: 766 .C9 copy 2 WILSON AND THE ISSUES BY GEORGE CREEL Class .^£1:Z4A Book_ /I ... CopjTigtt^J CCPXRIGHT DEPOSm WILSON AND THE ISSUES J i WILSON AND THE ISSUES BY GEORGE CREEL NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO, 1916 C^f^, Copyright, 1916, by The Cektury Co. ^ Published, September, 1916 .^ SEP 14 1316 7t^ M) CONTENTS OHAPTEB PAGE I Democracy's Test 3 II Mexico 10 III Belgium and the Lusitania . . 34 IV ''National Honor" 46 V Manufacturing Hysteria ... 57 VI The National Defense . . . .72 VII The Case of Josephus Daniels . 88 VIII ''America First" Ill IX "Anything TO Beat Wilson" . . 129 X The Ancient Faith 147 WILSON AND THE ISSUES WILSON AND THE ISSUES CHAPTER I democracy's test WITH the possible exception of 1860, the Presidential campaign of 1916 presents issues of larger importance and more tremendous meaning than any other in the history of America. The ultimates involved go far beyond the mere individual victory or defeat of Woodrow Wilson and Charles Evans Hughes, for on the deci- sions that must be made depends the whole future of democracy. It is not simply a President of the United States that the people are called upon to elect ; it is funda- mental policies for the United States that the people are called upon to declare. 4 Wilson and the Issues There was never a time when the bigot- ries of partizanship were more akin to trea- son and betrayal ; never a time when there was such imperative demand upon the electorate for clear, unimpassioned think- ing. Where tragedy may lie is in the fact that all the dynamic forces of the day are driving in the direction of confusion, prej- udice, and stark emotionalism. Not since the fever of the sixties has the voice of the people been louder and less intelligible. At every turn, when it seemed that some ex- pression of popular sentiment might come clear and sane and strong, a new excite- ment has arisen to restore babel. A vital factor in the turmoil, and one that calls for initial comprehension, is the pe- culiar, yet definite, change in the public mind that took place as a consequence of the continuance of the European War. In the first horror of it all, when daily tid- ings of wholesale slaughter shocked Ameri- cans into renewed appreciation of the bless- ings of peace, the sentiment was unanimous that the United States ''must keep out." Democracy's Test 5 Sensibilities dulled, however, and as a very natural result of staled imaginations, the American mind soon failed to react to European despatches that told of a hundred thousand sons and fathers killed, a hundred thousand homes destroyed. It was not that our emotions became calloused ; simply that our emotions became numbed. For- mer habits of life and thought, reasserting themselves inevitably, restored the old selfishness and all the old prejudices. A certain unity, bred by common revul- sion against the insanity of conflict, be- gan to disintegrate under the influences of the partizanship stirred by that conflict; the silence of tragedy gave way to the noise of recrimination; ugly distrusts and sus- picions developed; and a vast irritability gained ground. In a word, peace got on the nerves of America. There can be no question that the moral courage of neutrality is colorless indeed when compared with the physical courage of war; when all the world is at one an- other's throats, inactivity is bound to take 6 Wilson and the Issues on an appearance of ignobility. Pro-Al- lies began to damn us as poltroons for not adopting some aggressive course that would cripple Germany, and pro-Germans berated us as cravens for not taking some aggressive course that would harass Eng- land; and between the two attacks Ameri- can pride was rubbed to the raw. It was not war that was desired — even the noisiest disavowed such urgency — and yet the average mind surged to a restless- ness compounded of wounded vanity and suppressed truculence. President Wilson, unable to hit upon a course of action that would afford all the excitement and re- clame of war without the bloodshed and desolation of war, naturally fell into dis- favor. He guarded the United States against the ultimate crime, but failed to find a soothing salve for the egotism of the United States. Mexican outrages, coming at this junc- ture, were as salt in our wounds. Ques- tions of right and wrong, consideration of facts, and due regard for the established Democracy's Test 7 procedure of redress — all were swept away by a rush of wild anger. Here at last was an open enemy, giving the chance to un- leash our fury and to vindicate the cour- age of America. The Villa raids, as a matter of fact, merely put a torch to the smoldering rages that had been piling high as a result of the European situation. This yeasty ferment, left to itself, would have bubbled awhile and quieted, but it so happened that certain great groups, as powerful as they were sinister, as cunning as they were unscrupulous, saw political opportunity in this general impatience, ir- ritability, and dissatisfaction. Exagger- ating, exasperating, magnifying incidents into events, and grievances into unbearable wrongs, stirring every pool of prejudice, and beating the gongs of alarm, they have given the campaign the note that is to their liking. National vanity is to be a dominant issue, and neither money nor political skill will be spared to prove that the President's de- votion to peace has shamed us as a nation 8 Wilson and the Issues and heaped humiliation upon every individ- ual head. The dead children of the Lusi- tania will be dragged from the ocean bed, and the bodies of Villa's victims loaded upon campaign carts for oratorical pur- poses. Bonfires of jingoism will be lighted in every market-place, so that the flame of an unreasoning emotionalism may bury all else in shadow. It is the intent to keep the people so busy feeling that they will have no time for thinking. Fundamental issues will be hidden, bur- ied from sight by flubdub. As far as may be possible, there will be avoidance of all industrial, social, and economic questions, entire emphasis being placed upon direct appeals to the passions of human nature that have their roots in anger, prejudice, and hysteria. If it is in the power of or- ganized cunning to compass it, every voter will enter the polling-place with Belgium and Mexico so firmly fixed' in mind that there will not be room for a single domes- tic problem. The whole situation constitutes a test Democracy's Test 9 of democracy. It is the capacity of a people for self-government that is on trial. It is the honesty, intelligence, and faith of the mass that are up for judgment. There is not a lie that has been told that lacks its answer ; there is not a slander for which refutation cannot be found ; there is not an ugly charge that does not come clean in the light of truth. It remains to be seen whether the people of the United States prefer facts to clamor, fairness to be- trayal, and democracy to oligarchy; in a word, whether they are able to think for themselves. CHAPTER II MEXICO THE whole Mexican matter, from Diaz to Carranza, is a singularly forceful example of the manner in which hysteria can work forgetfulness of established facts. During the Taft administration there was a clamor for intervention even as now, and Senator Stone, a Democrat, took the usual partizan advantage of an opportunity to make political capital out of a crisis. Speaking against the Stone resolution from the floor of the Senate, Elihu Root laid down this statement of the administration attitude : Granting that injuries have been done to American citizens that ought to be redressed; that wounds have been inflicted, that lives have been taken, that property has been destroyed, it does not follow, sir, that we should begin the 10 Mexico 11 process of securing redress for those injuries by a threat of force on the part of a great and power- ful nation against a smaller and weaker nation. That, sir, is to reverse the policy of the United States and to take a step backward in the path- way of civilization. There is no reason what- ever, sir, to assume, if injuries have been done of the kind described, that the government of Mexico is unwilling to make due redress upon having those injuries and claims presented to her in the ordinary course of peaceful negotiations. . . . Sympathy with the people of Mexico in their distress, a just sense of the duties that we owe to that friendly people, and the duties that we owe to the peace of the world, must forbid our assenting to or yielding to any such course. This has been the attitude of President Wilson from the first, nor has he suffered any of the sudden changes that political am- bitions have worked in Mr. Boot. Nor has public misconception of this attitude been due to any of the generous instincts aroused naturally by Belgium's desolation or the horror of the Lusitania. Back of the Mexican outcry lie the huge stakes gambled for by American concessionaires, and the insistence upon intervention 12 Wilson and the Issues springs from a desire to have profits guar- anteed far more than from any interest in American lives. A judge would be shamed for sitting in a case where one of the litigants was his secret client, and yet Senator Fall, even while admitting his huge interests in Mex- ican concessions, does not scruple to de- mand the employment of the army of the United States where that would insure their protection. Mr. Hearst, whose papers have contributed more to hate and hysteria than any other agency, also possesses tremendous investments in Mex- ico that he seems to put above American principles and the struggle for liberty of an enslaved, oppressed people. From the very first, foreign interference has contributed as largely to Mexican dis- order as internal revolution. Documen- tary evidence is coming to light that proves the Mondragon-Keyes-Diaz plot against Madero to have been hatched with the full knowledge of Americans; it now stands admitted that Huerta died with German Meocico 13 money in his pockets, and as far back as December, 1915, the inner circles of Wash- ington buzzed with the news that it had been arranged for Villa to kill Americans on their own soil in order to force the intervention that greed demanded. The Mexican issue is one that deserves to be understood clearly, not so much in the interest of Woodrow Wilson as in the larger interest of the American people, whose most sacred ideals are at stake. It is not a story to be told in bold slashes, however, but a painstaking chronicle of facts. First of all, there must be com- prehension of the rule of Diaz the Magnif- icent not as a republic, but as a despot- ism ; not as a shining exhibition of law and order, but as one of the world's most ter- rible examples of armed oppression. In a country of fifteen millions, ten thou- sand owned every inch of the land ; lack of public schools doomed generation after gen- eration to ignorance and illiteracy; the toilers of the nation were serfs, compelled to labor all their lives under laws that 14 Wilson and the Issues legitimized slavery and oppression; and from birth to death the great mass of Mexican people bowed under the weight of a vast hopelessness, a paralyzing despair. The wonderful natural resources of the land — for Mexico has been called the *^ treasure-house of the world" — were not used for the happiness and advancement of the fifteen millions, but became stakes to be gambled for by rapacity and corruption. The contracts by which the Pearson group obtained their oil rights were of such a character that Lord Charles Beresford branded them as disgraceful. Not satisfied with their oil privileges, the Cowdray in- terests seized two and half million hectares of land, and ports, railways, and franchises of every kind. Americans, seeing the rich prizes to be gained, deserted the develop- ment of their own country, and entered into arrangements with Diaz and his corrupt .associates for the seizure of oil, timber, salt, and mineral rights. Popular protest was impossible. The country was divided into districts, and each Meocico 15 district was ruled by a jefe politico , respon- sible only to the Federal Government and with unlimited power, controlling the po- lice, drawing recruits for the army, super- vising elections — the agent^ in fact, by which a central tyranny was able to work out its plans in detail and make them appli- cable to any part of the country without consideration of local authority or public sentiment. A prophet came, — a magician, if you will,— for at the very shout of '* Justice!" that he raised, the Diaz dynasty, seemingly impregnable, crumbled and fell. Indubi- tably it was a dream that held Francisco Madero, for freedom and justice have ever been dream words far removed from the sordid mathematics of ''practical men." The fact remains, however, that he was put- ting foundations under his dream when out of a clear sky came a revolt that was not the revolt of the Mexican people, but a murderous uprising of janizaries, quick- ened to treachery and assassination by alien plotters. 16 Wilson and the Issues There can be small doubt tbat a practical President would have recognized Huerta, for it was obviously the course dictated by self-interest as well as by the surface fer- ment of public opinion. Backed by the ap- proval of the United States, the dictator could have strengthened himself in such manner as to restore a semblance of peace and to protect American concessions, requi- sites that would have permitted the Presi- dent to wash his hands in approved Pilate style. Judged by every fact in the case, Wood- row Wilson's repudiation of Huerta was in no sense the result of a carefully reasoned determination, but unmistakably the in- stinctive recoil of the democratic spirit. Mental processes are never free from the impingements of self-interest. It is only in the unthinking passions of idealism that there is found the courage to do the right thing rather than that which is expedient and opportunistic. "While recognition of Huerta was the wise course, as practicality defines wisdom, Mexico 17 it was not the right course. The acknowl- edgment that he asked involved a sanction of assassination and acquiescence in the legitimacy of murder as a substitute for constitutional procedure. The issue was clean-cut then, and it stands clean-cut to-day. Not all the an- gers and vexations of the years can cloud it. To have taken the hand of the drunken, brutal assassin, wet with the blood of his benefactor, would have announced to the world that America had reached the point where nothing but the basest greed had power to move or determine ; would have confessed to every citizen that self-respect was no longer essential. Aside from the assertion of moral and spiritual integrity, however, the denial of Huerta is now seen to have had other and more material advantages. Had he been recognized as despot, he would have re- stored the tyrannies of Diaz and continued the slavery of the people, thus adding new terrors to the day of reckoning that was bound to come. He died in the pay of 18 Wilson and the Issues Germany, and as dictator he would have lived at the disposal of his European pa- tron, an ever-present menace to our peace. Whether it is considered as a challenge to sordidness and an affirmation of ancient faith or as an intelligent refusal to legiti- mize a peril, President Wilson's rejection of Huerta stands as a great and splendid act, and those who attack him on this ground betray themselves beyond ex- planation. If further proof were needed of Wood- row Wilson's devotion to democratic ideals, it is furnished by his attitude in those trying days when ^ 'watchful waiting" provided laughter for cynics and an open avenue of attack for jingoes and concession- aires. With almost incredible hypocrisy, intervention was urged '4n the interests of civilization" by the very class most re- sponsible for industrial strife in Colorado, West Virginia, and Michigan, for the child- labor horror, for housing evils, and the existence of slums. Meocico 19 Nothing could have been more skilful than the fashion in which these conces- sionaires, working through a venal press and equally venal public men, identified their threatened profits with ^'the nation ^s honor/' Jingoes were aroused, likewise those whose only estimate of national greatness lies in military achievement, also the youth of the country, with youth 's usual reckless passion for adventure. There is every certainty that in the beginning intervention would have been supported unstintedly by the people. Even as we have seen the socialists of Eu- rope, pledged to peace, swept away by high tides of racial feeling, so would every paci- fist protest in the United States been drowned out by the boom of the first Amer- ican gun. War is always glorious until the lists of dead and wounded begin to come, and it must be remembered also that for years it had been the custom for public men to soothe the people with the laudanum of brag and bluster. 