustrations, there may be mentioned the gas and submarine work. ''Gas Defense. The gas defense work involves investigations of gas warfare abroad, the methods of manufacture of gases in quantity to be used in at- tack, the physiological effects of the gases, and the remedies for them, and gas mask protection. Fif- Leadership in Fublic Life 149 teen members of the faculty are devoting themselves to different aspects of these problems. Important results have been obtained. ^'Submarines. One of the earliest problems to be taken up by the University was that of submarine detection. This problem was attacked because of the availability of a large lake beside the university campus. It would be improper at this time to en- ter into details, but a general announcement has been made by the War Department which warrants the statement that a group of men from the Univer- sity of Wisconsin has worked out an accepted sub- marine device. This device is being manufactured on a large scale and being installed upon the boats of the Navy as rapidly as possible. The device con- stitutes one of the essential elements in detecting the submarine and in following it until it is destroyed. While this work was first carried on at the Univer- sity, it was later made a Navy enterprise, the same men, however, continuing the work, some at a naval station and some at Madison. In the work eight men have participated." ^ (From President Van Hise's article. ) But we need now in our own country in connec- tion with state universities and other schools spe- cial training schools for public service. Our young men have gone out from the universities and have had to serve apprenticeships in important positions, whereas the apprenticeship should have been served 150 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy earlier in tlieir careers. The demand for men with training has been so great as to lead to appointment with inadequate training. We should then have schools for training for public service, and some of these schools should be entirely separate and dis- tinct, and some should be parts of other educational institutions. From the high school on the training for public service should be a feature of our educa- tional institutions. The training for citizenship should be for all; the training for public service should be for those who desire this kind of a career. There should be a broad avenue open for all who seek public service. We have built up recently in our public life a series of commissions. These commissions have been ob- jected to by those who do not understand the na- ture of our economic civilization. They are bound to grow in city, state and nation, because they cor- respond to our real needs, and true progress con- sists in improving them rather than in obstructing them. They perform functions which neither the courts nor legislative bodies can perform. They pass upon complex questions which may be reviewed by the courts. They carry out the will of the legisla- ture expressed in general terms because it is only short brief laws expressed in general terms which are able to meet the complexities of our complex economic life and enable us to apply general prin- ciples to concrete cases in their infinite complexity. Leadership in Public Life 151 After the War we must ' ^ carry on ' ' and gather the fruits of the splendid accumulation of energy which has been engendered during the War. We want to make the world a better place to live in, and this im- plies that we are led on by high ideals in business, in government, in short, in all our life spheres. But these ideals must be ideals radically different from the Bolshevik ideals which are now becoming so current. They must be ideals of excellence in leader- ship and of a whole made up of parts united in vari- ous ranks of service in accordance with capacity, each rank occupying an honorable position, those in the higher places filled with the responsibility of leadership, and all showing respect and esteem for capacity, all from top to bottom cultivating that social cement of mutual loyalty which makes work- ing together a joy. That is a poor society, indeed, in which those in authority are not honored, and in which, on the other hand, those in authority are not ready to sacrifice themselves to the uttermost for those over whom they exercise authority, being will- ing if need be, to lay down their lives in the common service. Public life will not be satisfactory until the at- titude of the American people toward public life is changed in several particulars. Sometimes it seems almost as if we were in the stone age so far as the methods of good government and the processes of leadership are concerned. We find things going 152 . The World War and Leadership in a Democracy wrong, and we think it possible to make tliem better by simple inhibitions. We say, '^ Don't do this" and ''Don't do that." We introduce mechanical tests of efficiency and make the time-clock play a great role. Our legislation as well as our administration is nega- tive and repressive whereas both should be construc- tive and persuasive. We talk glibly about efficiency but fail to grasp the deeper underlying causes of ex- cellence in administration, which are psychical. Our pseudo-efficiency expert comes to Washing- ton and finds a waste in stationery. There is no doubt that this is a bad condition of things and reprehensible. Measures of control are introduced, however, which may make it so difficult to secure a supply of lead pencils that a man will waste twenty cents ' worth of time to secure ten cents ' worth of sup- plies. If this is not literally an exact description, it does not come far from the facts in many cases. The efficiency expert thinks the desks in a big office are not properly placed and rearranges them with a loss of efficiency because he has not understood all the implications of the situation as he found it. There may be a waste of telephone service, and to correct this the man at the head of an impor- tant division in a great department is compelled to go outside the office if he wants to telephone to his wife instead of using the telephone which is at his hand. In this and many other ways educated men in responsible positions are humiliated, not inten- Leadership in Fiihlic Life 153 tionally, of course, but because those who introduced the present arrangements have not understood the real motives which actuate men and secure results. Oiie of the great educational leaders of the coun- try, the late President D. C. Gilman, had a phrase which explained in a large measure the wonderful success that he achieved as president of the Johns Hopkins University. This phrase was ' ' Give a man scope." If we want things done as we do in this progressive age in which we are passing from a passive to an active policy of government, we must give men scope in our public life as well as in our private life, remembering that if we fence men so about that they cannot do anything wrong, not only do we take the heart out of them, but we put them in such a position that with the best will they can- not do any good thing that really counts. Large constructive effort becomes impossible, and men necessarily fall into a routine, while red tape is developing apace. We come again to the need of true leaders. A true leader in public life as well as in private life will always be on the lookout for excellence and he will seek to give it recognition and reward. A pecuniary reward is not the chief thing. A laurel wreath may prove a greater stimulus in social serv- ice than a monetary reward of thousands of dollars. It is easy to laugh at titles, but they have a tre- mendous power when wisely bestowed in recognition 154 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy of meritorious performance. After all, when we think about it and observe what goes on in our American life, can we say that there is any country where titles are more appreciated than in the United States ? Have we not here something to take hold of and use wisely? This is not the place for an ampli- fication of this idea, but it is thrown out by way of suggestion. We find the best situation in this country prob- ably in the American university so far as our pub- lic life is concerned, but some great private institu- tions possibly may excel the university in the spirit of administration. The president of a university is the recognized leader in his institution and fre- quently he has done admirable work. The ideal president knows his faculty; he understands their situation ; he is alert to throw opportunities in their way and to remove obstacles, to speak a word of encouragement now and then. He thinks not of his own performance so much as of the performance of his faculty. The university also bestows degrees to encourage scholarship and sometimes also in recognition of excellence in the administration of great businesses. Possibly under our American con- ditions the university will become the chief demo- cratic source of honor, but it must not be the sole source of honor. Still less must the state, either as state or in its institutions, be ever allowed to become the exclusive source of honor. Various sources of Leadership in Public Life 155 honor are now in the process of development. We have the Nobel prizes the bestowal of which means high honor for scholars as well as very considerable pecuniary emolument. Mr. Andrew Carnegie's in- stitution which confers medals on heroes may be mentioned in this connection. Public libraries are possible sources of community leadership and recog- nition. Among the slight beginnings which deserve praise, it may be proper to mention that the University of Wisconsin awards certificates to farmers who have done meritorious work in agriculture, and these diplomas, which, are without pecuniary value and practically costless, are highly prized and justly so. They are recognition