20 Wilson and the Issues The President's speech at Mobile came as more than any mere explanation of pol- icy ; it flamed forth as the most illuminating exposition of the spirit of democracy since Lincoln bared his soul at Gettysburg : Human rights, national integrity, and oppor- tunity as against material interests — that is the issue we have to face. . . . This is not America because it is rich. This is not America because it has set up for a great population great oppor- tunities for material prosperity. America is a name which soimds in the ears of men every- where as a synonym with individual oppor- tunity because a synonym of individual liberty. I would rather belong to a poor nation that was free than to a rich nation that had ceased to be in love with liberty. ... Do not think that the questions of the day are mere questions of policy and diplomacy. They are shot through with the principles of life. We dare not turn from the principle that morality and not expediency is the thing that must guide us, and that we will never condone iniquity because it is most convenient to do so. Again, in his Indianapolis speech, he flung this challenge of democracy full in the teeth of jingoes and concessionaires : Mexico 21 I hold it as a fundamental principle, and so do you, tliat every people has the right to deter- mine its own form of government, and until this recent revolution in Mexico, until the end of the Diaz reign, eighty per cent, of the people of Mexico never had a look-in in determining who should be their governors or what their govern- ment should be. It is none of my business, and it is none of your business, how long they take in determining it. It is none of my business, and it is none of yours, how they go about the business. The country is theirs, the government is theirs, and the liberty, if they can get it, — and God speed them in getting it ! — is theirs, and so far as my influence goes, while I am President, nobody shall interfere with it. Haven't the European nations taken as long as they wanted and spilled as much blood as they pleased in settling their affairs ? Shall we deny that to Mexico because she is weak? It was at tlie moment of extreme tension that the Tampico incident occitrred to harass and complicate. More than any other one thing this has been seized upon by the forces of falsehood and prejudice, Mr. Root declaring it to have been a carefully 22 Wilson and the Issues planned move against Huerta, others branding it as mad and needless, and still others reserving their mendacity for the charge that American ships were with- drawn at a time of danger, forcing Ameri- can citizens to seek refuge under foreign flags. These are the facts: On April 9, 1914, the Huerta officials at Tampico arrested the whale-boat crew of the Dolphin, and Admiral Mayo, in addi- tion to the release of the men, demanded a salute to the flag by way of apology. The ultimatum was delivered without Washing- ton's knowledge or authorization, the Ad- miral exercising his own judgment in the emergency, just as Dewey did at Manila Bay. Instantly the whole question shifted from one of fixed policy, and centered about the decision as to whether Admiral Mayo should be repudiated or upheld. Whatever may have been his personal feeling in the matter, President Wilson did not hesitate to throw the full power of the United States in support of the Admiral's action. Under Admiral Mayo at Tampico were Mexico 23 the Dolphin, Des Moines, Chester, Connect- icut, Mifinesota, San Francisco, the trans- port Hancock, the hospital-ship Solace, and the collier Cyclops. Under Admiral Fletcher at Vera Cruz were the battle-ships Florida and Utah and the transport Prai- rie. As ranking officer, Admiral Fletcher was in full command, and never at any time did Admiral Mayo communicate directly with Washington, reporting throughout to Fletcher. To reinforce the fleets in Mexican waters. Admiral Badger, with the Atlantic squadron, was ordered on April 13 to sail from Hampton Koads. After the initial excitement, affairs at Tampico quieted, and, on April 14, Ad- miral Fletcher advised Washington as follows: ^^ Rebels abandoned attack on Tampico and withdrew. The six hundred refugees on board ships there have been returned to their homes, business is re- sumed, and conditions there again appear normal." On April 15 he reported, *' Slight skirmishes in outer trenches"; on April 16 he did not communicate ; on April 24 Wilson and the Issues 17 he declared, ''All quiet''; on April 18, ''Condition unchanged''; and on April 19, "No new developments at Tampico." In the meantime Washington was press- ing for the apology that Huerta evaded. A possible reason for his delay was the ex- pected arrival at Vera Cruz of the German steamer Ypiranga, bearing a great cargo of arms and ammunition. To punish Huerta for his continued defiance of the Mayo ulti- matum, Washington decided to seize the custom-house, and if the delivery of the Ypiranga's cargo was to be prevented, the seizure had to be made before the steamer's arrival. As a consequence, the order went to Admiral Fletcher on April 20. Vera Cruz was now the center of opera- tions. Guided by this, Secretary Daniels' military advisers suggested that he order Mayo to Vera Cruz v/ith all his ships except the Des Moines. The reason was that Ad- miral Fletcher's battle-ships were com- pelled to lie five miles out at sea, while Mayo's light-draft vessels would be able to enter the harbor. Not only did daily Meaoico 25 reports show that conditions were normal at Tampico, but Admiral Badger, with the Atlantic squadron, was only a few hours away from that port. In the twinkling of an eye conditions changed. Almost in the moment that Mayo was reading his order to proceed to Vera Cruz, Tampico experienced a new outbreak that menaced life and property. Natu- rally enough, Admiral Mayo sent a wireless message to Admiral Fletcher, telling him of the explosion, and suggesting that he be allowed to remain. With equal common sense, Admiral Fletcher applied his own decisions to the emergency. Getting into communication with Admiral Badger, then at a point equidistant from both Tampico and Vera Cruz, he asked that the Atlantic squadron change its destination and come to Vera Cruz. This request approved, he gave orders to Mayo to send him the San Francisco and the Chester at full speed, but to remain at Tampico with the rest of his ships. As the naval experts had foreseen, these 26 Wilson and the Issues light-draft vessels from Mayo's fleet made possible the quick and decisive occupation of Vera Cruz, entering the harbor to pro- tect the landing-parties, and shelling the buildings that held snipers. From Badg- er's battle-ships poured the marines that gave Fletcher his necessary land strength. While these things were happening at Vera Cruz, Admiral Mayo, lying at the mouth of the Panuco Eiver, six miles from Tampico, was considering the prob- lem of saving human life. Had Amer- icans been concentrated in Tampico, his task would have been simple, but there were many foreigners of various nationalities scattered throughout the entire oil-region, far removed from the protection of Mayo's guns. The captains of the English and German warships made formal representation of the danger to which these people would be exposed should Mayo appear before Tampico with his squadron, and asked that they be allowed to gather the refugees slowly and quietly and deliver them to the American ships. Mexico 27 Impressed by the wisdom of the sugges- tion, Admiral Mayo again sent the follow- ing message to Admiral Fletcher: Arranged as last resort to go in this morning to bring out Americans. Felt almost sure such action would precipitate hostilities. British captain whom I informed of my purpose re- quested me for the sake of all foreigners not to come in, but that he would send Americans out, to which I agreed. Hostilities were averted, likewise a pos- sible massacre, no property was destroyed, and not a single life was lost. Vera Cruz, occupied, worked the downfall of Huerta; the rise of a new order permitted evacua- tion and the resumption of the policy of non-interference. A plain, straight-run- ning record, rendered ugly and confused only by suppression and distortion. The Wilson policy with regard to the protection of American life and property in Mexico has been stated succinctly and re- peatedly. Property loss will be expressed in damages and collected in the course of recognized procedure, but the safety of 28 Wilson and the Issues citizens cannot be guaranteed against the lawlessness of guerilla bands eager to em- barrass the established Government by acts of violence. Safe escort has been offered repeatedly, and those Americans who re- main in Mexico do so of their own will and despite warning. At the very moment when Republican clamor was greatest against President Wilson because of his refusal to send in an army for the protection of those who per- sisted in subjecting themselves to risk, the Republican party was recording itself in favor of the proposition that Americans had no rights on the high seas that Ger- many was bound to respect. Of the four- teen votes in the Senate in favor of the resolution warning Americans off of Eng- lish ships, twelve were cast by Republicans, while of the one hundred and forty-two votes in the House, one hundred and two were those of Republicans. The Villa raid across the border, like the Tampico incident, was another of those emergencies that defy fixed policies, yet Mexico 29 even under its strain President Wilson re- mained steadfast, insisting that pursuit must not be regarded as other than a puni- tive expedition, carrying no purpose incon- sistent with the integrity and independence of Mexico. And yet again, as in every other crisis, he was compelled to labor against all the forces of hatred and treason. With the punitive expedition far into Mex- ico, every peon aflame with suspicion and distrust, and Carranza balancing between his pledged word to the United States and the anger of his own people, both Republi- can and Progressive conventions in Chicago wrote platforms that breathed war and conquest in every line. Giving edge to the furious alarm thus bred in the Mexican heart was the contempt for the United States that had been inspired by the unscrupulous and the venal, with their re- peated declarations that the American peo- ple were poltroons, that Wilson was a cow- ard, and that the United States could not whip any nation but Haiti. Is it any won- der tha^ there was a Carrizal? 30 Wilson and the Issues Always the sordid, vicious or reckless; never the sane, the democratic, and the pa- triotic. A principal source of President Wilson's difficulties is thus traced by Mr. J. W. Slaughter, writing in **The Public": It was also possible during the period of wait- ing to test the quality of the newspaper represen- tatives whose work was to guide the public opinion of a great nation with reference to a weaker neighbor. One always expects that eagerness for news will lead to an irresponsible grasping of rumors, but one was hoping that there would be some ability to interpret events, to see under the waves to the ground swell and cur- rent, to grasp the significant even if they were compelled to report the trivial. Nearly all the writing done to shape American opinion within the period of my intimate acquaintance with Mexican affairs came from boys with no more political insight than is usually found on a col- lege campus, acting under definite orders as to what they should see and report. Mr. James Hopper, in an able article in *' Collier's," backs up Mr. Slaughter's ob- servation : Mexico 31 Of those wlio have no interests in Mexico, though, there is another kind — and I think they form the majority. They are those who not only own nothing in Mexico, but very little in the United States. These are in favor of a scrap- any kind of a scrap. They 'd like to see the United States invade Mexico just as they like to see a Johnson fight a Jeffries, or anybody fight anybody, or any dog any other dog : just to see the fight or read about it. To that category be- long most of the newspaper men who write from El Paso. And me, too, when I am feeling good. Out of the babel the voice of Woodrow Wilson is the one voice that has come clear and strong ; his declarations alone bear any relation to the governing principles of American life. To the professional paci- fists he has returned the answer that the United States cannot and will not tolerate hostile incursions without the most posi- tive and drastic reprisals, and that if the Carranza Government, either from weak- ness or unwillingness, is unable to prevent such incursions, the troops of the United States will be called upon to take up the task. 32 Wilson and the Issues To the interventionists he has declared that the operations of United States troops in Mexico will be confined to a punitive and defensive character, and that even if war is brought about as a result of Carranza's inability or refusal to understand the sin- cere disinterestedness of America, the war will be waged without a single thought of conquest or acquisition of territory. Just as Mexico has been the test of Woodrow Wilson, so is it the test of the American people. From first to last the President has affirmed his belief in democ- racy not alone for the United States, but for all other nations harboring the aspira- tion. He stands on the conviction that a country has the right to live its independent life; he has not failed to remember that America came to self-government through years of blood and revolution ; as far as lies in his power he has stood firm against the *^ strong-man" theory by which the forces of reaction are trying to restore dictator- ship in Mexico. It is for the people of the United States Mexico 33 to decide whether Woodrow Wilson is to be supported in his simple, unswerving support of the fundamental principles of democracy, or whether the faith of Wash- ington, of Jefferson, and of Lincoln is to be scrapped in favor of selfishness and greed. CHAPTER III BELGIUM AND THE LUSITANIA IT is not alone the democracy of the American people that is up for test, but the commo7i honesty. Nothing is more natural than that the United States should be *' despised '^ by combatants who seek our aid and are angered by our neutrality, but if a campaign of hysteria is permitted to destroy Woodrow Wilson, it is a surrender of self-respect that will prove all con- tempt to have been deserved. The whole matter of Belgium, for in- stance, is illustrative of the attempt to have hypocrisy adopted as the governing prin- ciple of American life. Not at the time of the German invasion, or for months after- ward, was the question of a protest by the United States even suggested in Congress or in the press. Not only was there no 34 Belgium and the Lusitania 35 treaty that bound America to take action, but it was not even claimed that such treaty existed. It was months before the full meaning of the German invasion, the full horror of it, burned into the consciousness of the American people. Speaking on February 16, 1916, Elihu Boot, then a full-fledged Presidential can- didate, asserted that *^The American peo- ple were entitled not merely to feel, but to speak concerning the wrong done to Belgium. The law protecting Belgium which was violated was our law and the law of every other civilized nation.'' Better than any one else Elihu Boot knew that the United States was bound by nei- ther law nor treaty. The Hague Declara- tion that the ^^ territory of neutral powers is inviolable'' contained no means of en- forcement, and as far as the present war is concerned, nullified itself entirely by Article 20: *'The provisions of the present Convention do not apply except as between contracting parties, and then only if all the belligerents are parties to the Convention, ' ' 36 Wilson and the Issues Neither Great Britain nor Servia ever rati- fied tlie convention. Mr. Eoosevelt was President at the time, and Mr. Root his secretary of state, and if the following clause was not inserted at their specific request, at least they gave it their indorsement; ^'Nothing contained in this Convention shall be so construed as to require the United States of America to depart from its traditional policy of not intruding upon, interfering with, or en- tangling itself in the political questions of policy ... of any foreign state." A protest under this instrument was not even dreamed, much less urged. Mr. Lodge and Mr. Root and Mr. Roosevelt, now most shocked by President Wilson's *' poltroonery," were then without concep- tion of Belgium's value as a campaign issue. Not once in the year that followed the German occupation did a single Repub- lican leader in or out of Congress make de- mand upon the Government of the United States for official protest. Mr. Root was in the Senate for one year and six months Belgium and the Lusitania 37 after the invasion of Belgium, but it was not until February 16, 1916, that he ever opened his mouth to voice indignation. As for Mr. Roosevelt, who devoted the latter part of 1915 and the first six months of 1916 to attacking President Wilson for his failure to protest in the matter of Bel- gium, the following article from his pen appeared in ^'The Outlook'' under date of September 23, 1914 : A deputation of Belgians has arrived in this country to invoke our assistance in the time of their dreadful need. What action our Govern- ment can or will take I know not. It has been announced that no action can be taken that will interfere with our entire neutrality. It is cer- tainly eminently desirable that we should re- main entirely neutral, and nothing but urgent need would warrant breaking our neutrality and taking sides one way or the other. Our first duty is to hold ourselves ready to do whatever the changing circumstances demand in order to pro- tect our own interests in the present and in the future; although, for my own part, I desire to add to this statement the proviso that under no circumstances must we do anything dishonorable, especially towards unoffending weaker nations. 38 Wilson and the Issues Neutrality may be of prime necessity in order to preserve our own interests, to maintain peace in so much of the world as is not affected by the war, and to conserve our influence for helping toward the reestablishment of general peace when the time comes ; for if any outside Power is able at such time to be the medium for bringing peace, it is more likely to be the United States than any other. But we pay the penalty of this action on behalf of peace for ourselves, and pos- sibly for others in the future, by forfeiting our right to do anything on behalf of peace for the Belgians in the present. We can maintain our neutrality only by refusal to do anything to aid unoffending weak Powers which are dragged into the gulf of bloodshed and misery through no fault of their own. Of course it would he folly to jump into the gulf ourselves to no good pur- pose; and very probably nothing that we could have done would have helped Belgium. We have not the smallest responsibility for what has be- fallen her, and I am sure that the sympathy of this country for the suffering of the men, women, and children of Belgium is very real. Never- theless, this sympathy is compatible with full acknowledgment of the unwisdom of our uttering a single word of official protest unless we are pre- pared to make that protest effective; and only the clearest and most urgent National duty would Belgium and the Lusitania 39 ever justify us in deviating from our rule of neu- trality and non-interference. But it is a grim comment on the professional pacificist theories as hitherto developed that our duty to preserve peace for ourselves may necessarily mean the abandonment of all effective effort to secure peace for other unoffending nations which through no fault of their own are dragged into the war. In the light of the developments of two years, it is easy to say what should or should not have been done, but the grim fact remains that throughout the year fol- lowing the Belgian invasion neither in Con- gress nor out was there the slightest de- mand for the official championship of the Belgian cause by the United States. The role of world policeman is a pleasing one to national conceit, and many a Presi- dent other than Mr. Wilson has been called upon to suffer for upholding the traditional policy of the United States with regard to entangling alliances. Washington himself was attacked furiously because he held to neutrality during the war between England and France, and Mr. Roosevelt did not es- 40 Wilson and the Issues cape bitter censure when he refused to pro- test against the Kongo atrocities, the mur- der of Armenians, the Kishinef massacres, and against Japan's bold violation of America's treaty with Korea. The Lusitania clamor is no less the result of misunderstanding exaggerated by the Pharisaism of politicians. Mr. Hughes, taking quick cue from Mr. Roosevelt, made this declaration before his judicial robe had slipped from his shoulders to the floor : The most serious difficulties the present admin- istration has encountered have been due to its own weakness and incertitude. I am profoundly convinced that by prompt and decisive action, which existing conditions manifestly called for, the Lusitania tragedy would have been prevented. There is, to be sure, a certain uncon- scious human habit of substituting hind- sight for foresight, but not even the utmost stretch of charitable interpretation can save Mr. Hughes from the suspicion of pre- suming deliberately upon popular forget- fulness. The German warning appeared in the press on the very morning that the Belgium and the Lusitania 41 Lusitania sailed. It came as one of those things that civilization has made incredible. Such people as noticed the warning laughed at it, and not even the passengers on the doomed boat attached the slightest im- portance to it. It was not possible for the twentieth century mind to adjust itself sud- denly to the mental processes of savagery, and had Mr. Hughes been President, the Tirpitz barbarism would have shocked him with its horrid surprise just as it shocked Mr. Wilson. Another idea more or less fixed in the average mind as the result of falsehood and malice is that President Wilson, while not necessarily declaring war on Germany, should at least have expressed the coun- try's indignation by breaking off diplo- matic relations. Yet had he adopted this course he would have played into the hands of Germany as completely as could have been desired by the most enthusiastic ** hy- phen. ' ' What would have happened had Bern- storff been given his papers? For the 42 Wilson and the Issues pleasure of a moment's bumptiousness, Belgium and Poland would have gone un- fed, and Turkish cruelty would have been given free hand in Armenia ; international law would have been left without a voice, and the rights of neutral nations, the obli- gations of humanity, lost to sight in an un- checked rage of *' reprisals.'' All to what end? What would have been gained that has not been gained! Because diplomatic relations were not broken off, the United States has been per- mitted by Germany to feed the starving millions of Poland and Belgium, and the activities of Ambassador Morgenthau in behalf of butchery-threatened Armenians were not stayed. By virtue of steady, unyielding pressure, made possible only by diplomatic relations, Germany and England alike have been compelled to pay a continued regard to international law, and concession after concession has been secured by President Wilson that could not have been won by war. An even larger aspect of the matter is Belgium and the Lusitania 43 presented by the following editorial, printed in *^The New Republic' ' at the time : "Whether or not President Wilson intends to break off diplomatic relations with Germany in case he fails to receive satisfaction for his de- mands we cannot yet know ; but the consequences of such a measure of retaliation should be recog- nized. Not only would it result in the continua- tion of an unregulated submarine campaign, ad- ditional loss of life by American citizens, and a probably irresistible subsequent demand for war, but it would prevent the United States from negotiating with more than one of the major belligerents. The ability to negotiate with all of them may in the future be a matter of the ut- most importance. This war will never be stopped unless at some particular juncture a certain number of men representing the several fighting nations can be brought together to dis- cuss possible terms of peace. The United States is likely to be the most available agency for ar- ranging such a conference. It may be the only Power which will be free to open informal nego- tiations for a conference. But if it breaks off diplomatic relations with Germany it will be un- able to make any move, no matter how tentative and informal, in the direction of peace ; it will be 44 Wilson and the Issues involved by the war even if it is not involved in the war; and its subsequent freedom of move- ment and international usefulness will be very much restricted. As for *^ protests in the name of human- ity," a phrase increasingly dear to the un- thinking as well as the subtle, what higher ground could have been taken than the Wilson notes with regard to the Lusi- tania and the Anconaf The annals of in- ternational correspondence contain no such scathing arraignment of one w^orld power by another, and every word w^as more effec- tive than a gunshot in expressing Amer- ica's horror and detestation. To all such s}TQpathizers, there is but a single an- swer. If diplomacy, with its victories, is to be given over in favor of the harsh uncertainties of war, it is not one na- tion that must be fought, but all. Eng- land has violated rule after rule in the mat- ter of contraband, Germany has heaped of- fense upon offense, the Allies marched across Greece even as Germany marched across Belgium, though with no such Belgium and the Lusitania 45 ghastly result, and Japan has disregarded justice in her treatment of China. Inter- national law has broken down at every point, and the world's one hope of salvage lies in the persistence of American stand- ards. CHAPTER IV THE amazing thing is not that history repeats itself, but that people learn so little from these repetitions. Judging from current comment, it might be imag- ined that neutrality, as a national policy, was the naive and original conception of Woodrow Wilson, when, as a matter of rec- ord, the doctrine was first declared by Washington himself, and reiterated time and again by the Presidents that followed him. And just as Woodrow Wilson is abused for upholding this fixed principle of national conduct, so was abuse of incredible malignity heaped upon the Father of the Country, Jefferson, Adams, Pierce, Van Buren, Lincoln, Grant, and Harrison. Given certain changes in names, the chron- icle of 1793 might well serve as the chron- 46 "National Honor'' 47 icle of 1916. Over in Europe the French, having sent Louis and Marie Antoinette to death, were measuring their arms against the combined forces of Great Britain, Spain, Holland, Austria, and Prussia. Back from Paris came Thomas Jefferson, afire with sympathy, eager for the United States to plunge into the pit of blood. Also came Citizen Genet, accredited as minister to this country by the French republic, a zealous person, determined to force us into war on the side of France whether we would or no, fomenting conspiracies, scattering commissions for privateers, even before the presentation of his credentials. The nation divided even as to-day. There was a *^ British party'' and a *' French party"; the rising flood of hate tore at the frail foundations of the new Government, and then, in the day of ex- treme tension, President Washington issued a proclamation of neutrality. How they at- tacked him for it ! French party and Brit- ish party, equally angered, searched their souls for new epithets, and the political 48 Wilson and the Issues leaders of the day led mobs against the White House, and talked of pulling Wash- ington from the Presidential chair. To strengthen this policy, and to safe- guard the United States against the con- tinual threat of war, Washington then en- tered into various negotiations for the amicable settlement of existing disputes. Outstanding differences with England were settled by the Jay Treaty in 1794, and a treaty with Spain secured to the United States the free navigation of the Missis- sippi Eiver, and the use of the port of New Orleans for ten years. The name of Washington was hooted in every city, Jay was burned in effigy, Ham- ilton stoned in the City of New York, Virginia cried for disunion. Democrats adorned their hats with the French cockade, and the Roosevelts of that day clamored for a guillotine. And yet in less than four years the whole tide of feeling changed, and as a result of French insults, French depredations and oppression, the people clamored for President Adams to declare ''National Honor' 49 war against France. But tliough Adams called Washington from retirement to be commander-in-chief, and built twelve war- ships for aggressive action, he still con- tinued to have reliance in ^'note-writing,'^ and in 1800, after two years of trying ne- gotiation, an amicable settlement was reached that acknowledged and guarantied every right for which the United States had been contesting. Times without number these hard-won rights of neutrality have been violated. In every instance the American people, taking fire furiously, have cried for war as the one means of vindicating the *' national honor''; in every instance a President of the United States has had the courage to hold to the orderly diplomatic procedure of Washington and Adams, eventually win- ning justice without resort to war. In 1807, during the administration of Jef- ferson, the deadly grapple between France and England swept American commerce from the seas. British *' orders" and French *' decrees" placed the vessels of the 50 Wilson and the Issues United States at the mercy of the warring powers, and great loss and unbearable hu- miliation resulted. The Chesapeake affair came as a climax. Four of the crew of the Melampus, a British ship lying off Annapolis, deserted and enlisted for service on the Chesapeake, then fitting out in the Washington Navy- yard. The British Government made for- mal demand for their surrender, but Jef- ferson refused, upon learning that three of the deserters were American seamen who were merely escaping from impressment. On June 22, as the Chesapeake left Hampton Koads, H. M. S. Leopard fell in behind, and, once out at sea, hailed the Chesapeake and sent a lieutenant aboard with an order for the arrest of the four deserters. As a consequence of Commo- dore Barron's refusal, the Leopard raked the Chesapeake with solid shot, killing three and wounding eighteen, and then, when the American flag came down, boarded a second time, and took off the four deserters. ''National Honor'' 51 The crisis afforded a chance for the peo- ple to judge between the irresponsibility of the private person and the responsibility of the official. Jefferson as a citizen had been a leader in the denunciation of Washington for his refusal to plunge into the European war on the side of France, but Jefferson as President calmed immeasurably under the realization that the fate of a nation, the lives of thousands, hung upon his decisions. Appreciating the ^* maniac state of Eu- rope,'' he made the whole matter the sub- ject of diplomatic exchanges, and even- tually won complete disavowal of the act from England, restoration of the men, and full indemnity. Martin Van Buren was the next Presi- dent to reaffirm Washington's policy of neutrality, and to stand firm against the passions of the people. In 1837, Canada surged in revolt against the rule of Eng- land, and American sympathy rose to a pitch where whole companies were organ- ized in the United States and sent across the border to aid the insurgents. Among 52 Wilson and the Issues other decisive acts, an American force took possession of Navy Island, two miles above Niagara Falls, fortifying it with seven hun- dred men, twenty cannon, and the steam- boat Caroline, A party of Royalists, cross- ing from the Canadian shore one midnight, set fire to the Caroline, cut her adrift, and sent her over the falls. President Van Buren issued a proclama- tion of neutrality, sent General Winfield Scott to the border to enforce the order, and entered into successful negotiations with Great Britain for the settlement of all differences. Every one of the four years of the Presi- dency of Franklin Pierce was marked by crises that would have led to war but for the fact that Washington's doctrine of neu- trality had become a fundamental princi- ple of American life. The Spanish author- ities in Cuba seized the American steamer Black Warrior and confiscated her cargo; the filibustering exploits of Walker in Mexico and Central America brought the United States into critical relations with "National Honor" 53 the Central American states, and the bold action of the British in enlisting recruits in this country for the Crimean campaign forced President Pierce to dismiss the Brit- ish minister and the British consuls at New- York, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati. All these difficulties were settled by peaceful negotiation. Lincoln, added to his other difficulties, was forced to contend with the enmity of Great Britain and France, both nations seeming equally anxious for the overthrow of the Union, moved alike by certain na- tional envies and the greed stirred by the Confederacy's offer of free trade in cotton. England hurriedly accorded belligerents' rights to the Confederacy, and France turned private and national shipbuilding yards over to the uses of the South. From France and England came the Confederate raiders that destroyed 193 American ships. The *' Trent Affair," by reason of its wide illustrative sweep, may be recalled with immense profit by the jingoes of to- day. Mason and Slidell, Confederate com- 54 Wilson and the Issues missioners to France, passengers on board the British mail-steamer Trent, were for- cibly seized by Captain Wilkes of the American warship San Jacinto, conveyed to Boston, and lodged in Fort Warren as prisoners of state. Although the action was supported enthusiastically by the peo- ple of the North, it was a flagrant viola- tion of England's neutral rights, and the great body of English clamored for war. Instead of that, Great Britain took up the matter through diplomatic channels. Presi- dent Lincoln disavowed the act of Captain Wilkes, Mason and Slidell were released, and the rights of neutrality were once, more defined and declared. Steadfastly holding to the efficacy of '^notes'' as opposed to Seward's continual insistence upon war, President Lincoln forced ample reparation from England for her various outrages, and in the end won Lord Eussell's famous order that no more vessels should be fitted out in Great Britain or tolerated in British waters for preying on the commerce of the United States by "National Honor" 55 persons in the employ of the ** so-called Confederate States.'' In 1873 the Virginius, flying the Ameri- can flag, was captured off Jamaica by the Spanish warship Tornado. Taken into the port of Santiago, four of the ship's pas- sengers were hanged as pirates, and Cap- tain Fr}^ and thirty-six other Americans were lined up against a wall and shot. President Grant instructed Secretary of State Fish to take up the matter with Spain at once, but so great was the popular de- mand for war that the names of the Presi- dent and the secretary were hissed at pub- lic meetings. The demands of the United States were the restoration of the Virginius, release and delivery to the United States of the pris- oners still living, the salute of the United States flag, and the signal punishment of the officials concerned in the capture. As a result of Grant's phrase-making and note- writing, Spain agreed to meet these de- mands if the facts in the case were as rep- resented, and a protocol was signed. In- 5Q Wilson and the Issues vestigation disclosed that the Virginius was owned by a syndicate of Cuban revolution- ists, and that while her papers were osten- sibly those of a peaceful trader, she was in reality a filibuster. The United States, therefore, withdrew its demand for a salute to the flag, Spain paid an indemnity of eighty thousand dollars to the heirs, and the incident was closed. It is not alone the present peace and honor of the United States that lie staked on the coming election, but the peace and honor of the nation during all the years that are to come. A repudiation of Wood- row Wilson involves the repudiation of the policy of neutrality, and a return to the evil days when armed force was the one method of adjusting disputes, when every war was a world war, when blood lust ruled, and w^hen human lives were pawns in the greedy game of territorial acquisition. It is civili- zation itself that Woodrow Wilson has been fighting for, and as the people of America vote, so will their stage of civilizational de- velopment be measured. CHAPTER V MANUFACTUEING HYSTERIA LOOKING- back, ^^preparedness" is seen to have been less of an agitation and more of an explosion. One day the country went about its business, aware of needs and failures, but held to strength and confidence by decent resolves ; the next saw it plunged into an abyss of self-slander. A rain of terror and abuse beat upon the land and its people. Books, magazines, and newspapers blazed with thrilling fiction thai described the descent of foreign foes upon the United States, the terrific bombardments that made a mock of our laughable defense, the capture and the sack of great cities, the wild flight of our armies, and the destruc- tion of our navies, the screams of women borne away into shameful captivity, the last moans of slaughtered innocents. 