of excellence proceeding from a democratic source and serve as a stimulus. • Professor E. A. Eoss has discussed in his article, ''The Organization of Effort'' {The American Journal of Sociology, July, 1916), the principles involved in the bestowal of honor. The following is quoted from this highly suggestive article : ''Since honor is coveted as well as money, honor should be as carefully graduated and as punctually paid. A non-discriminating treatment of those on different rungs of the organization ladder flings away a precious means of stimulation. In order to whet the eagerness to earn advancement, something, however slight, should be used to distinguish men of each grade from those below. It may be a uniform, 156 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy a stripe, a band of gold braid, a cap, or a button. It may be the right of precedence, of dining at a reserved table, entering by a special door, sitting on a higher seat, or having one's desk behind a railing or on a raised floor. It may be the privilege of sitting in the presence of the top man, of being addressed as ^^Mr.," or ^^Sir," of receiving a cer- tain salute, or of donning a certain robe. Whatever be the mark of honor, it should be patent without being conspicuous, its value should be symbolic rather than intrinsic, it should be certain to him who is entitled to it, and it should be consistently withheld from all others." CHAPTER XI SIX LAMPS OF SOCIAL PKOGKESS The French Eepublic has adopted as its motto, Lib- erty, Equality and Fraternity. These are words that come down from the French Revolution, and they have had a molding force in democratic thought in all Western civilization. They have been both a help and a hindrance to the development of democ- racy and progress. We notice historically that sometimes more empha- sis is laid upon one of the three words than upon others. There have been and are even now fanatical adherents of equality. The socialist Baboeuf illus- trates one extreme in the various views of equality. Equality seems to him to be a good in itself. He wants all to fare alike and to dress alike, scarcely allowing a difference in dress on account of sex. He formed a conspiracy of his adherents who called themselves the '^Equals." Baboeuf stated his lead- ing idea in these words: — ^'The aim of society is the happiness of all and happiness consists in equal- ity.'' This idea of equality finds expression in end- less repetition. The harmony of social and economic society, Baboeuf thought, would be broken if there 157 158 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy were even one man in the world richer or more powerful than his fellows. His adherents were will- ing to do away with all historical achievements and to sweep the decks clear, so to speak, to make room for equality. For the sake of equality they were willing to abolish all of the arts. For the sake of equality they were willing to have absolute govern- ment. While they did consent reluctantly to allow certain distinctions in dress on account of age and sex, they wanted that all should have the same kind of food and should be educated alike, taking away children from the family for the sake of equality. It is needless to speak about the dreariness of life under a scheme like Baboeuf's. It should be no- ticed, however, that extreme emphasis upon equality means a sacrifice of all free movement, indeed, of the entire concept of liberty itself. Just as soon as the idea of equality is pushed too far forward, liberty begins to recede into the background, and we are bound to have excesses like those of the French Eevolution in the eighteenth century and of the Bolsheviki in the twentieth. Equality and fraternity do not harmonize well, although at first blush one might suppose that they would. Equality as a social goal means the suppres- sion and oppression of those naturally superior and consequently it entails bitter social antagonisms. It means diminished wealth as we see in Eussia under the rule of the Bolsheviki and it means the Six Lamps of Social Progress 159 suppression of all higher social products. Art and religion are both thrown overboard. Knowing as we do that men are naturally and forever unequal and growingly unequal with the de- velopment of civilization, let us try to formulate cer- tain ideas in words which may serve as illuminat- ing lights on the pathway of social progress. Among these watchwords we may place unity in diversity. We have in these three words a high goal. If we can harmoniously unite our diverse capacities and gifts into one whole, we may have a rich and glorious civilization. The following quotation from an article by Mrs. A. Burnett-Smith, ''An Englishwoman's Message,'' gives a beautiful illustration of unity in diversity taken from recent English life : ''We have a million and a half women working in our munition factories today, — all kinds, from the highest to the lowest; peers' daughters, and daugh- ters of cabinet ministers, of professional men, of rich merchants, — all working side by side twelve hours a day, with brief intervals for meals, living together in little villages, which have had to be built close to the factories, in order to solve the housing problem. They are not segregated, but live the communal life, side by side, sharing the family life in dining-rooms, recreation rooms, in all respects living as one family; and it has had a won- derful effect on them all. The upper-class women 160 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy have learned something from their working sisters. They have gained a broader outlook, a more candid sincerity, and a great many other things which are going to be of much value. The same thing holds good of the other side. They have learned refine- ment of speech and behavior. In fact, they have come to understand each other, and ignorance is the cause of so much sorrow and misunderstanding that we welcome all this wonderful new fusion in our national life. Please God, when the anguish of these days is over, it is going to be a splendid factor in our reconstruction. ' ' ^ The second lamp of social progress is the idea of service, broadly considered. Service includes all circles ; it begins with the individual, goes on to the family, the community, the state, and finally em- braces mankind. This idea stands in sharp antagon- ism to the eighteenth century doctrine of self-inter- est as an adequate basis of individual and national conduct. The individual finds his own interest in the interest of all; he strives to perfect himself as an instrument of progress and in workmanship ac- cording to capacity as social service, true individual- ity will be developed. Leadership of the wise and good naturally fol- lows from a recognition of the inequalities among men with respect to their powers. In our complex society this leadership is essential. Society which is without good leadership must perish in the conflict Six Lamps of Social Progress 161 of nations, and by the conflict of nations here is not meant simply the struggle in arms, but the economic struggle of commerce and industry.^ President Eliot has given us a goal of education based upon a recognition of the ideas which we have just been trying to develop. ^^ Democratic education should also inculcate on every child the essential unity of a democratic com- munity, in spite of the endless diversities of func- tion, capacity, and achievement among the individ- uals who compose the community . . . ; for unity is attainable, while equality of condition is unnatural and unattainable.^ . . . Unity in freedom is the so- cial goal of democracy, the supreme good of all ranks of society, of the highest no less than of the low- est."^ We now have in our programme for progress sev- eral ideas : First, is unity in diversity, second, and closely connected with this, is the idea of develop- ment of individuality in social service, third, the leadership of the wise and the good.^ Let us now pass on to another word which shall be an illuminat- ing light on our pathway, namely, fourth, liberty. By liberty we mean freedom to act under the law. We mean not mere negation of restriction, but we mean opportunity for the development and expan- sion of all one's faculties. This liberty must be mutual and, therefore, finds its metes and bounds at an increasing number of points. Yet there is a 162 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy constant growth of true liberty in tlie positive con- structive sense with every step forward in social progress. The fifth idea is equality of opportunity and this illuminates with increasing brilliance social prog- ress. Equality of opportunity is the grand goal of American progress and toward it we struggle re- sistlessly. Sometimes we make mistakes and get off on by-ways, but we always keep before us the aim. The pathway of progress is toward the lamp, equality of opportunity, but it is far from being a straight one. We are frequently misled more or less, but the light shines on and we ever struggle toward it. First in the eighteenth century the path turned toward the doctrine of equality as fact. Later as we perceived that the great essential fact is inequality of capacities, it led towards this doc- trine, recognizing that equality of opportunity can be secured only through unequal treatment of un- equals. Opportunity has always to be measured in terms of our faculties. Those who have superior faculties have resting upon them burdens of service to those of smaller gifts and slenderer resources. They have the duty of leadership. Now sixth and last of all we come to the lamp, fraternity. This shines ever on. It always has been and always must be the grand culmination of social progress. How many lamps have we then? We have the Six Lamps of Social Progress 163 lamp, unity in diversity; the lamp, service ; the lamp, leadership by the wise and good ; the lamp, liberty ; the lamp, equality of opportunity; and the lamp, fraternity. These are six lamps which illuminate ever the pathway of social progress. APPENDIX THE DANGER OF ILLUSIONS By Edward D. Jones Because of my interest in the psychic basis of efficiency, a portion of j^our discussion has appealed to me as an effort to dissipate certain illusions or deeply-rooted misconcep- tions from the public mind, and so to break down barriers which stand in the way of progress. Conduct is a response to a situation. Efficient conduct is a correct or adequate response. Why is it, often, so hard to get an individual, or a group of individuals, to make an adequate adjustment to a situation ? The superior mind may see the situation as simple in itself. The agen- cies needed to cope with it — to improve it — may likewise be very simple. They may be well known, well tried means, which are commonplace agencies of science. And still some men, or some groups of men, cannot be made to see what appears to be so easy. Therefore, we sometimes think that the root of trouble is not in the problem per se, but in the attitude of people toward it. In what does this mental blockade consist ? Robert Louis Stevenson once said that the ideal mind was fluent, sensitive, and teachable. What prevents all minds from being so ? It seems to me that it is this thing which I call ' ' illusion. ' ' These are firmly held judgments or prepercep- tions, which are called up in association with other con- cepts, according to the thought-paths which each one has established by habit in his own mind. 164 Appendix 165 An individual illusion may be specific, and so little inter- laced with other ideas, that it is not often involved as a source of practical error. This is illustrated by the case of a psychopathic patient of whom I heard at Baltimore. He was rational on most subjects, but when asked from time to time by the physicians, how he stood on the Kocke- f eller matter, he would insist that he was the son of John D. Rockefeller. This illusion did not destroy the man's power of adequate adjustment to most of the situations of ordinary life. On the other hand, the illusion may be fundamental, that IS to say, it may be one which is compounded in the formation of an entire class of judgments, and which enters, perhaps, as a component part into a very wide range of thinking processes. Such is the illusion of the paranoiac, as to his personal superiority and importance; or the illu- sion of inferiority, from which some persons suffer, and which breeds timidity; or the illusion of persecution, lead- ing to angry responses, solitude, and sulkiness. Sometimes these illusions are merely wrong judgments rather persist- ently held; but they may be the result of a ''balancing process" resulting from "repressed complex," and so be extremely fixed and definitely irrational. Just as there are no 100 per cent, men with reference to physical health (at least in the opinion of the Life Extension Institute) so there are practically no minds free from disturbance in some domain of thinking, by reason of stubborn errors of conception, which hamper their ability to see things as they are, or which warp the path of reason- ing out of line with sound judgment. Let us illustrate the effect of these matters upon policy. If in an industrial plant the management sees an oppor- tunity to make some desirable change such, let us say, as the installation of an employment manager and the con- 166 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy centration of the service records of employees in one office, the chief difficulty may not consist in finding the proper system for such an office, or even in finding a fairly adequate man for the position, but it may be almost en- tirely in bringing the officers and men to the proper point of view with reference to the project. Some persons will be suspicious of the generosity of the management; others of over-acute mind will consider the proposal a ''blind," and will try to decipher the real hidden plan; still others, smarting from fancied slights, will be against the idea to get even ; others, having formed a derogatory opinion of their associates, will judge that while such a plan might work elsewhere it cannot succeed with the backward ad- ministration in power. There will be the persons who mag- nify some small difficulty ; and there will be those who know- ing they are being discriminated against, are planning to get out, and therefore are indifferent. To make the plan work, therefore, it becomes necessary to take a variety of apparently disconnected preliminary steps, to melt and dissolve away, out of the minds of the force, these various illusions. It may be necessary to lay the plan aside until, by repeated generous acts the doubt- ing ones are convinced of the fairness of the management, until repeated explanations satisfy the skeptical, until con- stant friendliness wins the sensitive, or until, by the doing of some simple thing, which exercises all upon a neutral basis in some form of united action, there is generated an infection or contagion of friendliness and enthusiasm, which sweeps the barriers away and produces harmony of mood. When the mental barriers are once gone, if the plan has been justly conceived, and does what is expected of it specifically, the individuals who once opposed it will soon look back with astonishment at their previous lack of faith. Their former mood will no longer be comprehensible to Appendix 167 them. They will say, ''I do not see how I misunderstood the thing as I did." The leadership of a small group of men consists very largely in the process of producing this harmony of mood. The first stepy in it is to attain discipline, the second, a delight in the action or esprit, and finally to hold the individual to the plan by the deepest moral convictions or to attain morale. The long progress of devoted service of the leader by which the mood for great things is produced in the ranks is thus briefly described in Andrews' '' Fundamentals of Military Service." The author says, ''History records many daring deeds where an intrepid leader has led his men to victory against seemingly overwhelming odds, and all credit is given to his courage. A mistake. There may be hundreds who would have dared lead the charge, but their men were not prepared. Credit must be given not alone to courage, but even more to the intelligent leadership that had brought the men to this opportunity prepared to meet it successfully ; confident in the ability of their leader, disciplined, and buoyed up by esprit, in the best possible condition of mind and body through their leader's constant exercise of vigilance for their daily welfare on the march and in the camp. The making of the heroic leader who will win laurels on the battlefield begins surely in the drill hall at home, and follows throughout the conduct of each day's work in camp and on campaign. He must be not only a dis- ciplinarian and a psychologist, but something of a doctor, a cook, a tailor, saddler and cobbler, a veterinarian and a blacksmith. He will follow up his men like children, and see that they are properly clothed, fed, rested, entertained, kept in health and spirits, giving freely of his vitality that he may reasonably demand tremendous exertions from them when the opportunity offers." It seems to me that a disciplined public opinion is some- 168 The World War and Leadership in a Democracy what similarly constituted. While individual illusions can- cel themselves out in the mass, the energy of each is the pro- pulsive force minus the retarding forces, and the energy of the mass is the sum of the net energy of the individuals. And then there is that large class of general concepts which exerts a special influence upon judgments of public policy. Thus we may distinguish the idea ''democratic/' danger- ously vague in its outlines, and perceive the harm which may be done by attaching the stigma "it is undemocratic" to a plan which simply aims to make use of a person of superior talent or experience. We remember the influence exerted for years by the conception "politics are corrupt," which deterred many young men from entering the public service. The concept "freedom of competition" often blocks intelligent plans for dealing with natural monopolies. And so, as j^ou have shown in your paper, broad concepts like "freedom" and "equality" have to be interpreted with the utmost clearness and patience again and again. A bad root conception of any of these fundamental catego- ries may act like a defective lens distorting a broad sweep of the mental scenery of our lives. We are now in conflict with a body of people who have long been skillfully led, until an amazing state of discipline has been developed to a body of ideas which in many aspects appeals to us as loathsome. How has this been done ? By observing the principles of leadership. Andrews speaks of the military leader as a doctor, cook, and tailor. The rulers of Germany, in their factory acts, their state insur- ance and pension system, etc., have cared for the common man until his confidence has been won. They have de- stroyed concepts prejudicial to national solidarity ; but, alas, have built up illusions which make them dangerous in the family of nations. We have set for ourselves not only the more diflicult task of attaining discipline and yet preserv- Appendix 169 ing" large individual liberty and maintaining a democratic distribution of ultimate political power, but the task of har- monzing our national aspirations with the general welfare of the human race. For so great a purpose we ought the more devotedly to study and practice the art of leadership, to banish from among us every misconception which might divide our ranks, and fully and clearly to bring out and propagate among ourselves the beauties of the ideals for which we stand, so that our devotion shall be in the same measure as their perfection. NOTES AND EEFEEENCES Chapter II — Why We are at War 1. P. 20. Out of Their Mouths, D. Appleton & Co. (1917) p. 4. 