57 58 Wilson and the Issues With the utmost circumstantiality it was pointed out that there was not one single solitary reason why an alien force of four hundred thousand armed men could not be landed on the shores of America almost overnight, that not a single city on the Atlantic seaboard was guarded against pillage, and that as rolls the tidal-wave, so would the invading host sweep from east to west, leaving waste and death be- hind. No tradition dear to the heart of Amer- ica was spared; no monument went with- out its mud. With the painstaking care that is presumed to be saved for labors of love, Kevolutionary records were searched to show that the soldiers of Washington were for the most part a cowardly lot, and that victory was the result of chance rather than courage. Gloatingly, fondly, the desertions of the Civil War were re- counted, and the slime of detraction spread over every battle from Manassas to Ap- pomattox. *^War correspondents,^' with a round- Manufacturing Hysteria 59 trip ticket in one hand and a luncli-basket in the other, visited Europe, and returned to alarm us with their ponderous judg- ments. Rich expatriates, driven to Amer- ica by the cessation of social life in Lon- don and the Continental centers, waxed fervid in denunciation of America's pol- troonery, and described at length the con- tempt in which we were held abroad. Novelists and short-story writers, quick to realize that their sex stuff was no longer in demand, turned quickly to ' 'patriotism, ' ' and thundered denunciations of America's sordidness, with now and then a touch of the elaborately sarcastic by comparing the United States to Liberia. The deeps of obscurity gave up queer figures to take cocksure places at the heads of the various leagues and associations and committees that bubbled into being in every city and every State. All sense of humor, of fitness, of propor- tion, of decency even, seemed to vanish. Men responsible for the embalmed beef and paper-soled shoes of the Spanish- American 60 Wilson and the Issues War denounced and exhorted; nonde- scripts became arbiters, and as a last crowning contribution to the general mad- ness, a group of wealthy women began to gather a list of the summer homes that could be used to care for wounded soldiers in event of war ! It must be admitted that no intelligent effort was made to stem the tide of agita- tion. The fact did stand clear that the world had not yet progressed to a point where war may be dismissed from human calculation; the fact did stand clear that the United States was grossly unprepared in many vital particulars. Instead of ad- mitting these facts, and demanding that they be dealt with sanely and intelligently, the opposition ignored them. Had the forces of democracy taken ' ^ real prepared- ness'' as a battle-cry, pointing to Russia and England as examples of the folly that puts all emphasis on ships and guns rather than upon the health, strength, and patri- otism of the people, there might have been effective resistance. By adopting *'anti- Manufacturing Hysteria 61 preparedness^' as a slogan, however, not only did they affront the convictions of the mass, but dissipated their own energies in stupidly negative effort. As a consequence, the agencies of hys- teria were given a clear field for their ac- tivities, and that which should have been no more than a matter of orderly, non- partizan procedure is now a bitter, muddled issue to be settled at the polls in November. Perhaps, after all, it is just as well, for while preparedness itself is a detail, the whole question has come to be involved with tremendous decisions that have vital bearing on the future of democracy. A first task of understanding is to grasp the utter falsity of much that has been said and written. Even while the *^ ready-to- serve *' writers were turning out their lurid tales of invasion and conquest. Gen- eral Erasmus Weaver, head of the coast artillery, was testifying before a congres- sional committee to this effect; that n,o fortifications in the whole world compared favorably with the coast defenses of the 62 Wilson and the Issuts United States; that with an additional eleven thousand men complete adequacy would be secured; that the hysterical as- sumption that our seaboard was open to easy conquest was mere farrago. At the same time, also, the Allies were abandoning the Gallipoli attack, beating a retreat that in itself was a confession of ghastly failure. The Turks had no such fortifications as ours, no such guns, nor were they possessed of any naval aid what- soever, yet after a year of incessant effort, during which the Allies concentrated navies and armies, the landing force never got beyond the range of the guns of the ships. It is also well to remember that it required thirty-three days for England to move thirty-three thousand unequipped troops between Quebec and Southampton, al- though the journey was between friendly ports. A second task is to dismiss Mr. Eoose- velt as the source of the preparedness hys- teria or even as an executive agent in its promotion. Nothing is more safe than to Manufacturing Hysteria 63 set him down as the megaphone that gave carrying power to the thoughts, purposes, and directions of the giant forces that chose to remain unseen. It may be that he was an unconscious tool, simply seeing the rise of the movement, and springing forward in instant appreciation that passion and prejudice were the only possible weapons to be used against President Wilson. Or, again, it may be that he was a willing pawn in the game of hate, a sinister interpreta- tion that gains strength by virtue of his abject surrender in the hour of personal defeat. In either case, his role was subordinate. The intelligence that conceived the prepar- edness madness, the power that gave it force and effect, proceeded in no degree from any one man or men, but took shape as the definite policy of that mysterious, titanic thing that is variously referred to as high finance, big business, special priv- ilege, or Wall Street. This policy may be expressed in the one word — imperialism. The situation, as well as its successive 64 Wilson and the Issues creative events, come very clear under scrutiny. First we have the growth of combinations, syndicates, and monopolies, bringing with them an undreamed concen- tration of wealth and power. As an in- evitable result of monopolization, with its lordly control of prices, surplus capital began to accumulate, piling up in the great financial centers, and constituting in itself an imperative problem. Two causes op- erated powerfully against its employment in domestic development. First, a very definite change in American conditions. In the dawn of the industrial order a warm geniality enveloped all busi- ness without respect to size or purpose, and *' empire builders'' and *' captains of in- dustry'' were phrases that lingered pleas- antly in the popular mouth. As time went by, however, scandals bubbled, and out of public knowledge of the corrupt control of courts, legislative bodies, and executive officials the people learned to distinguish between development and exploitation, be- tween legitimate business and loaded-dice Manufacturing Hysteria 65 business. This new intelligence resulted in the Inter-state Commerce Commission, the growth of municipal ownership, the fight for conservation of the natural re- sources, the direct election of United States senators, anti-trust laws, the Federal Trade Commission, and rural credits legislation, all working in some degree to make do- mestic investment less than attractive for those accustomed to tremendous returns. Second, to use surplus capital along purely industrial lines would impair the very monopolization that they had been at such pains to create. New railroads, new enterprises, if launched, would not only put them in the position of competing with themselves, but might also lessen their iron control over supply and demand. Naturally, inevitably, the money masters began to turn their eyes away from the United States, fixing them upon such for- eign countries as had not yet been taught the bitter difference between development and exploitation, between enterprise and rapacity. Weak peoples, as a matter of 66 Wilson and the Issues course, either at the mercy of venal dicta- tors, with whom profitable bargains might be made in the matter of contracts and con- cessions or else overrun by greedy merce- naries willing to put themselves at the dis- posal of generous employers. Surplus capital began to flow into Mex- ico and Central America, just as the sur- plus capital of England had flowed into South Africa, Egypt and India ; just as the surplus capital of France went into Mo- rocco ; just as the surplus capital of Russia and England went into Persia ; just as the surplus capital of Germany went into Tur- key; just as the surplus capital of Japan went into China. As a fly in the ointment, however, was the traditional refusal of the United States to let its armies and navies be used by high finance as debt-collecting agencies. No such drawback menaced the foreign gam- bles of Europe's suri^lus capital. As far back as the foreign secretaryship of Lord Palmerston, England had yielded to the demands of money, and announced its Manufacturing Hysteria 67 <^ rights of protection'^ policy that placed the military power of the empire behind every concessionaire. All the stronger na- tions of Europe followed England's exam- ple, virtually agreeing to bully weak peo- / pies in behalf of surplus capital. During the administration of President Taft, American high finance made a deter- mined effort to gain the same powerful backing that had permitted Europe's high finance to plunder Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, India, Africa, and Persia. Loans were to be made to Central American governments under treaty agreement that the United States should have the right to intervene in case of revolution. Had the deal gone through, what would have been more sim- ple than to manufacture a revolution, bring about intervention, and then, with Ameri- can arms on hand to give the necessary peace and order, proceed with the highly profitable work of exploitation? Even though defeated in the scheme, de- spite the ardent assistance of Mr. Taft and Secretary Knox, high finance did not 68 Wilson and the Issues despair, but turned to China. In 1912 this unhappy country was compelled to become an urgent borrower. A syndicate of Eng- lish, French, and German banks had been enjoying a monopoly of Chinese looting, but Japan and Kussia had begun to clamor for a share, and American interests had grown sufficiently powerful to demand con- sideration. As a consequence, the *' six- power '' group was formed, and China told that in order to get the $30,000,000 that she needed, the sum of $300,000,000 must be borrowed. In addition to this, there were the further stipulations that the expendi- ture of the loan, as well as the administra- tion of the salt monopoly, should be placed under the control of men designated by the lenders. The English, German, Kussian, French, and Japanese financiers proceeded in the full knowledge that their various countries were willing to protect their ex- tortions to the point of intervention and conquest, and the Morgan interests, repre- senting the American syndicate, felt as- sured that President Taft and Secretary Manufacturing Hysteria 69 Knox could be trusted to an equal ex- tent. Before the contracts could be completed, however, President Taft and Secretary Knox sank from sight, and President Wil- son, in his very first month of office, repu- diated an arrangement that struck at the *^ administrative integrity of China, '* and put the army and navy of the United States at the disposal of a Wall Street group. Sadly enough, the American syndicate withdrew, and sadly enough the remaining five powers, frightened by the search-light thus turned on them, reduced its terms to a $125,000 loan, and gave over their de- mands for full control of the salt monopoly. It is high finance, with its surplus capi- tal and its avid greed for the rich returns that are to be found in weak, undeveloped countries, that is behind the preparedness agitation, that is behind the desperate at- tempt to destroy Woodrow Wilson. It is not a preparedness for defense that these forces desire, but a preparedness for ag- gression. 70 Wilson and the Issues Their propaganda, carried on through tlie magazines and the newspapers that they owned, the Eepublican party that they control, and the politicians and writers that they have been able to prostitute, has a twofold purpose ; first, the promotion of a great military and naval establishment that will permit them to bully with the best ; second, the elimination of a President who has stood in their w^ay, and who will con- tinue to stand in their way if reelected. The issue, in its very essence, is empire versus democracy. The question that the people of the United States are called upon to answer is this : Are we to continue as a democratic people, holding to our ancient faith in liberty and justice as great gov- erning principles, or are we to turn Amer- ica over to a group of financiers, denation- alized by greed, drunk with a dream of imperialism, and blind to every domestic need? . It is a decision between the decent, or- derly development of our ow^n resources, to the end that wretchedness, injustice, and Manufacturing Hysteria 71 ignorance shall be eliminated from the na- tional life, and a return to the feudal mad- ness that places a people at the disposal of lords and overlords, to be used as the dumb instruments of rapacity; a choice between the ideals of peace and the sordid shame of continual money wars. CHAPTER VI THE NATIONAL DEFENSE THE confusion and indirection that have attended the discussion of a de- fense program are an indictment of our governmental system rather than an in- dictment of men or even of parties. There is no opportunity whatever for the expres- sion of public opinion on great issues as they arise, and the quadrennial election is scarce more than the field-day of partizan prejudice. Yv'ith regard to the form and extent of preparedness, the President received no command, and Congress, equally unad- vised, stumbled and stuttered in a pitiable state of uncertainty. Mr. Mann, speaking for the Republican minority, was certain that action must be taken, but when pressed 72 The National Defense 73 for details, flatly disavowed support of a large standing army or compulsory serv- ice. The President's solemn speech at Topeka was followed within twenty-four hours by a vote of the State Grange of Kansas that put a million farmers on record against a single dollar of increase in the present army and navy appropria- tions. Regardless of where Mr. Wilson stood in 1914, when the sentiment of the country was unanimous against action that might have been regarded as inflammatory and aggressive, the fact remains that his later advocacy of preparedness was as clear and bold as words could make it. Nor did he fail to indicate the course that he believed should be taken. In all of his speeches he declared his friendliness to a plan that would give the United States a citizen soldiery along Swiss or Australian lines, and with equal force he placed himself on record against any attempt to base home defense upon the organized militia. He said: 74 Wilson and the Issues There are a hundred million people in this country, but there are only 129,000 men in tiie National Guard, and those 129,000 men are under the direction, by the constitutional arrangements of our system, of the governors of more than two- score States. The President of the United States is not at liberty to call them out of their States ex- cept upon the occasion of actual invasion of the territory of the United States. ... I want Con- gress to do a great deal for the National Guard, but I do not see how Congress can put the Na- tional Guard at the disposal of the nation. What else could have been done by him save the arbitrary adoption of some one plan, drawing up his own bill, and attempt- ing to force it upon a Congress torn to pieces by a thousand indecisions! Out of the babel what clear word is there for his guidance? The militarists, with their dream of em- pire, preach a preparedness that would turn the United States into an armed camp, and a program of naval increase that would burden the country with a terrible, crush- ing load of taxation. The pacifists go to an extreme that takes no account of present The National Defense 75 dangers or future needs, and stand as iron against augmentation of either army or navy. A middle ground must be found, as a matter of course, but who can tell just when the ground is middle ? With regard to the navy, no principle is involved, the whole question centering about size and efficiency. Land defense, however, is not