2. P. 20. "Take heed that ye be counted among'st the blessed, who show declining England, corrupt Belgium, licentious France, uncouth Russia, the unconquerable youthful power and manhood of the German people in a manner never to be forgotten. . . . Brethren, make an end of this generation of vipers with German blows and German thrusts." Pastor J. Rump, Kriegshetstunden 1914 II, 75. In Conquest d Kultur, January, 1918, issued by U. S. Committee on Public Information, p. 15. "The European conspiracy has woven around us a web of lies and slander. As for us we are truthful, our characteristics are humanity, gentleness, conscientiousness, the virtues of Christ. In a world of wickedness we represent love, and God is with us." (Adolf Larson, Professor of Philosophy, University of Berlin, in letters to a friend. See Bemadotte Schmitt, England and Ger- many, 1916, pp. 93-94. {Conquest & Kultur, p. 17.) 3. P. 21. Taken from the Daily News of Chicago, March 26, 1918. 4. P. 22. Charles Seymour in his Diplomatic Background of the War 1870-1914 says, p. 99 : "Such (belligerent) sentiments are natural to Prussians, who have been men of war since the beginning of their history. They were enforced by the lessons of the past : in no country has military strength or weakness played so important a part in determining national history as in Prussia. It was through brute force that Prussia was first built up in the days of the Great Elector and Frederick the Great; to her military weakness Prussia owed her bitter humiliation by Napoleon in 1807; to her military force again, in the time of Bismarck, both Prussia and Germany owed their glory, and, as Germans believe, their subsequent prosperity." 171 172 Nates and References 5. P. 25. See the discussion of the origin of the concept, the gentleman in chivalry in Professor E. D. Jones' book, The Business Administrator , pp. 188-193. The concept comes from that of the chivalrous knight. Chivalry affected chiefly Prance and England. As chivalry prevailed from the end of the tenth century to the Renaissance, most of Germany was in too back- ward a condition to take a permanent cultural influence. In Italy and Spain the concept of knighthood was so strongly in- fluenced by the courtly conception of cunning and strategy that a person of gTeater sinuosity and less frankness and fairness became the ideal. To what Professor Jones has said, it may be added that truth, an attribute of the gentleman, is less valued in Germany than in English speaking countries. As long ago as 1874 Professor James Morgan Hart in his book German Universities called attention to this weakness in the German character. A German mother will say to her child, "0, you little liar," and does not imply serious reprobation thereby, and Professor Hart said that if you called a German student a liar, he might take it calmly, but if you called him a blockhead, he would challenge you to fight a duel. All this has been amply exemplified during the present war. It was the German socialist Lassalle who said of the lie that it was one of the Great European Powers ! It was natural enough that he should have said it. Professor Gilbert Murray in his Preface to Prince Lichnowsky's pamphlet. My Mission to London^ recognizes that the lie is one of the great powers of Europe. He uses these words: "Never perhaps in history has the world seen so great an exhibition, as at the outbreak of this war, of the murderous and corrupting power of the organized lie. All Germany outside the govern- mental circles was induced to believe that the war was a treacher- ous attack, plotted in the dark by 'revengeful France, barbaric Russia, and envious England,' against the innocent and peace- lovuig Fatherland." On the other hand. Prince Lichnowsky himself says that "prevarication is altogether foreign to English nature." My Mission to London (George H. Doran Company), p. 22. 6. P. 27. Jung-Deutschland, the official organ of Young Germany written for young boys, in October, 1913, had the following : "War is the noblest and holiest expression of human activity. Notes and References 173 For us, too, the glad, great hour of battle will strike. Still and deep in the German heart must live the joy of battle and the longing for it. Let us ridicule to the utmost the old women in breeches who fear war and deplore it as cruel and revolting. No : war is beautiful. Its august sublimity elevates the human heart beyond the earthly and the common. In the cloud palace above sit the heroes, Frederick the Great, and Blilcher, and all the men of action — the Great Emperor, Moltke, Roon, Bismarck, are there as well, but not the old women who would take away our joy in war. When here on earth a battle is won by German arms and the faithful dead ascend to heaven, a Potsdam lance corporal will call the guard to the door, and 'Old Fritz,' springing from his golden throne, will give the command to present arms. That is the heaven of Young Germany." Conquest & Kultur, p. 33. 7. P. 32. When Blood is Their Argument, by Ford Madox Hueffer (Hodder & Stoughton, 1915), p. 271. It has recently been said that the "real measure of Germany's offense . . . consists 'in her ingrained determination not to permit a free meeting of minds between people and people.' " The illus- trations given in the text show how early and deliberately Germany began her measures of separation which prevented this free meet- ing of minds. {The New Republic, July 6, 1918. See article en- titled "Germany's Ultimate Offense," page 276, and the communi- cation, "The Healing of England," pages 292-293.) 8. P. 34. Walter E, Weyl says in American World Policies, pp. 116-120, that the revolt of France, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, and Italy against German trade before the war, was because it was carried on as a hostile, national, systematic cam- paign. It included such practices as sudden price reductions to kill out domestic industries, dumping, spies to steal names and trade methods, export not only of goods but of men, such as clerks and chemists, German banks backing German concerns, an elaborate information system of persons, firms, credits, con- tracts, etc., the union of German firms into cartels for fighting purposes, predatory competition or low prices where there was competition recouped by high prices where there was not, rail- ways aiding the export movement, state aid of everything, and the whole thing worked as a trained army, advancing the interests of German persons and firms and German trade ex- clusively. 174 Nates and References Chapter III — The Forces of Darkness Gain the Upper Hand 1. P. 36. After Bluntsclili, German ideas as to international law departed from tlie moral principles of Kant, and became brutalized by the spreading doctrines of Nietzsche and Treitschke and Bismarck. Compare Charles Seymour, The Diplomatic Background of the War, New Haven, 1916, pp. 102-103. 2. P. 41. The opinion of Maximilian Harden, editor of the Zukunft, as to the causes of the war: "Not as weak-willed blunderers have we undertaken the fearful risk of this war. We wanted it; because we had to wish it and could wish it. May the Teuton devil throttle those whiners whose pleas for excuses make us ludicrous in these hours of lofty experi- ence. We do not stand, and shall not place ourselves, before the court of Europe. . . . Germany strikes. If it conquers new realms for its genius, the priesthood of all the gods will sing songs of praise to the good war. . . . We are waging this war not in order to punish those who have sinned, nor in order to free enslaved peoples, and thereafter to comfort ourselves with the unselfish and useless consciousness of our own righteousness. We wage it from the lofty point of view and with the conviction that German}^, as a result of her achievements, and in proportion to them, is justified in asking, and must obtain, wider room on earth for development and for working out the possibilities that are in her. The powers from whom she forced her ascendancy, in spite of themselves, still live, and some of them have recovered from the weakening she gave them. . . . Now strikes the hour for Ger- many's rising power." (Article by Harden translated in the New York Times, December 6, 1914. Also in New York Times Current History, III, p. 130.) From "Annotations" accompanying the President's Flag Day Address, pp. 17-18 in a pamphlet issued by the Committee on Public Information, September 15, 1917. 3. P. 41. Harden's father's name was Wittkowski. He was a Polish Jew. For an account of the change in German popular sentiment, and the swinging of the Socialists into line see Charles Seymour, The Diplomatic Background of the War, New Haven, 1916, p. 113. 