only debatable, but will continue to be debatable for a long time to come, and the debate rages as fiercely wherever citizens gather as it does in Con- gress. An issue so vitally concerned with the life and future of democracy is not determinable in a day or by the violences of extremists. The intelligent thought of the country is fixed upon some sound system of general training after the Swiss and Australian models, but it is equally certain that the great mass of people, out of a blind fear of militarism, are not yet ready for the step. Senator Chamberlain's bill, prepared with the approval of the President, and pro- viding for the general training of Ameri- 76 Wilson and the Issues can youth, died without a Democratic or Eepublican voice to speak for it. With regard to the Hay bill, A\dth its pro- posed federalization of the National Guard, nothing is more unfair than the hasty gen- eralization that writes it down as a ^^pork measure.'' While political considerations played an undoubted part in its passage, back of the bill was the driving force of one hundred and thirty-eight years of tra- dition. The organizied militia, with all its glaring faults, is still an American insti- tution, bed-rocked in habit and prejudice. In 1903, with Mr. Roosevelt in the White House, and the Eepublican party in abso- lute control of Congress, the question of home defense arose, and the answer made was the Dick bill, which provided federal aid for the upbuilding of the National Guard. Since that time the Government has spent over $75,000,000 under the Dick Law, and much of the support received by the Hay bill was due to a feeling that the investment was worth protecting. Whatever one may think of the fitness The National Defense 77 or unfitness of the National Guard, the fact stands clear that its membership re- sponded instantly and generously, quitting civil pursuits for the hardships of the bor- der without a murmur. There has been no opportunity yet to test the merits of the Hay Law. It may work well or badly, but since the bill has passed, and since tens of thousands are serving their country in arms, justice de- mands that it be given a fair chance to show what it will do. Supplementing the Hay bill is an exten- sion of the ^'Plattsburg idea," first intro- duced successfully in 1915. The sum of $2,000,000 has been provided to maintain these camps without expense to those who attend, a wise improvement that w^ill put this training within reach of all. The enlargement of the army to 175,000, exclusive of the Philippine scouts, quarter- master corps, and signal corps, will suit neither the militarists nor the pacifists, but the figure may be set down as an hon- est attempt to strike the medium. 78 Wilson and the Issues To meet the demand for officers, the act of May 4, 1916, doubles the size of West Point, permitting an attendance of 1160 instead of the present 580. In addition to this, provision is made for the promotion of men from the ranks of the regular army and the national guard. As in the ease of submarines, the Wil- son administration found an army with- out air-craft, and an aviation service given over to mess and muddle. To-day the army possesses three complete squadrons, each consisting of twelve biplanes with 160 horse-power motors, and the necessary auxiliary equipment of motor-trucks and traveling machine shops. Orders have also been placed for additional machines, the sum of $3,200,000 having been provided for the purpose. Civilian experts, se- lected by the naval consulting board, have been placed in the factories to aid in the work, to hurry it, and to see that specifica- tions are followed. Aviation schools are being conducted for officers and enlisted The National Defense 79 men, and arrangement has also been made for the commissioning of expert aviators from civil life. To those who look upon air-craft as a simple, economical means of defense, the cost figures will come as something of a shock. The expense of buying, equipping, and maintaining a complete squadron of twelve biplanes mounts up to $800,000 a year, after which a fixed annual expense of $600,000 may be counted upon. In Eu- rope, for instance, no plane lasts longer than three months, wearing out completely in that time, if not destroyed by shot or accident. For the benefit of such as place large value upon the opinion of '* experts,'' it may be mentioned tliat Commodore R. E. Peary talks carelessly of maintaining 500 biplanes on each coast as a proper peace measure, although the annual cost of this one defense feature would be $50,000,000. By far and away the most effective fea- ture of the Wilson preparedness program, 80 Wilson and the Issues however, is the great work that has for its object the mobilization of the industrial resources of the United States. Two truths have been made to stand clear by the European war; one that battles are lost by things, not men; the other that a fighting force is no stronger than the fac- tories behind it. In the naval consulting board, formed by Secretary Daniels, Presi- dent Wilson saw the big idea of industrial preparedness, and straightway wrote the request that brought 30,000 engineers into the work. Already an inventory is being made of the factories of the nation not only with respect to machinery, but also with respect to men. When this data is digested, the Government will be possessed of full and absolutely accurate information as to the manufacture of munitions in case of war. Under Lloyd-George's efficient handling, England found that there was not a manufacturing concern of any kind that could not be changed into a munition plant, and the nature of the necessary Tlie National Defense 81 changes is what the engineering experts of the United States mean to discover at once. Peace practice of munition manufacture, for instance, will be begun shortly. Small annual orders will be given to the various manufacturers, and government techni- cians, going into the factories, will point out the adaptations of machinery, instruct the various departments, and acquaint the business with every detail of the work. As a result, not only will a store of reserve supplies be accumulated, but every factory in the nation will be ready to play its part at a moment's notice should war ever be declared. A feature of the plan is the formation of an industrial reserve, made up of the skilled workers of the country, that will have the same standing in war times as the fighting force, although remaining in the factory instead of taking to the field. England and France, foolishly enlisting every available man, found their muni- tion manufacture demoralized as a conse- 82 Wilson and the Issues quence, and were forced to recall skilled labor from the trenches. The industrial reserve of the United States is designed to prevent such a muddle. To supplement the activities of these 30,000 technicians, the sum of $2,000,000 has been appropriated for a laboratory for purposes of research, invention, and ex- perimentation. Also $20,000,000 has been provided for the construction of a nitrate plant. The larger importance of these features of the President's policy lies in the fact that industrial preparedness is primarily a preparedness for peace. Out of the in- ventory of American factories and the en- listment of the patriotism of employer and worker alike, is bound to come increased efficiency, understanding, and solidarity, while the laboratory is as much an indus- trial need as a military necessity. Coming to the record of the Wilson ad- ministration with regard to naval pre- paredness, common justice points out the fact that navies are not built in a day or a The National Defense 83 year, and inadequacies must be traced much further back than 1912, if blame is to be allotted justly. It was in 1903 that the general board, with Admiral Dewey at its head, outlined a continuous building pro- gram that had as its object the mainte- nance of the United States as the second naval power in the world. Not only were these recommendations disregarded en- tirely, but they were hidden from Congress and the public, and not until Secretary Daniels decided upon full publicity was their nature known. During the four years of the Eoosevelt administration that followed the creation of the general board, this expert body recommended thirteen capital ships, ex- actly the same number authorized by Ger- many. Mr. Eoosevelt built six only, openly taking issue with the general board, and adopting a *^ small navy" policy. In his 1905 message, he said, ^^It does not seem to me necessary, however, that the navy should — at least in fhe immediate future — be increased beyond the present number 84 Wilson and the Issues of units.'' Again in his 1906 he declared: '^I do not ask that we con- tinue to increase our navy. I ask merely that it be maintained at its present strength. ' ' As a direct consequence of this attitude, Germany passed the United States as a naval power in 1909. In that year the gen- eral board recommended four battle-ships ; but Secretary Meyer, after admitting in his report, * * Germany is now second among the principal naval powers in warship ton- nage built and building/' recommended two warships only, and only two were built. In 1910 the general board recommended four battle-ships, and two were authorized; in 1911, four again, and only one was au- thorized ; in 1912, four again, and only one w^as authorized. There is no just quarrel with Mr. Eoose- velt or Mr. Taft, however, for their atti- tudes were entirely obedient to and ex- pressive of the popular will. There is not the slightest doubt that had they followed the recommendations of the general board. The National Defense 85 building so hugely during years of peace, a wave of revolt would have swept the country. Where quarrel is just, however, is with Mr. Koosevelt and his partizans for the dishonesty that seeks to place full blame for naval inadequacy upon Mr. Wil- son, even going so far as to assert that German superiority came after 1912, and not before. It is easy indeed to tell to-day what should have been done, but the proper time for this competency to have displayed itself was ten years ago. The honest thing for present concern, however, is not past neglects, but future plans. The Dem- ocratic majority in Congress meets the challenge of the times with this naval pro- gram: A three-year building program, author- izing the construction of one hundred and fifty-seven new ships, and calling for an appropriation of $588,180,576. It is planned to spend $316,818,343 straight off, and the following ships will be begun at once : 86 Wilson and the Issues Battleships 4 Battle cruisers 4 Scout cruisers 4 Destroyers 20 Coast submarines: 800-ton type 3 Smaller type 27 Fuel ship 1 Ammunition ship 1 Hospital ship 1 Gunboat 1 68 Also a submarine to be equipped with the Neff system of propulsion. The appropriation for aeronautics is $3,500,000; for ammunition, $19,485,000; $11,000,000 will be devoted to the building of a government armor-plate factory; and all navy-yards will be enlarged to build capital ships. The personnel of the navy is increased from 51,500 to 74,700, and the President is given power to raise the number to 87,- 000 in time of war. Admiral Dewey, after careful scrutiny The National Defense 87 of every item, is on record with the state- ment that it is *^the best bill ever passed by Congress.'' The program restores the United States to second place in the list of sea powers, and provides the nation with a strong, well-balanced, splendidly manned navy fit for every emergency. It may be that the preparedness program of the Wilson administration will not suit those who entertain a dream of conquest and aggression, but it should meet the ap- proval of all who are sincerely in favor of an adequate national defense. CHAPTER VII THE CASE OF JOSEPHUS DANIELS *'I want the people of the United States to know that it is all right with the Navy. There is no demoralization, no lack of discipline, no lack of enthusiasm. The attacks are as false as many of them are shameful. The last three years have teen wonderful years. I have been in the Navy since 1854, and both in material and personnel, we are more efficient to-day than ever before. The Naval bill is the best bill ever adopted by any Congress." — Admiral George Dewey's statement to the author. JOSEPHUS DANIELS, secretary of the navy, is at once the most maligned and most misunderstood man in the United States to-day. To wade through the lies that have been told about him, to discover the truths that have been hidden or dis- torted, is to come to a new loathing of the greed that poisons when thwarted and to 88 The Case of Josephus Daniels 89 an added contempt for the public that takes no larger interest in a public servant than to swallow every slander circulated about him. Ask the average citizen about Josephus Daniels, and he '11 w^ag his head and mouth something about mountebank and demo- gogue. Press him for details, and he can cite none more definite than vague gener- alizations that Daniels has ^4et the navy run down'' and has ^*made us a laughing stock. ' ' This derision is the price that Josephus Daniels has been made to pay for saving millions of the people's money from the traffickers in armor plate and munitions; for breaking up the arm-chair clique that ruled the navy for years ; for making merit the test of promotion rather than social pull ; for opening the doors of advancement to the enlisted man. He has given us a navy that, according to Admiral George Dewey, *4s not excelled, except in size, by the fleet of any nation in the world." Facts and figures entitle him to rank with 90 Wilson and the Issues the greatest secretaries of history, and yet so well have his enemies wrought that many of the people for whom he has labored grin at his name. Virtually all of this ridicule has flowed from his abolition of the wine mess. Back in 1899, Secretary Long issued an order forbidding the sale or issue of liquor to enlisted men on board ship, and all that Mr. Daniels did was to extend the rule to officers, taking the step upon the official recommendation of the surgeon-general of the navy. This policy, which was to make the United States the ^^ laughing stock'' of the nations, was followed within the year by all other w^orld powers. Eussia and France first, then Lord Charles Beresford scored the use of liquor in the British navy, and after that Kaiser Wilhelm, addressing the German naval cadets, uttered these words : ''The next war and the next sea-battle de- mand sound nerves of you. Nerves will decide. These become undermined through alcohol. . . . The nation which consumes the least alcohol wins, The Case of Josephus Daniels 91 and that should be you, my gentlemen. And through you an example should be given the crews. And in consequence of this I expect of you . . . that you take heed thereto, and provide that indulgence in alcohol be not counted as be- longing to your privileges. ' ' In the Hearst papers, most active in ridi- culing the *^ grape- juice" order, pages are devoted to proving that all of the great businesses of the country are refusing to employ men who drink. Yet for the fore- sight that enabled Josephus Daniels to point a way to the nations he is denounced. Another lie was to the effect that he had made an order for officers and men to mess together, and that he surrendered the idea only when informed that black men and white might be brought together at the same table. No such order was ever made or even contemplated. A great outcry was manufactured as a result of his refusal to permit naval officers to deliver public ad- dresses and otherwise seek to influence legislation. This has been the law of the navy from time immemorial, and President 92 Wilson and the Issues Roosevelt, in 1902, and President Taft, in 1909, reinforced the rule by executive or- ders that established dismissal as a pen- alty for violation. Secretary Daniels ** muzzled" no one, simply inforcing the iron regulation that forbade officers from running about the country for purposes of propaganda. In order that all possible legitimate information might be afforded, however, he made public the full reports of the general board, never done before, and urged the congressional committee to call before it all officers of the navy with any pretense to authoritative knowledge. Some snapshots were being taken on board ship, and as Secretary Daniels had left his hat below, he borrowed an officer's cap. He made some laughing remark about its effect upon his appearance, and this was twisted into an attack upon the naval uniform. Once he spoke at a Y. M. C. A. meeting, and at its close was asked by the superintendent to have his picture taken with the boys. It is this picture that has been hawked about and printed in an The Case of Josephus Daniels 93 endeavor to prove the charge that Secre- tary Daniels is a ^'demagogue." It is as- serted that Secretary Daniels deprived the kin of an enlisted man of the customary death gratuity should he lose his life while on liberty. The law on this subject was passed in 1912, and states specifically that the only cause for withholding payment shall be when death is due to the miscon- duct of the deceased. We bought eight search-lights from a German inventor, and tendered him a second order for twelve more at $3,960 apiece, as set down in his bid. The manufacturers did not desire the contract, requesting a new award at $5200 but the Navy awarded the contract to the inventor, who, by reason of getting it, will be paid $25,000 under his contract with the manufacturer. This transaction consti- tutes the base of the charge that the United States navy robbed a stranger and took ad- vantage of him. Nothing has been too mean, too false, or too vicious to say and circulate. Such attacks, of course, are mere blinds. 