4. P. 42. "It is only by relying on our good German sword that we can hope to conquer that place in the sun which rightly belongs to us, and which the world does not seem willing to ac- cord us . . . till the world comes to an end^ the ultimate decision Notes and References 175 must rest with tlie sword." (Extract from the Crown Prince's introduction to Germany in Arms, issued in 1913.) From "An- notations" accompanying the President's Flag" Day Address, p. 14 in a pamphlet issued by the Committee on Public Informa- tion. 5. P. 42. "In the good old times it happened that a strong people thrust a weak one out of its ancestral abode by wars of extermination. To-day such deeds of violence no longer occur. To-day everything goes on peaceably on this wretched earth, and it is those who have profited who are for peace. The little peo- ples and the remnants of a people have invented a new word — that is, international law. In reality it is nothing else than their reckoning on our good-natured stupidity. . . . "Room — they must make room. The western and southern Slavs — or we. Since we are the stronger, the choice will not be difficult. We must quit our modest waiting at the door. Only by growth can a people save itself." ( Otto R. Tannenberg, Gross- Deutschland: die Arbeit des 20ten Jahrhunderts, 1911, pp. 74-75.) "We are of the race of the Thunderer; We will possess the earth. That is the old right of the Germans — To win land with the hammer. "This right of the Germans arises, let it be said once more, out of German civilization, the best on earth. . . . Forward, then, into the fight for German aims, and 'far as the hammer is hurled, let the earth be ours.' " (Bley, Die Weltstellung des Deutschtums, 1897, pp. 27-29.) "In order to live and to lead a healthy and joyous life we need a vast extent of fresh arable land. This is what imperialism must give us; at least there would be its chief justification. . . . No doubt such winnings of fresh soil can not be made without war. Was ever a world power founded without a bloody struggle? Nor are we afraid of going down in the fight ; no, rather are we fearful that we should be open to the charge made by the Carthaginian cavalry general against Hannibal: 'Victoria uti nescis' (Thou knowest not how to profit by victory)." (Albreeht Wirth, Yolk- stum und Weltmacht in der Geschichte, 1901, p. 235). "Our fathers have left us much to do. The German people is so situated in Europe that it need only run and take whatever it 176 Notes and References requires. . . . To-day ... it is for Germany to rise from a Eu- ropean to a world power. . . . Humanitarian dreams are imbecil- ity. Dij^lomatic charity begins at home. Statesmanship is busi- ness. Right and wrong are notions indispensable in private life. The German people are right because they number 87,000,000 souls. Our fathers have left us much to do." (0. R. Tannen- berg, Gross-DeutscJiland: die Arbeit des 20ten Jahrhunderts, 1911, pp. 230-31.) "Since Bismarck retired there has been a complete change of public opinion. It is no longer proper to say 'Germany is satis- fied.' Our historical development and our economic needs show that we are once more hungry for territory, and this situation com- pels Germany to follow paths unforeseen by Bismarck." (Daniel Frymann, Wenn Ich der Kaiser ware, 1911, 21ed., 1914, p. 9. Frymann's work has been widely read in Germany, much more widely indeed than Bemhardi.) The above paragraphs taken from "Annotations" accompany- ing the President's Flag Day Address, p. 12. 6. P. 43. It appears that personal religion in Germany has been partly converted, by success in war, into a national senti- ment, as a worship of the state, or an intensified patriotism. In this change the German people appear to find the attributes of deity as portrayed in the Old Testament more congenial to them than the teachings of the Christ of the New Testament. To give yet more specific tribal or racial fiavor, the ancient Teutonic gods are called upon. And here the influence of German art and literature, and of Wagner's operas, suggests itself, as a means of producing unity of mood. The following quotation is illustrative : "It was in this same spirit that Adalbert Falk abolished the then text-book of readings in German elementary schools because it consisted of passages from the New Testament and gentle civilian stories. He insisted that the elementary readings of school-children must be about the heroes of Germanic sagas, about Arminius who overcome the Ro- mans in the Teutoburger Wald, or about the victorious campaigns of Frederick the Great." {When Blood is Their Argument, by Ford Madox Hueffer (Hodder and Stoughton, 1915), p. 106.) 7. P. 43. "Do not let us forget the civilizing task which the decrees of Providence have assigned to us. Just as Prussia was destined to be the nucleus of Germany, so the regenerated Ger- many shall be the nucleus of a future empire of the west. And Notes and Beferences 177 in order that no one shall be left in doubt, we proclaim from henceforth that our continental nation has a right to the sea, not only to the North Sea but to the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. Hence we intend to absorb one after another all the provinces which neighbor on Prussia. We will successively annex Den- mark, Holland, Belgium, northern Switzerland, then Trieste and Venice, finally northern France, from the Sambre to the Loire. This programme we fearlessly pronounce. It is not the work of a madman. The empire we intend to found will be no Utopia. We have ready to hand the means of founding it and no coalition in the world can stop us." (Bronsart von Schellendorf, quoted by H. A. L. Fisher, in The War^ Its Causes and Issues^ 1914, p. 16.) ''The strongest Germanic State on the continent must take over the hegemony ; the smaller ones must sacrifice as much of their in- dependence and their language as is necessary to the permanent insurance of a new imperial unity. The question of whether mili- tary force would become requisite is secondary; but it is essential that the State which aspires to the hegemony should have at its dis- posal sufficient intellectual, economic, and military power to reach this end and hold it fast. Which State would it be? It can be only the German Empire, which is now in search of more territory. . . . The natural pressure of this new German Empire will be so great that, willy-nilly, the surrounding little Germanic States will have to attach themselves to it under conditions which we set." (Joseph L. Reimer, Ein pangermanisches Deutschland, 1905, pp. 119-120.) "Now, people of Germany, ye shall be masters of Europe [mm, deutsches Volk, wirst du Europa's Meister)." (Conclusion of a poem, Der Krieg hricJit los, by the excellent German poet, Her- mann Stehr, in the first number of the Neue Rundschau after the Avar broke out, 1914, p. 1186.) The above paragraphs taken from "Annotations" accompany- ing the President's Flag Day Address, p. 13. 8. P. 43. "I hope it (Germany) will be granted, through the harmonious cooperation of princes and peoples, of its armies and its citizens, to become in the future as closely united, as powerful, and as authoritative as once the Roman world empire was, and that, just as in the old times they said 'Civis romamus sum' here- after, at some time in the future, they will say, 'I am a German citizen.' " (Kaiser's speech of Oct. 11, 1900, Christian Gauss, 178 Notes and References p. 169.) From "Annotations" accompanying the President's Flag Day Address, p. 14. Chapter IV — The Characteristics of a German World State 1. P. 46. "The German government of Alsace-Lorraine is typical of what may be expected if Germany annexes more ter- ritory as a resnlt of this war. Belgium, Luxemburg, and Russian Poland have no more wish to be forcibly joined to Germany today than had Alsace-Lorraine in 1870; and if they suffer that fate only the threat of arms will keep them in submission. In the more than 40 years since its annexation by Germany, Alsace- Lorraine has been largely Germanized, yet in 1914 it was still bitterly opposed to a Prussianized Government. "Since 1911, the Alsatians have looked more than ever toward France. In that year public demonstrations against the Prussian rule became more pronounced and continued intermittently down to the beginning of the war in 1914. In 1912 the Emperor threat- ened the discontented Alsatians with complete suppression of their constitution unless they ceased their agitations. At the same time noticeable increases were made in the garrisons of the leading cities, and work upon the fortifications was rushed. In 1913 oc- curred the historic Zabern incident which showed the complete dominance of the military power over civilian government and rights. 'Lieutenant von Forstner, of the garrison, one day re- marked in the street that he would give ten marks to any sol- dier who would run his bayonet through an Alsatian blackguard. In spite of popular indignation he was upheld by his superiors, . . . but he was afraid to appear in the streets without a corpor- al's guard. He still further earned the hatred of the town by striking with his sword a lame shoemaker who had laughed at him.' Among the unmilitaristie classes in Germany there was great indignation; but in the Reichstag, the ministry, by order of the Emperor, upheld the army, without compromise or apology. "Prussian Poland and North Schleswig fare little if any better. The three and a half million Poles in Prussia have been subjected in recent years to more severe persecutions than their compatriots in autocratic Russia. They have, of course, been deprived of their own laws since 1815. More recently, their religious liberty Noies and References 179 has been restricted, and the PoHsh language forbidden in educa- tion, in pubhc business, and (with certain temporary exceptions) in public meetings, though the great majority of the Polish people understand no other language. As a supreme effort at assimila- tion the Prussian Government has been trying, partly by vast ex- penditure of money and partly by force, to compel the Poles to sell their lands and to introduce German colonists to take their places. This interference with the Polish laws, religion, language, and property was not provoked in the first instance by disloyalty, though the Poles have become disloyal in consequence of it. Nor have the 150,000 Danes in North Schleswig been saved by their inoffensive obscurity, their Lutheran religion, or even their Teutonic blood, from similar persecutions, with similar results. If left in German hands Belgium may expect to be another Schleswig, another Poland. "In Austria-Hungary the situation is even worse. The South Slavs and the Koumanians in Hungary have been deprived of the right to vote (although guaranteed to them in 1867) ; their educational institutions have been hampered or closed, their eco- nomic development interfered with. And this is the work of the Hungarian Government v/hich has Germany's warmest approval in all such measures." Taken from "Annotations" accompanying the President's Flag Day Address, pp. 23-24. 