94 Wilson and the Issues The real causes of the campaign of hatred against Secretary Daniels are not to be found on the surface, but deep down in the mud of human greed. The powder trust hates him because he is manufactur- ing smokeless powder for thirty-four cents a pound as against the fifty to eighty cents that used to be paid to the monopoly. In 1915 alone $1,115,793 was saved, and this year the capacity is doubled. The projec- tile-makers hate him because he cut out $1,077,210 on one bid alone, and is asking Congress for money to build his own plant. The grafters hate him because his econo- mies have effected a reduction of fifteen- odd millions on public work at shore sta- tions. The armor-plate monopoly hates him because he made them lop off $1,110,- 084 that was headed for its pockets, and has caused a bill to be introduced for a government plant where armor can be man- ufactured for $230 a ton as against the $440 exacted by the trust. Back in 1900, Congress appropriated $4,000,000 for a government armor plant unless contracts The Case of Josephus Daniels 95 could be made at '^a reasonable and equi- table figure," but Secretaries Moody, Mor- ton, Bonaparte, and Meyer were unable to see the extortion of the monopoly, and paid out over $76,000,000 in excessive prices. Contractors hate him because he established an inspection system that ended the foisting of wormy, rotting supplies upon enlisted men. When Secretary Daniels took office, he found an investment of millions in navy- yards going to waste. Many stations were closed, and the others were used for petty repairing, so as not to infringe upon the profits of private companies. He opened them up to full capacity and new uses, and to-day every one is aiding naval construc- tion and saving millions. Everything that is being manufactured by the Government is produced at from twenty to sixty per cent, less than the old private purchase price. Every dollar saved has been an addition to the hate felt for Josephus Dan- iels, but since these thwarted traffickers do not dare to come out in the open they make 96 Wilson and the Issues their appeal to the laughter of fools by *' grape-juice " witticisms and a multitude of silly lies. Another source of bitter opposition springs from Mr. Daniels's efforts to de- mocratize the navy. Through the years a certain aristocratic pretension, as amaz- ing as it is alarming, has been permitted to grow, fixing a barrier between officers and men as definite and insurmountable as the barrier between the peasantry and no- bility of Europe. Two American boys, for instance, may decide upon a naval career; one, possessing the necessary in- fluence, receives an appointment to An- napolis, while the other, lacking influence, signs enlistment-papers. Straightway a social gulf yawns between them, even though sons of the same father, Annapolis converting the one into a superior being, enlistment dooming the other to inferior- ity. It was this undemocratic, un-Ameri- can order of things that Josephus Daniels set out to change, and the naval aristoc- racy, lacking the courage to fight openly. The Case of Josephus Daniels 97 has joined the war-triffickers in the circula- tion of those vague charges that Daniels has ^^demoralized the navy/' and *4et it run down/' What are the facts in the case? A first radical step made by Mr. Daniels was the establishment of a school on each ship in order that the enlisted men might have an opportunity for academic and tech- nical education. His second step consisted in gaining the right to appoint fifteen en- listed men to Annapolis every year, with the understanding, of course, that they pass the required examinations. He asked for twenty-five, but Senator Weeks of Massa- chusetts, himself a graduate of Annapolis, succeeded in beating the number down. In 1914, with only a few months to pre- pare, five enlisted men qualified; in 1915 there were eight, and this year twenty- three passed the examinations. It may be seen from this how much of American abil- ity and American aspiration has been re- pressed by the artistocratic prejudices of the past. As for the ** demoralizing'' ef- 98 Wilson and the Issues f ects worked upon the navy by the recogni- tion of education and ambition as inalien- able rights, a search through the records discloses these facts: When Mr. Daniels took office on March 1, 1913, the navy was exactly 5000 men short of the number allowed by law; only fifty-two per cent, of the men discharged in good standing were reenlisting; during the four years of the Taft administration there were 10,360 desertions ; there was an average of 1800 tnen in prison, and throughout the service was sullenness and unrest. As a result of the Daniels reforms, 6365 enlistments were gained, and for the first time in history the navy had a waiting-list ; eighty-five per cent, of discharges reen- listed instead of fifty-two per cent.; the number of prisoners dropped from eighteen hundred to seven hundred, permitting the restoration of two prison-ships and two disciplinary barracks to normal uses, and desertions were reduced fifty per cent. Newspapers and magazines have devoted The Case of Josephus Daniels 99 columns to telling wliat anonymous naval officers think of Josephus Daniels, but never one has given so much as a para- graph to the opinions of the more than fifty thousand enlisted men that mahe the navy. Yet they are expressed openly in every issue of ^^Our Navy/' the monthly published by ex-sailors and subscribed to by every blue-jacket. No subsidized jour- nal this, but a straight-talking, hard-fight- ing magazine that past administrations have tried to crush on account of its per- sistent and unsparing condemnation of in- justices and abuses. The following ex- cerpts from its editorial pages, selected at random, may serve to acquaint the public with the ideas and convictions of the young Americans upon whose loyalty the national safety largely depends : Let the hand-picked editors hurl their boughten bolts. Let them shout of '^seething discontent" in the fleet. It is not among the men, Josephus Daniels, you can take our word for that. You stand ace high so far with the 51,500. Don't let any of the moss-backs get you worried 100 Wilson and the Issues or tell you what the men think.. They don't know anything about the men, and care less. You could do lots of little things you haven't done, but you have done enough to show that your heart is in the right place. There are some big people after you but they can't buy the loyalty of the American bluejacket. Go after 'em, Sec- retary Daniels. We 're back of you, 51,500 strong! . . . Mr. Daniels realized at once what our navy had been pointing out for years that there was something radically wrong with the human side of the Service, and that this wrong would have to be righted before we could hope to have a Navy full up with self-respecting American citizens. The trained Naval officers — experts — told Mr. Daniels that this was nonsense — that you would have no trouble handling men as long as you had plenty of masters-at-arms, and that the reason the Navy was short of men was that it had always been that way and always would be. Mr. Daniels replied that only in exceptional in- stances had the Navy been making good its prom- ises made to induce men to enlist, and that he intended to see if there was not some way of re- taining good men after they had received four years' training. He toned down the recruiting literature ; instituted his system of regarding the American sailorman as a human being; set the The Case of Josephus Daniels 101 sailorman free; almost abolished the rating of master-at-arms, which was the mainstay of other administrations ; and he has made an enlistment in the Navy the crowning privilege of the Ameri- can youth. And the wisenheimers who said from the first that he was wrong are being hard put to it to find a sizeable brick to heave at the genial Secretary. From the start, money in scads w^as flung to the anvil chorus by certain interested parties due to Mr. Daniels's stand in regard to certain con- tractors who had been looting the Treasury. And this anvil chorus was swelled by the entire King Charles the Second contingent in the Navy, who saw in this man who did not wear a high silk hat a possible enemy to the idea that The King Can Do No Wrong. But Uncle Jo kept his head, and smiled, and worked, and now he can show more for his administration than any other Sec- retary of the Navy has ever been able to show. There is nothing of the Seventeenth Century or its methods in the make-up of the Hon. Josephus Daniels and a better man has yet to ap- pear as head of the Navy. Let the wolf pack howl. Then there is a *' Divine Eight" bunch in the Service who have it in for Secretary Daniels. 102 Wilson and the Issues But we are proud to say that their breed is dwindling and a few more Secretaries like Daniels will scatter them to the four winds. These are the people that are now after Daniels, getting their cues and money from disgruntled contractors and outraged aristocrats. These sheets that belly always before the fairest wind are seeking to discredit with their silly flap- doodle a man who stands head and shoulders above all their kind. Let all praying sailors pray with fervency and zeal that we may never have another sleek, smug, silk-hat at the head of the United States Navy who will be guided by and heed the Dark Age ideas that came on down through the powdered dandies of the court of King Charles II into our own fair land and find exponents even in this en- lightened age in newspapers and magazines that are shameless enough to mention the enlisted man among their patrons. The "Army and Navy Journal" and its kin- dred sore-head, wailing, outraged Tory sheets may have their day again with snobbery and in- tolerance enthroned as gods in the Navy of a free and independent country, but we believe not. We trust that the American people will not per- mit the undoing of the good work, the square work and the just work which the Honorable The Case of Josephus Daniels 103 Josephus Daniels is doing for the Navy and the enlisted man. Although the first midshipman to enter Annapolis under Mr. Daniels will not be graduated until 1917, he is blamed for the shortage of officers. Here again facts give the lie to prejudice. When the *^ country editor '' took office, he discovered that the Republican administration had not only failed to increase the attendance at the Naval Academy, but had actually permit- ted the law to lapse that permitted two ap- pointments to each member of Congress. Secretary Daniels secured an extension of the law at once, followed this up by open- ing the doors of Annapolis to enlisted men, and in 1916 succeeded in having the con- gressional apportionment raised from two to three, making 531 additional appoint- ments immediately available. Altogether over 800 midshipmen have been added to the scraggly list handed over to him by his predecessor. As a further intelligent emergency measure, certain qualified civil- 104 Wilson and the Issues ians — engineers, aviators, and instructors — have been assigned to Annapolis, reliev- ing line officers for military duty. At every point the offenses of Josephus Daniels have been the offenses of honesty, efficiency, and democracy. When he went into office he found a system of aides, each one standing as a buffer between the secre- tary and his bureaus, a plan that resulted in delay, confusion, red tape, and a tremen- dous amount of correspondence carried on between men in adjoining rooms. This system had been refused sanction by Con- gress time and again, but despite this refusal, the naval clique persisted in its retention. Mr. Daniels threw out these aides, not only because they had no legal status, but because he desired direct con- tact with his bureaus. His next step was to select heads for these bureaus, and here again he offended, for his selection was based entirely upon merit and not at all on social position. A volume in itself would be required to chronicle the economies, ef- ficiencies, and improvements of this soft- The Case of Josephus Daniels 105 spoken Carolina dynamo, but there are cer- tain obvious gains that stand out, simple to record, easy to grasp. As a consequence of the Meyer policy in behalf of private profit, a navy-yard in- vestment of $120,000,000 was going to waste. Secretary Daniels opened up these yards not only to earn dividends, but for the added purposes of defeating extortion and providing for immediate navy needs. To-day two dreadnoughts are being com- pleted at the New York Navy Yard, and the keel of a third will be laid immediately ; Mare Island has been fitted to build bat- tle-ships as well as auxiliary craft; Nor- folk and Charleston were equipped for the construction of destroyers, and Puget Sound and Portsmouth for the building of submarines ; at Boston building ways large enough for the construction of a ship of 12,000 tons were provided, and on one ship alone enough was saved to pay for the im- provement ; the Philadelphia yard, used as a repair station, though situated in the heart of the greatest shipbuilding district 106 Wilson and the Issues in America, was fitted up for building, and already has a transport near com- pletion, and action is being taken that will enable the Philadelphia, Norfolk, and Puget Sound yards to construct dread- noughts. In addition, torpedoes are being manu- factured at Newport at $1000 less than private purchase price, and the navy has 158 additional torpedoes for every one hun- dred on hand in 1913 ; mines are turned out at Norfolk at a saving of $170 per mine, and the stock has been increased 244 per cent.; the capacity of the powder-factory * has recently been increased from 3,000,000 pounds per annum to 6,000,000 pounds; Charleston is making clothing stores that are sold at cost to the enlisted men; air- ships are building at Washington; at Portsmouth electrical apparatus is being manufactured at twenty per cent, less than private cost, and a projectile-factory has been authorized. When Mr. Daniels became head of the navy, there was no aviation station, no spe- The Case of Josephus Daniels 107 cific appropriation for aeronautics, and only a few inadequate maeliines huddled at Annapolis. To remedy these lacks, he secured an initial appropriation of $1,000,- 000 and opened the navy-yard at Pensa- cola, a $7,000,000 investment abandoned by Meyer, as an all-year aviation-station and training-school. Forty-three officers and one hundred and twenty men have been prepared, and provision made for one hun- dred and fifty additional officers and three hundred and fifty additional men. The utter failure of private firms to deliver or- dered machines has compelled the navy to take up the work of designing and building its own aircraft. The same condition existed with regard to anti-aircraft guns, which have been designed, manufactured, and installed. Ships and SiUbmarines were without proper radio equipment, and this had to be installed, and a further improvement, in cooperation with the American Telephone and Telegraph company, was the success- ful installation of long-distance telephony, 108 Wilson and the Issues long-distance telegraphy, and radio tele- phoning. The submarines, so much the subject of ridicule, were built before Mr. Daniels took office. It has been his task to have weak- nesses discovered and faults remedied, and as a result of the work of naval experts, the submarines now building and author- ized will be second to none in the world in fitness. With reference to target practice, he found the marksmanship poor. Such, however, were the reforms he instituted that in November, 1915, Admiral Fletcher made this report, ^^The scores recorded at the last target practice were higher than ever before made in the open sea, and show not only an increase in accuracy of point- ing, but in rapidity of fire as well. ' ' Over ninety per cent, of the shots at longest ranges would have hit an enemy's ships. Out of his own foresight, Secretary Dan- iels evolved the idea of an ^^ ocean Platts- burg, ' ' which will provide a month of naval training for at least 2500 men, fitting them The Case of Josephus Daniels 109 for admission to the naval reserve. Also Eear-Admiral Knight, president of the War College, where high ofificers of the navy are instructed in strategy and tactics, offers this statement, ''Secretary Daniels has done more for the War College than any of his predecessors.'' And last, but most important of all, per- haps, it remained for the ''country editor,'' with his suggestion of the naval consult- ing board, to give the preparedness cam- paign its very biggest idea. To-day, as a consequence, 30,000 of the country's lead- ing scientists, technicians, and engineers, under the leadership of Thomas A. Edi- son, are giving unselfishly of their time to the great and necessary work of mo- bilizing the industrial resources of the na- tion and the creation of an industrial re- serve. Laughed at in the beginning by every fool and rascal as another proof of Daniels's rusticism, its real tremendous- ness is now realized. Taken from any angle, considered from any point of view, whether it be as sturdy 110 Wilson and the Issues Democrat, masterful executive, or efficient administrator, and this man Josephus Daniels measures big. If the attack upon him, inspired by criminal greed and abetted by venal, conscienceless writers, is permitted to succeed, then will the people of the United States have confessed such utter stupidity, indifference, and ingrati- tude as will work to encourage dishonesty and inefficiency, even while serving notice on all public servants that honor and faith- fulness are offenses. CHAPTER VIII *^ AMERICA first" THE Republican party shows shrewd- ness, if not patriotism, in deciding to base its entire attack upon President Wil- son ^S' foreign policy, to the exclusion of all other issues. Not only does the decision permit the widest possible appeal to all that is cheap, mean, and truculent, but it diverts attention from President Wilson's domestic policies, a prime requisite to Re- publican success. Considering the