2. P. 46. Ibid. 2a. P. 47. See Russia in Upheaval, by E. A. Ross (Cen- tury Company, 1918), pp. 122-3. 3. P. 53. "It is our sacred duty to sharpen the sword that has been put into our hands and to hold it ready for defense as well as for offense. We must allow the idea to sink into the minds of our people that our armaments are an answer to the armaments and policy of the French. We must accustom them to think that an offensive war on our part is a necessity, in order to combat the provocations of our adversaries. We must act with prudence so as not to arouse suspicion and to avoid the crises which might injure our economic existence. We must so manage matters that under the heavy weight of powerful arma- ments, considerable sacrifices, and strained political relations the precipitation of war (Losschlagen) should be considered as a relief, because after it would come decades of peace and pros- perity, as after 1870." (Memorandum of the German Govern- ment on the strengthening of the German Army, Berlin, March 180 Notes and References 19, 1913; French Yellow Book, Carnegie edition, 1915, I, p. 542.) From "Annotations" accompanying the President's Flag Day Address, p. 13. 4. P. 53. "You say that a good cause hallows even war. I tell you that a good war hallows every cause." Friedrich Nietzsche, Also Sprach Zarathustra, Chapter on "Wars and Warriors," in Conquest and Kultur, p. 32. Chapter V — The Sources of the German Strength 1. P. 55. One who would have a correct picture of the hard work of the German officers and of the strictness with which they are held to their tasks can perhaps do no better than read the book Seine Englische Frau by Rudolph Stratz, translated under the title His English Wife by A. C. Curtis. (Longman's 1915.) 2. P. 56. Karl Kautsky, the Editor of Neue Zeit said in January, 1914: "What, indeed, is the army? It is termed the people in arms. To it belong all men capable of bearing arms, whether they are actually domiciled in barracks or not. One who should speak of a gulf between those who are and those who are not fit for military service would be regarded as a fool. No. When the army is spoken of, something entirely different is meant — it is the caste of officers, who consider themselves the army, the upholders of the defense of the nation. As a matter of fact, there is as deep a line of demarcation running through the army as that which has been created in agricultural and industrial life between the great owners of the materials of production and the 'have-nots.' " In Review of Reviews, February, 1914 3. P. 57. We shall never have the right kind of civil service in our country until there is a free avenue of promotion to the highest positions. At the present time the positions that really signify something, like commissionerships, are usually awarded to men taken from the outside. The result is that no matter how able a man may be, however excellent the service that he has rendered and is capable of rendering, he sees across his way a bar marked : "Thus far and no farther." This is one of the rea- sons why the work in the civil service is so frequently spiritless, the only wonder being that it often reaches as high a degree of excellence as it does. When a few years ago in Madison, Wis- consin, the postmastership became vacant, a man was promoted from the ranks to be postmaster; the result was excellent, and Notes and References 181 it is probably no exagg-eration to say that it helped to bring the right spirit into the whole force. 4. P. 62. Dr. David Jayne Hill in his extremely interesting and valuable article, /'Impressions of the Kaiser," which appeared in Harper's Magazine for Jmie, 1918, has the following to say about the perversion of the emperor's right to bestow titles : "Every German professor is proud to wear 'the King's coat.' When he does not wear that, he is proud to wear the Order of the Red Eagle — the Black Eagle is usually too much to hope for — third or fourth class. Not to become a Geheimrath is to live a wasted life. And this is not wholly a matter of vanity. It is social status. It is more than that ; it is a baptism, a chrism, in a holy service, the service of the Emperor, who is a king by 'divine light.' Not that every German professor really believes in 'divine right' ; for, logically, that would imply the existence of a divinity, in whom frequently he does not believe. To him the expression means that the Kaiser is divinely right, because he symbolizes the might of Germany. To be a conscious part of this higher system, a privy councilor, is to attain a great height; but to be a 'Wirk- licher Geheimrat,' with the attribute of 'Excellency,' that is to reach the highest pinnacle of earthly honor attainable by a German professor. "In private many Germans would, no doubt, be disposed to smile over the strange conception of values implied in this pas- sion for decorations; but no one would dispute the fact that the expectation of imperial recognition exerts a powerful influence over the German mind. It would, no doubt, be unjust to say that these honors work the miracle of making otherwise democratic minds imperialistic. The more exact statement would be, that, to minds already bred to imperialism, these honors have a value which to others they could never seem to possess, and are on that account an important means of extending the influence which the Kaiser is able to exert over thought and its expression by the learned world." I hesitate to disagree with Dr. Hill, but I cannot believe that the view he presents is at all adequate. Things have not been going well in the German monarchies in recent years, that is to be admitted ; and doubtless the power to bestow recognition has often been perverted to secure humiliating subservience, but for the most part during the nineteenth century, so far as I am able to judge, recognition by those in authority has promoted excel- 182 Notes and References lence and helped build up good leadership. For us in the United States the lesson is to be found in the establishment and cultiva- tion of sources of honor appropriate to a democracy. Chapter VI — The Struggle for Equality of Opportunity in American History 1. P. 68. Annual Report of the Comptroller of the Cur- rency. Figures for years 1774 to 1860, inclusive, taken from Vol. 2 of the 1916 Report. Figures from 1879 to 1917, inclu- sive, taken from Vol. 1 of the 1917 Report. la. P. 72. See the work Applied Eugenics by Popenoe & Johnson, Ch. Ill, "Differences Among Men." Published in the Macmillan Social Science Text Book Series, 1918. 2. P. 75. From Educational Reform: Essays and Addresses I)y C. W. Eliot, Chapter VIII, "An Average Massachusetts Grammar School," pp. 191-193. (The Century Co., N. Y., 1898.) 3. P. 77. We have common and high school training empha- sizing literary learning, and looking toward the so-called "learned professions." These professions once ranking highest, equality of opportunity seemed to mean that all should have a chance at them. Thus the schooling of the lower grades has been a narrow bookish process; and the system has done little, until recently, for the farmer, the craftsman, or the clerk. We have had a theory of equality of opportunity based upon aristocratic contempt for the crafts and the basic kinds of useful economic service. 4. P. 79. Hamlin Garland, Son of the Middle Border, pp. 174-175 (The Macmillan Company, N. Y., 1917). From such classes the I. W. W. is recruited. This organization is chiefly ' composed of unskilled agricultural laborers in the upper middle states of the plains, and in the far west. "The I. W. W.," says Mr. Carleton H. Parker, "is but a phenomenon of revolt. The cure lies in taking care of its psychic antecedents." ("The I. W. W.," Atlantic Monthly, November, 1917, p. 662.) The most influential I. W. W. leader, when asked why the I. W. W. was unpatriotic said: "You ask me why the I. W. W. is not patriotic to the United States'? If you were a bum without a blanket; if you had left your wife and kids when you went West for a job, and had never located them since; if your job never kept you long enough in a place to qualify you Notes and References 183 to vote; if you slept in a lousy sour bunk-house, and ate food just as rotten as they could give you and get by with it ; if deputy sheriffs shot your cooking cans full of holes and spilled your grub on the ground; if your wages were lowered on you when the bosses thought they had you down; if there was one law for Ford, Suhr, and Mooney, and another for Harry Thaw; if every person who represented law and order and the nation beat you up, railroaded you to jail, and the good Christian people cheered and told them to go to it, how in hell do you expect a man to be patriotic?" This is a howl of rage of a neglected class which rises while the public, clinging to wOm-out formulas of freedom of compe- tition, prevents the experts from applying proper remedies. What does the complaint contain : lack of properly co-ordinated employ- ment exchanges, lack of industrial housing, and lack of efficient camp canteens. It speaks of hard wage bargaining, of the law's delays, and the mischievous complexities of our trial procedure and it points to our ridiculous system of handling tramps under the fee system. Who is to blame? On the one hand, the public is to blame, because it has not chosen the experts from its member- ship, and set them at work upon these problems. On the other hand, we must blame the evil in men's nature as it is revealed in the perverse leadership of the I. W. W. Those who have misled men in ways of deviltry and those who have been misled are not to escape all blame, as some soft sentimentalists would have us think. But it may be admitted that