fact that he has had to work through Congress, torn by its parti- zan, sectional, and personal prejudices, it is amazing indeed to mark this man's rec- ord of tremendous achievement. Con- fronted from the first by a press of prob- lems handed down from the Roosevelt and Taft administrations, in no instance has 111 112 Wilson and the Issues he evaded, in no instance ignored, meeting every exigency with the same unswerving faith in democracy and democratic ideals. The tariff was a first test. Even though the Democratic promise of revision down- ward had been explicit, the fact that many Democratic States relied heavily upon pro- tected industries soon evolved a spirit of compromise and evasion. Had Woodrow Wilson been less than courageous, less than honest, he would have conciliated the pro- tectionists in his party by consenting to a partial redemption of the platform pledge. Instead of that, he insisted upon complete compliance, rendering a service to America the value of which only historians will be able to compute. Tariff legislation, more than any other one thing, was the source of the corruption that rotted public service, and in the growth of the sinister privileges fostered by the system there was almost sole responsibility for the perversion of American ideals. Woodrow Wilson cut out the cancer, and freed the nation from a creeping death. "'America First" 113 States that were rendered parasitic by pub- lic largesse began to struggle back to intel- ligent industry. Everywhere, from coast to coast, endeavor took on a wider, more virile sweep after being stood upon its own feet and forced to rely on its own resources. Instead of factories closing, factories opened, and at every point the gloomy prophecies of the Roots and Lodges were shown to be stock bugbears. On July 1, 1914, there was also a trade balance in America's favor just $300,000,000 larger than the one shown by the Payne law the year before, and every day saw the theories of protection offering feebler resistance to the facts of the Underwood law. The war, however, returned the subject to the prov- ince of debate, but even while political storehouses were being rummaged for the old arguments. President Wilson an- nounced that he would include a tariff com- mission in the list of things to be done. Until the passage of the Federal Eeserve Act, Wall Street ruled the United States ; bankers poured railroads, great enter- 114 Wilson and the Issues prises, and depositors' money into a ma- gician's hat and then showed it empty; a rigid, inelastic financial system choked credit, hampered legitimate development, and put the business of the country at the mercy of panics that carried wholesale ruin in their train. For years currency revision had been a cry of the people, and for years the Eepublican party had refused to rem- edy the indefensible conditions. Making the Federal Reserve bill an administration measure, and disregarding the advice of his party leaders. President Wilson drove it through the special session of 1913 in the face of bitter opposition and misunder- standing. Senator Elihu Root, leading the Eepublican opposition, branded the act as a '^financial heresy'' that would entail dis- aster utter and absolute, and both in Sen- ate and House his following voted solidly against the bill. To-day the legislation is seen as a rod of Moses. By measuring the ruin wrought by the panics of 1903 and 1907, when con- ditions were normal, there may be gained ''America First'' 115 some approximation of the enormity of the panic that would have occurred in 1914 but for the Federal Eeserve Act. Under its provisions, $386,000,000 of emergency currency was issued during the gloomy August of that year, and not a bank closed its doors, not a business went to the wall. Credit has been released from its long im- prisonment, government moneys provided for the movement of crops, and for the first time in history pawnbroking and usury have been divorced from banking. In their fight against Shylockism may be found the reason why Secretary McAdoo and Comptroller John Skelton Williams are so hated. Their investigations uncovered the scandal that 2743 national banks out of a total of 7613 were guilty of grossest usury, charging interest rates that ran all the way from 10 per cent, to 2400 per cent. Not only have they stopped these usurious practices, but by virtue of powers con- ferred by the Federal Eeserve Act they have forced many bank officials to restore misappropriated thousands. 116 Wilson and the Issues During the first year's operation of the act the deposits of the national banks in- creased $2,081,530,164, and loans and dis- counts increased $917,450,502, while sur- plus reserves exceeded by $592,000,000 the greatest surplus reserves ever held before. In August, 1914, the United States owed Europe $350,000,000 of floating indebted- ness maturing prior to January 1, 1915. Not only has this debt been wiped out, but we have taken back from Europe about one thousand million dollars' worth of American securities held there for invest- ment. Is it any wonder that Mr. Hughes and the Eepublicans prefer to discuss Belgium rather than the Federal Keserve Act, which has lifted the shadow of disaster from a nation ? The Federal Trade Commission is the Wilson answer to unfair competition and uncurbed monopoly. It bears the same re- lation to industry that the Interstate Com- merce Commission bears to railroads, and as its operation grows in certainty. ''America First" 117 lawless greed will be subjected to increas- ing restraints and punishments. Its pres- ent inquiry into the soaring prices of anthracite, for instance, explains why the coal lords are denouncing Mr. Wilson as a menace, and urging the election of Mr. Hughes. In a final desperate effort to save ancient privileges to the banking interests, the Re- publican platform squarely attacked the principle of rural credits. On the heels of the attack, President Wilson succeeded in pushing the legislation through Congress, and justice to the farmers of the nation is now embodied in law. By putting low- rate, long-time loans at the disposal of those who desire to buy land, purchase equipment, or make improvements, the farming population is released from the grip of usurers and restored to their old hope and ambition. The Clayton Anti-Trust Law has well been termed the Magna Charta of labor. It secures to the working-man the right of voluntary association for his protection 118 Wilson and the Issues and welfare; it brought an end to the il- legal and unwarranted issuance of writs of injunction; it declared in effect that human labor was no longer to be regarded as a commodity, and set down the rule that no judge should henceforth have the right to send men to jail for constructive con- tempt without a jury trial or representa- tion by counsel. With increasing force, industry has rested upon the backs of two million little children, and neither during the adminis- trations of Mr. Taft nor of Mr. Eoosevelt was any courageous effort made to end an evil, shocking condition. President Wil- son insisted upon the introduction of a bill that would release the boys and girls of America from the steel jaws of the indus- trial machine, and when political chicanery bade fair to prevent its passage, he went personally to the Capitol, and informed the Democratic leaders that the dictates of humanity must be obeyed. The Child-La- bor Law, rescuing two million children from the destructive processes of prema- ''America First'" 119 ture toil, is in itself a greater preparedness measure than even the naval bill. Out of regard for the health of the worker, eight-hour-day laws were passed, applicable to all work done by the Govern- ment as well as for all work done for the Government ; out of regard for the rights of the worker, a department of labor was created. Merely as an example of the splendid activities thus released, the em- ployment bureau has found jobs for more than 70,000 toilers, and secured over $7,000,000 in earnings for them. The Workmen's Compensation bill rounds out a remarkable record of humane achievement, and to complete the social justice program decided upon by President Wilson, the St. Louis convention pledged the Democratic party to these principles of action: A minimum-wage standard for working- women; the prohibition of night work for women, and the eight-hour day for women and young persons ; one day of rest in seven for all wage-earners; the abolition of the 120 Wilson and the Issues convict-labor contract system, substituting prison production for government con- sumption, and applying the earnings of inmates to the support of their families; safety and sanitation measures. Of no less importance to the great work- ing-mass is the Wilson insistence that pre- paredness shall be paid for by a tax on incomes, inheritances, and munitions. From these sources $300,000,000 will be raised that would otherwise have been col- lected by taxes on things that the poor consume. As for conservation of the natural re- sources, the Lane measures are the last word in sane protection of the people's domain, while in Alaska a successful ex- periment in government operation is be- ing carried on. For eight years a Eepub- lican administration had kept the wealth of Alaska imprisoned. Upon recommenda- tion of Woodrow Wilson, $43,000,000 was appropriated for the building of a railroad, the operation of which has made for de- velopment in the popular interest. ^'America First" 121 Aside from the extension of the parcels post, the Wilson administration has set aside $85,000,000 with which to aid the sev- eral States in the construction of highways. Not alone is this an aid to commerce and a development of agriculture, but it opens up new territory to rural delivery, and in its essence is an important feature of the preparedness program. At every point Woodrow Wilson has stood like iron against the oligarchic influ- ences that controlled the Kepublican party. Just as his attitude toward the Chinese loan served notice on high finance that the navy of the United States could not be used as a collection agency, and just as his ap- pointment of Brandeis and Clarke declared that the Supreme Court was in no sense the personal property of the privileged in- terests, so did his stand in the Panama Canal tolls controversy prove his courage and his democracy. It is true enough that there were no if s in that clause in the Hay- Pauncefote treaty which said that *'the canal shall be free and open to vessels of 122 Wilson and the Issues commerce and of war of all nations observ- ing these rules on terms of absolute equal- ity." Language could not be more ex- plicit. The forces of privilege, however, had the same vital interests in compelling the vio- lation of this treaty as in securing the recognition of Huerta, for in toll exemp- tions the coastwise shipping monopoly saw chance to obtain the subsidies denied by a fixed public policy. The charge was made openly that Presi- dent Wilson had entered into some secret and humiliating bargain with Great Brit- ain; he was pictured in innumerable car- toons as a flunky to George V, and racial bigotries were played upon unceasingly in order that the waters of calm discussion might be muddied by hatred and prejudice. Had Woodrow Wilson been *^ practical," he would have kept silent, permitting the Taft legislation to stand, or, seeing the storm of seemingly adverse sentiment, backed out of his dilemma with a graceful and explanatory wave of the hand in the ""America First'' 123 direction of the ^'rugged democracy of America. ' ' Of a certainty there was justification for such a course in precedent. Only a few years before, President Roosevelt, to use his own words, ^Hook the canal zone and let Congress debate.'' The desires of the chattel-slavery interests played large part in the Mexican war of 1846, our Indian treaties have been violated on the score of material interest, expediency has domi- nated our attitude to the Filipinos, and America's promise to Cuba was evaded by the addition of the Piatt amendment to the Cuban constitution. Woodrow Wilson, however, went back to the Declaration of Independence for his precedent, spanning the years of material- istic trick and compromise, and when he spoke these words to Congress, it was as though Patrick Henry and Thomas Jeffer- son lived again: We consented to the treaty; its language we accepted if we did not originate it; and we are too big, too powerful, too self-respecting a nation 124 Wilson and the Issues to interpret with a too strained or refined reading the words of our own promises just because we have power enough to give us leave to read them as we please. The large thing to do is the only thing we can afford to do, a voluntary withdrawal from a position everywhere questioned and mis- understood. We ought to reverse our action without raising the question whether we were right or wrong, and so deserve once more our reputation for generosity, and for the redemption of every obligation without quibble or hesi- tation. It was the first test of strength between an awakened idealism and an intrenched materialism. Who can have forgotten how, in the opening days of the debate, servants of privilege leaped at what seemed fair opportunity to work the President's defeat and humiliation! Too much significance cannot be at- tached to this victory. The issue was clean-cut between money and justice, be- tween practicality and principles, between the arrogant privileged interests and the unorganized mass. In the utter rout of the profit-mongers it may be seen how lit- "'America First" 125 tie tliej expressed or represented the deep, underlying passions of America. With regard to the seamen of America, for fifteen years Andrew Furuseth haunted Congress in the effort to secure legislation that would put an end to slavery, oppres- sion, and actual degradation. Not until Woodrow Wilson came into office did he meet with a President of sufficient strength and independence to put humanity above profits. What Lincoln ^s Emancipation Proclamation w^as to eight million bond- men, the Wilson Seamen's Act is to those men who go dow^n to the sea in ships, for its provisions not only lift American sail- ors from their depths, but likewise the sailors of every other nationality. The one Wilson defeat, brought about by a Eepublican filibusterer, was the shipping bill of 1914. To-day that defeat is seen to have been a crime against the people of the United States. The extortionate ocean- freight rates paid by helpless shippers and producers in the last twelve months have more than trebled the $40,000,000 that was 126 Wilson and the Issues asked to be spent by the Government on mercbant vessels. In actual value alone the ships would Tiave doubled. Aside from these determinable losses, there are the in- calculable losses sustained through inabil- ity to ship at all. Lack of ships, as well as prohibitory rates, have operated to keep the United States from taking advantage of the extraordinary demand for coal, lum- ber, and supplies of all kinds in Europe and South America. Senators Gallinger and Lodge perpetuated the monopoly of the shipping trust, but in so doing they lost millions to the people of the United States. The Wilson democracy of 1914, the Ee- publican subsidy hope of 1914, were both transferred to 1916, but with the change that the shipping bill was now a vital part of the preparedness plan. Out of the navy department came a demand for a merchant- marine auxiliary. Naval authorities, back- ing the demand, pointed out that the strong- est fleet is crippled to weakness unless pos- sessed of craft to bear its coal, provisions, and supplies, and gave facts to prove the ''America First" 127 folly of trusting to purchase or charter to supply such craft in a time of crisis. The declaration of war against Spain in 1898 found the navy without auxiliary craft, and as a consequence, exorbitant amounts had to be paid for fit and unfit ves- sels. At the close of the war these vessels, for which the Government paid $18,000,000, were sold as junk at a loss of eighty per cent. A merchant-marine naval auxiliary must be had. What, then, when the ships are built? Shall they lie idle and rot in our harbors'? The Wilson bill disputes this absurdity by wise provision that the auxil- iary craft shall serve the needs of Ameri- can commerce in times of peace. For fifty years the United States has waited for pri- vate capital to prove an American mer- chant marine, and for an equal time our foreign trade has dwindled. It has re- mained for the Wilson administration to meet these just demands of commerce, even while insuring an efficient naval auxiliary and an essential naval reserve personnel. 