especial responsibility at- taches to those higher up in the scale, who have had the advan- tages of culture and wealth and have used these advantages thoughtlessly and selfishly, in the spirit of Cain, seeming to say, "Am I my brother's keeper f 5. P. 85. When Blood is Their Argument^ by Fred Madox Hueffer (Hodder & Stoughton, 1915), p. 11. Chapter VII — Tests of Actual and Proposed Social and Political Measures 1. P. 93. The experience of Wisconsin gives ample demon- stration of what is here said, and it is desirable that this experi- ence should serve as a warning to all other states which have not gone so far as we in Wisconsin have in this wrong way. Our sys- tem has made it extremely difflcult^ if not practically impossible, 184 Notes and References 'for certain classes of men to become candidates for elective office, and among these men who are shut out from elective office, there may be those who would be most useful; and particularly, in a great crisis like the present, it is deplorable that selection cannot be made freely from all ranks of citizens. With a professor in the White House, who looms up large as a gTeat leader of the na- tions of the world, it is at least conceivable that a professor in the University of Wisconsin might render service of high order in Congress; but the opinion has been expressed by those whose opinion has great weight that a professor should resign from the University before even becoming a. candidate, that he should not even be granted leave of absence until elected. While this opinion has never received formal official sanction, it throws a lurid light upon primary elections. Whether the opinion that a professor should resign before allowing his name to be used as a candidate for Congress is wise or not, strong grounds can be given for it. First, we have the ordeal of the primary for nomination, then the election after nomination; and there is danger that the political contest would make enemies for the University in the state legis- lature. There is little or no chance for non-partisan nominations and elections under the Wisconsin primary system. Under the old convention system nomination could come without contest, and it was possible that without any unseemly political wrangling and machinations a candidate could be elected and that without the expenditure of large sums of money or such an unreasonable ex- penditure of time as to interfere with one's duties while a candi- date. It is suggested that the primary system in Wisconsin is a fruitful field for exploitation both for monographic studies and for clever journalists. Wisconsin has done many things of which all citizens of the State may well be proud, but the primary elec- tion laws are reactionary, not progressive, and at best it is going to take a long time to recover from their disastrous effects. Wise men, like the late Colonel William F. Vilas, probably Wisconsin's greatest citizen, warned us against the system as undemocratic, but only to be upbraided and denounced as non-progressive and an old fogy, if not a friend of the "interests." 2. P. 100. See article, "Schwab, Leader of Men," by Frank Parker Stockbridge in The World's Work for July, 1918. Notes and References 185 Chapter VIII — The Foundations of Leadership 1. P. 108. "The Vision for Which We Fight" is the title of a forthcoming book by A. M. Simons. 2. P. 110. Los Angeles, California, appears to be among the leaders in helping to make naturalization what it should be. The plan there is to have a public ceremony when each class is ready for papers with music, pictures, speeches, etc. Also "Citizenship Schools" have been established in that city and the teacher's certificate is accepted by the judge in place of the unsatisfactory oral examination. 3. P. 112. For this purpose our best thinkers and most patri- otic citizens of all economic classes — employers and employees, socialists and non-socialists — are giving constantly increasing support to the "League to Enforce Peace" ; but observe, it is to enforce peace, and this means military service, now and hereafter. This is certainly the opinion of the leaders of this League. This idea, was brought out. again and again in the speeches before the meeting of the League in Philadelphia in May of this year, and every utterance in favor of universal military training and service was most warmly applauded. 4. P. 115. Surgeon General Blue has stated in an address be- fore the General Federation of Woman's Clubs, held at Hot Springs, Arkansas, May 3, 1918, that the report of the Provost Marshal General shows that approximately twenty-nine per cent, of registrants examined for the draft were rejected on account of pTiysical or mental defects. The first and most important fact to be grasped in this connection, he said, was that in a large propor- tion of instances, the physical defects that so commonly handicap adults in the struggle for a livelihood would not exist if they had been properly dealt with in childhood. 5. P. 117. Being Well Born, by Michael F. Guyer, pp. 302- 304. 6. P. 118. Ibid., pp. 306-307. 7. P. 119. For an illuminating discussion of the relations be- tween "the leaders and the led" in a democracy see "The Principle of Balance" by Edward Alsworth Ross in the American Journal of 'Sociology for May, 1918. 8. P. 120. Taken from "The Duty and Discipline Movement" circular letter. (117 Victoria Street, London, S.W., England.) 186 Notes and References Chapter X — Leadership in Public Life 1. P. 135. American Magazine, April, 1918, p. 16. 2. P. 136. Ex-President Eliot has said that one weakness of the United States is lack of consideration for the expert. This weakness is shown in American legislation, which is seldom framed in consultation with experts, and which embodies in law a mass of detailed provisions which could be much better supplied by the public officer to fit the conditions of execution. 3. P. 144. "But several things will have to be done by our public school system before education can become the powerful instrument of social progTess which it should be. In the first place, more attention will have to be given to the finding and training of social leaders than has yet been given. Nothing great is accomplished in human society without leadership; and ad- vances in a high civilization depend upon finding and training leaders along many lines. The higher institutions of education should be especially charged with this function. They are making a beginning, to be sure, in Western civilization in finding and training leaders along a number of lines ; but the general field of social leadership they are still largely neglecting. They are pro- ducing experts in law and medicine, in agriculture and engineer- ing, but experts in dealing with the larger problems of human liv- ing together very rarely ; yet these latter are the ones most needed. The superior society of the future, in other words, must be pro- duced just as we are to produce the superior engine. It must be produced by the trained scientific mind that knows social facts and forces so that it can map out and plan a superior social organiza- tion. The superior individual and the superior society are not antitheses, but correlatives. Only our educational system must be brought to realize that social values are not carried by indi- viduals alone or wholly wrapped up in the concept of personality; but that they are also carried by institutional forms and inhere in the larger social life. "We must pay attention to the development of the individual and his personality ; but we should do so remem- bering that that development is largely for the sake of society, that is to say the larger life of humanity." The Scientific Monthly, November, 1917. "The Educational Theory of Social Progress," by Professor Charles A. Ellwood. 4. P. 144. " 'It is no clap-trap to say that this is a chemists' war and that it may be won in a laboratory/ said Major S. M. J. Nates and Beferences 18'7 Auld, Chemical Advisor of the British Military Mission, in his address at the City Club on March 21. 'There is always, for in- stance, the possibility of a gas being discovered against which there is no protection under conditions which prevail in the field. The side which does this first has pretty nearly won the w^ar. Both sides are striving for this and it is work for your best chemists. " 'Gas has come to stay in this war. Few persons not at the front realize the extent to which it is used. Nearly one-fourth of the German shells are gas shells. Fifty thousand of such shells were fired into one town in a few hours one night. The French estimated that a million of them were fired against a few miles of their front within a month.' "England did not at first appreciate her chemists, according to Major Auld. Many of them, he said, were allowed to go to the front when they should have been kept at home for research. After the development of gas warfare, a body of chemists was organized to go into the trenches to do the gas fighting, but it was soon discovered that it was work for plumbers, not for chemists. 'Chemists now, however, are not taken to the front except for scientific work that must be done in the field or just behind the lines. There are laboratories, for instance, where German shells are examined in order that we may know at all times what the Germans are up to. A chemical advisor is at- tached to each headquarters staff.' " The City Club Bulletin, Chicago, Vol. XI, No. 12, Monday, March 25, 1918, p. 103. 5. P. 149. One great defect in our American university is the failure to place the professorship where it should be. Too often as compared with the president of the university on the one hand and the successful business man on the other hand, the professor seems a very humble man as he is generally an underpaid man ; and sometimes he is looked upon as a mere hired man. Probably few trustees of our higher institutions of learning would be will- ing to concede the point for which the professors are contending that the professor is not to be looked upon as an employee any more than a justice of the Supreme Court, but as an appointee, no more to be controlled by the trustees than the Justice by the ap- pointing power. Only one great benefactor of an American uni- versity seems to have had it clearly in mind to exalt the professor- ship and that one is the late William F. Vilas, whose will, a great educational document, provided for professorships with salaries 188 Notes and References from five to ten thousand dollars, with assistantships, funds for research, limitation of teaching that could be required to three hours a. week ; and jDrovision was especially made for tenure of office during good behavior after a possible three year probation- ary period. This means eventually life tenure as cause for ter- mination of the professorship has to be proved before a specially described tribunal. Owen Wister in his wonderful book The Pentecost of Calam- ity, describes the astonishment of men of other nations that we so long kept silence after the invasion of Belgium, the sinking of the Lusitania, and other German atrocities. He quotes these lines from tlie London Punch on the sinking of the Lusitania: " 'In silence you have looked on felon blows, On butcher's work of which the waste lands reek; Now, in God's name, from Whom your greatness flows. Sister, will you not speak f" (P. 134.) The question is especially asked why our universities should have remained dumb. To this Mr, Wister replied: "Our universities do not and cannot sit like yours in high seats, inspiring public opinion." (p. 135.) The professorship in the American university must occupy a very different position from that which it now holds before our universities will, as Mr, Wister says, "sit in high seats, inspiring public opinion." Simply to avoid any misapi3rehension, I want to say that for my part I feel that we must retain the leadership of the presi- dency of the American university while at the same time putting the professorship where it should be. Our American experience shows the necessity of the presidency under our American con- ditions. While it should be changed as well as the professorship, the presidency is to be looked upon as a necessary good rather than as a necessary evil. We have in what is here said a great educational program requiring the best brains we have for its solution. This is not the place to enter into a discussion of this problem. Chapter XI — Six Lamps of Social Progress 1. P, 160, The Atlantic Monthly, June, 1918. 2, P. 161. "He cannot make any effective advance towards na- Notes and References 189 tional fulfillment merely by educating himself and his fellow- countrymen as individuals to a higher intellectual and moral level, because an essential condition of really edifying individual educa- tion is the gTadual process of collective education by means of col- lective action and formative collective discipline. On the other hand, this task of collective education is far from being complete in itself. It necessarily makes far greater demands upon the individual than does a system of comparative collective irre- sponsibility. It implies the selection of peculiarly competent, energetic, and responsible individuals to perform the peculiarly difficult and exacting parts in a socially constructive drama; and it implies, as a necessary condition of such leadership, a prog- ressively higher standard of individual training and achievement, unofficial as well as official, throughout the whole community. The process of educating men of moral and intellectual stature sufficient for the performance of important constructive work cannot be disentangled from the process of national fulfillment by means of intelligent collective action. American nationality will never be fulfilled except under the leadership of such men ; and the American nation will never obtain the necessary leadership unless it seeks seriously the redemption of its national responsi- bility." Promise of American Life, by Herbert Croly (The Macmillan Company, 1909), p. 428. 3. P. 161. Educational Reform, by Charles W. Eliot, Chap- ter XVIII, "The Function of Education in Democratic Society," p. 415. 4. P. 161. Ibid., p. 416. 5. P. 161. "The common citizen can become something of a saint and something of a hero, not by growing to heroic propor- tions in his own person, but by the sincere and enthusiastic imita- tion of heroes and saints, and whether or not he will ever come to such imitation will depend upon the ability of his exceptional fellow-countrymen to offer him acceptable examples of heroism and saintliness." Promise of American Life, by Herbert Croly, p. 454. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 'T^HE following pages contain advertisements of books by the same author or on kindred subjects. The Foundations of National Prosperity By RICHARD T. ELY, RALPH H. HESS, CHARLES K. LEITH, AND THOMAS NIXON CARVER Cloth, 8vo, $2.00 "A most useful assembling of closely related problems and the facts about them — highly stimulating to constructive thought on some of the most vital issues of to-day and to-morrow." — Duluih Herald. This book emphasizes the thought that conservation is to be regarded as a treatment of the foundation of national prosperity. It deals with the permanent causes of the wealth of nations. The titanic war struggle in which we are now involved makes it important to emphasize the fact that in conservation we have to do with national preparedness both for war and peace. There is danger that in our various measures we may direct our attention too exclusively to the needs of to-day and to-morrow, whereas nothing is more evident than that this preparedness must be a lasting all- around condition. While this volume treats primarily of prosperity and preparedness from the standpoint of permanency, it also has lessons for the immediate moment. Part I deals with the more general aspects of the subject, bringing it particularly into relation to economic theory. Conservation policies are considered and the fact that these are chiefly land policies is brought out. Part II discusses the relation of conservation to economic evolution, showing that each stage in economic evolution must have its own conser- vation policies. Part III gives an authoritative presentation of the minerals which play a peculiar part in conservation. And Part IV deals with the human resources for which the natural re- sources exist. This section is critical and leads to a very careful examina- tion of remedies for social evils, because it looks below the phenomena of the day to the permanent effects of our methods in deaUng with human beings. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Publishera 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York Property and Contract in Their Relation to the Distribution of Wealth By RICHARD T. ELY, Ph.D., LL.D. Of the University of Wisconsin; Author of "Outlines of Economics," Editor of "The Citizen's Library," etc. Cloth, 8°, 2 vols., $4.00 A special law library edition, sheep, $7.50 "I am sure the great value of this monumental work will make itself felt more and more as those who study the subject are compelled by the neces- sity of the case to make use of it. There is nothing else on the subject worth talking about. "I may say also that in my seminar in jurisprudence here, I am using the book and that five or six teachers in law schools, who are here studying with me this year, will go out at the end of the year thoroughly familiar with it, to make use of it in their work." — Roscoe Pound, Dean of the Faculty of Law, Harvard University. "Professor Ely's work on Property and Contract is much more than a timely book, it is a timeless book, in the sense that much of it will be as valuable fifty years hence as it is to-day. He has founded unshakably the social conception of property and demonstrated for all time the necessity of adjusting legal notions of property to altered circumstances brought about by economic and social development. The student of society rises from the book with the feeling that the reading of it has deepened his in- sight and made him a wiser counsellor of his fellowmen." — E. A. Ross, Professor of Sociology, University of Wisconsin. "I think that Professor Ross's praise is altogether deserved. I had al- ready referred to Property and Contract in my classes as probably the most important treatise in economics yet done in America. ... I gained from my dissertation studies at Iowa and Columbia the ideas that economics will not be written soundly nor beyond the passing phases of the market so long as it is done from the standpoint of the market, rather than from that of institutions of property. I shall use your book with advanced students." — J. H. 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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York Outlines of Economics By Richard T. Ely, Ph.D., LL.D., Professor of Political Economy at the University of Wisconsin ; Thomas S. Adams, Ph.D., Professor of PoU'tical Economy at Yale University ; Max O. Lorenz, Associate Statistician of the Interstate Commerce Commission, and Professor A. A. Young, of Cornell. Third Revised Edition, Cloth, 8vo, $2.25 "It is a sign of the times when such a standard and authoritative book as this requires such revision for its third edition that it was not possible to use the old type. The chapters on transportation, insurance, socialism, and agriculture needed expansion to include legislation. The Federal Reserve system demanded a chapter to itself, and so did labor legislation. The statistics and references have been brought down to date, and 'the book in general is more useful to the teacher, and more attractive to the reader. 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