128 Wilson and the Issues At every point in the Wilson record there is evidence of the idealist in action. Few Presidents have ever joined vision and leadership in such high degree, and cer- tainly not one has equaled him in achieve- ment. Welding a party of opposition into a great constructive force, he has put foun- dations under honest business, defeated cruelty and injustice, thrown the mantle of protection over the mother and the child, and recovered the courage, the pride, and the creative genius of the American people. Never was choice so plain. It is between a record and mere claims; between a proved democrat and the captains who served under Hanna ; between equal justice and special privilege; between Woodrow Wilson, who expresses *^ America First'' in law and action, and those who cry *^ America First'' to divert attention from their usuries, oppressions, and rapacities. CHAPTER IX ** ANYTHING TO BEAT WILSON '' THE politics of America have reached low levels at various times, but it re- mained for the betrayal of the Progressive cause to plumb new depths of baseness. More nearly than any other like occurrence the wretched business epitomizes the sor- (lidness, the selfishness, and the dishonesty that have operated to hamper the develop- ment of democracy. While the Progressive party had its source in Republican schism, it ceased al- most instantly to be factional, for to its banners rallied thousands of earnest, free- thinking men and women sick and tired of the older organizations, their hypocrisies and their failures. A great and noble plat- form, establishing submerged ideals as fighting principles, lifted the movement 129 130 Wilson and the Issues high above the vulgarities of partizanship, and gave it the fervor of a crusade. Not even defeat had power to chill en- thusiasm or to weaken the splendid deter- mination that had for its object the expres- sion of the Declaration of Independence in terms of law and governmental action. They had their faith and hope and courage still, and still did they have their leader. Speaking on October 3, 1913, at a Progres- sive gathering, Mr. Eoosevelt said : ]\Ien and women, I would continue the fight even if I stood entirely alone. I shall continue it with a glad and proud heart because it is made in your company. "Win or lose, whatever the outcome, I am with you, and I am for this cause to fight to the end. We are dedicated in this great war for righteous- ness, and while life lasts we cannot and we will not abandon it. *'The men who believe that we will ever betray these ideals or abandon the task to which we have set ourselves do not know us and cannot ever guess at the faith that inspires us. ''Anything to Beat Wilson'' 131 **This movement will never go back, and whatever may betide in the future, of one thing the disciples of an easy opportunism may rest assured — I will never abandon the principles to which we Progressives have pledged ourselves, and I will never abandon the men and women who drew around me to battle for these principles/^ In 1914, desertions occurred. Self-seek- ing Eepublicans, who had joined the new party as a gamble, having realized the hopelessness of the Taft candidacy, re- turned to their old allegiance, and in the state of New York especially, even tried to carry the Progressive organization back with them. Mr. Roosevelt stood firm, how- ever, and Mr. George W. Perkins expressed the bitter indignation of the rank and file in these words: ^^The idea of trying to deliver voters en masse to another party seemed so ut- terly out of order and unfair, and seemed to be striking so at the very heart of our whole organization that after careful con- sideration and consultation with a number 132 Wilson and the Issues of our friends, I decided to go to the Buf- falo meeting, which was by far the largest one, and protest, in the name of the Na- tional organization, against any such ac- tion. *^If there had been during this year or any time since 1912 any indication that the owners of the Kepublican party had in the slightest degree recognized their errors and reactionary inclinations, then the ques- tion of returning to that party might be a debatable one, but every one of us knows that they have shown no such inclination, and on the contrary, wherever they have had a chance, have been more reactionary than ever. *' Indeed the very fact of our returning now, with all the things that the Eepublican party has done since 1912, would have to be constructed as indorsing all these ac- tions, and as a complete surrender on our part and an acknowledgment that we were wrong in 1912, and would knuckle under and obey the men whom up to date we have denounced. ' ' ''Anything to Beat Wilson"' 133 The 1916 call for a second national con- vention met with a loyal response, and there was a certain pathetic Peter the Her- mit quality about the pilgrimage to Chi- cago. The majority of the delegates, poor in purse, borrowed and pawned, pinched and scraped, in order to attend, and as in 1912, the gathering was marked by an ex- altation almost religious in its manifesta- tions. As far as the rank and file were concerned, the purposes of the convention were simple and crystal clear. Eoosevelt, as much as ever the idol, was to be nom- inated by acclamation, the principles of 1912 were to be reaffirmed, and the Kepub- lican party left to do as it chose in the face of such decisive action. A first shock was the announcement of a policy of delay. A second blow was the spirit of compromise that possessed the leaders, eventuating in an actual invitation to the Eepublican organization for a ** friendly conference '^ with a view to the ^* adjustment of .differences.'' The days during which the Progressive conferrees 134 Wilson and the Issues crooked their knees to such hated foes as Eeed Smoot, Murray Crane, and Nicholas Murray Butler were days of mortal sick- ness for the men and women to whom Progressivism was in no sense political, but deeply spiritual. A third sledge swing at the foundations of faith was the reading of a platform that might well have been written by ^^ Uncle Joe'^ Cannon, so utterly did it ignore the fighting principles of 1912, so completely was it a thing of concession and compromise. These bitternesses, however, were as nothing to the misery that gripped the con- vention when Mr. Eoosevelt's suggestion of Henry Cabot Lodge as a compromise candidate gave the first intimation of deser- tion. The purposelessness of the insult, its stark brutality, stunned and sickened. Out of the shock, however, came a fierce anger that beat down the parliamentary barriers of the tricksters, and in one great triumphant rush the convention put an end to compromise by the nomination of Koose- velt and Parker. It was what they had ''Anything to Beat Wilson'" 135 gathered for; leaders had given them the most solemn assurances that Mr. Eoose- velt would accept; whatever pain at disap- pointment and indecision may have been in their hearts, not a mind was stained by doubt as to the answer of their hero with respect to the action taken. His declina- tion did more than murder a party; it crushed the faith of thousands. In the lightning flash of that moment many things stood clear. It was seen that just as the compelling Eoosevelt motive in 1912 had been revenge upon Mr. Taft, so was the compelling Eoosevelt motive of 1916 a blind and insensate hatred of Mr. Wilson. Never at any time did he have comprehension of, or sympathy with, the ideals of the Progressive party, regarding it solely as a hand-forged weapon with which to fight his enemies and to advance his own interests. Out of the tragedy, however, may come a great and lasting good. People have learned the lesson that the safety of demo- cratic institutions is best conserved by de- i 136 Wilson and the Issues votion to principles rather than devotion to personalities, and there is also reason to believe that this final exposure of invin- cible selfishness will result in the elimina- tion of a destructive, disintegrative force. With an effect of spontaneity that con- cealed cold-blooded premeditation, a gift of acting democratically that covered the set autocratic habit of his mental processes, a colossal egotism that passed for force, a scatter-mindedness that looked like broad- mindedness, and a passionate protestation that obscured his lack of performance, Theodoi"e Eoosevelt has been an Old Man of the Sea on the back of the nation. The whole life of the man made it clear that he would act in a crisis just as he did act with reference to the Progressive party. During the seven years that he sat in the Presidential chair, the number of monopo- listic combinations of business increased from 149 to 1020, during which time he re- fused steadfastly to give the Sherman Anti-Trust Law the effect that was in- tended; the Steel Trust, the Sugar Trust ''Anything to Beat Wilson'' 137 and the Harvester Trust were protected from prosecution by his hand; he said no word about a tariff that was robbing the great bulk of people ; it was in open defiance of law that he gave the Steel Trust per- mission to absorb the Tennessee Iron and Coal Company ; he backed the iron despot- ism of Aldrich and Cannon in their fight against the Insurgents; and in 1904, as a candidate, he appointed as his campaign manager George B. Cortelyou, who, as sec- retary of commerce and labor, had been investigating corporations. Choosing Taft as his successor because Taft bore closest resemblance to putty, he forced him upon the party by the most un- scrupulous use of power and patronage. Conceiving the idea of a Presidential third term, he spared no effort to destroy and discredit the Taft administration, and when defeated in 1912 by the '^ steam roller^' that was of his own creation, he set him- self to the task of revenge. Nothing so discloses the man's utter lack of iron convictions as his attitude with 138 Wilson and the Issues regard to the platform that the Progres- sives declared in 1912. Not a single prin- ciple in the document but had received his tireless enmity as President, but under the urge of ambition and hate, almost over- night he discovered his passionate belief in the initiative, referendum, recall, equal suffrage, and the whole program of state socialism. Had his soul possessed one particle of sincerity or had he stirred to the slightest capacity for disinterested service, he would have been lifted to higher, finer levels by the love and devotion of the thousands that followed him. But not for a moment was he shaken out of his cold-blooded oppor- tunism and arrogant autocracy. His one thought in defeat was to divert the flood of democratic faith into the mean, narrow channels of self-advancement. Out of a crusade he built up a political machine, sub- stituting personal service for social serv- ice, personal loyalty for social loyalty, striving with all his might to transform a wonderful forward movement into an air- ''Anything to Beat Wilson'" 139 tight corporation for his own selfish ends. It was never his intention to run only on the Progressive ticket. The Gary din- ner, at which he broke bread with the men that he had branded as malefactors, was an open announcement of his intention to re- turn to the Kepublican party. The seem- ingly insane denunciation of Wilson was calculated cunning, just as there was pre- meditation in his failure to mention social justice in a single speech or article. Taken together, they signified his willing- ness to serve and his recantation of *^ luna- tic heresies." Only those blinded by hero-worship could have failed to see that the decision to hold the Progressive convention at the same time and in the same city as the Re- publican convention was in itself an ad- mission of dicker and barter. Treachery and betrayal were no sudden resolves, but the bitter fruit of careful planning. With- out doubt Mr. Eoosevelt expected to be made the Republican nominee. Equally without doubt the high and secret powers 140 Wilson and the Issues were always as iron in their grim deter- mination to trick and destroy him. It was not that they feared his actions if restored to power, but that they hated him for his insolences, his weathercock variability, and his deceits. Eoot was their first choice, but when the hopelessness of that candidacy became ap- parent, they turned to Hughes. Why not? By his opposition to an income tax, his unchanging support of a high tariff, his vetoes of all bills designed to wring justice from the railroads, and his expressed belief in the righteousness of the established or- der, Charles Evans Hughes had proved his right to be considered ' ^ safe. ' ' The things that he had fought — bosses, graft, corrup- tion — were always symptoms, never causes. The sudden interest of Hitchcock, driver of the Republican steam roller in 1912, in the candidacy of Mr. Hughes had a vast significance for all who cared to observe. Nor was the quick growth of Hughes senti- ment among the delegates less rich in mean- ing. A hand-picked lot, chosen for their ''Anything to Beat Wilson'' 141 subservience, not at any time did they reg- ister a single emotion or preference that was not prescribed. Deep and deeper into the mire of disas- ter was Mr. Eoosevelt led. By encourag- ing him to believe that his attacks on Mr. Wilson were making him the ^^logicaP' Ee- publican candidate, they were steadily forcing him into a position where it would be impossible for him to support any but a Republican candidate. By suggesting that his nomination be brought about with an effect of stampede, they gained the four days of delay during which the humiliating conference was held, and a platform writ- ten that made a complete surrender of the principles that were the Progressive party's sole reason for existence. With the trap all set at last, they sprung it, and it was from behind bars that Mr. Roosevelt wrote his declination and issued the call that sought to deliver his follow- ers to Hughes even as he himself had been delivered. The ambition and weakness of the 142 Wilson and the Issues leader stand exposed. It is the sincerity and strength of the rank and file that are now up for test. The revolt of 1912 was against the corrupt and sinister control that made the Republican party deaf to the voice of the people, responsive only to the com- mands of the privileged and predatory class. It was a revolt that took form in the declaration of principles to which every Progressive made oath of allegiance. To- day the selfsame men — Crane, Penrose, Hemenway, Butler, Watson, Kealing, Smoot — are in absolute control of the Re- publican organization, and the platform does not even give social justice the cour- tesy of mention. Those that go back can do so only at the price of honor, faith, and self-respect. With plans well laid for the annihilation of Roosevelt and the nomination of Hughes, the secret masters of the Repub- lican party issued orders that even the pre- tense of patriotism should be set aside in the interests of expediency. Frankly, even boldly, an alliance was arranged between ''Anything to Beat Wilson' 143 the party of Lincoln and every evil force of disaffection. Almost from the very first professional German-Americans have been in open conspiracy against President Wil- son by reason of his steadfast refusal to sacrifice the law of nations and the faith of democracy to the military necessities of the Kaiser. He has dared to maintain American sovereignty and the admitted rights of America in defiance of Germany's military aims and objects. He has failed to acknowledge the suzerainty of Berlin, and has stood firm against the blackmail at- tempted to be levied through the threat of the ^ ^ German- American vote." To these alien conspirators, then, the hand of welcome was extended. Compare the silence of the Eepublican platform with this splendid challenge that Woodrow Wil- son wrote personally into the Democratic declaration : We condemn all alliance and combinations of individuals in this country, of whatever national- ity or descent, who agree and conspire together for the purpose of embarrassing or weakening 144 Wilson and the Issues our Government or of improperly influencing or coercing our public representatives in dealing or negotiating with any foreign power. We charge that such conspiracies among a limited number exist and have been instigated for the purpose of advancing the interests of foreign countries to the prejudice and detriment of our country. We condemn any political party which, in view of the activity of such conspirators, surrenders its integrity or modifies its policy. While the alien conspiracy is incidental, the issue itself is fundamental. Just as an undivided allegiance is the beginning of government, so is divided allegiance the end of government. Democratic institu- tions exist by sufferance when the balance of political power is in the hands of those whose residence is American, but whose hearts and sympathies are foreign. * Whatever protestations Mr. Hughes may make, these truths pursue and destroy him ; he is the candidate of the high finance that seeks control of the army and the navy in order to work out its dream of empire ; he is the candidate of the great usurers who ''Anything to Beat Wilson'" 145 hate the Federal Eeserve Law and desire its repeal ; he is the candidate of the greedy forces that seek the abolition of the sea- men's bill, rural credits legislation, and the reenactment of the old Payne-Aldrich tariff law; he is the candidate of the Kaiser; he is the candidate of Toryism and reaction. It is millions drawn from these sources that will finance his campaign; it is the votes of these sinister forces that he will receive; it is their interests that will dominate in event of his election. In no particular is there reason to be- lieve that his choice was any blind selec- tion. His speech of acceptance, robbed of its sound and fury, was bitter in its par- tizanship, adroit in its evasions, and ab- solutely barren of constructive suggestions and announced policies. One searches vainly through its platitudes and generali- ties for a single specific statement with reference to the fundamental issues. Quarreling broadly, even meanly, with President Wilson, in no instance does he state what he himself would have done or 146 Wilson and the Issues what he intends to do. His references to Mexico intimate war and conquest; his at- tack upon faithful ambassadors like Mor- genthau, Whitlock, Page, Van Dyke, and Sharp indicates dollar diplomacy; while loud in advocacy of ^^ undiluted American- ism,'' he avoids all mention of the German conspiracy, and his insistence that present prosperity is only temporary insinuates an attack upon the Wilson laws, yet never does he come out squarely and courageously. Such adroitness, such egg-dancing, carry ugly implications, and these are strength- ened by a small, yet vastly significant, thing. In telegraphing Governor Johnson, *^I desire a reunited party,'' Mr. Hughes betrays utter inability to grasp Progres- sivism as a spiritual revolt, viewing it only as the expression of a peevish factionalism. His disingenuousness, however, only serves to accentuate the issue: Must a President of the United States, in order to win election, take his foreign policy from Berlin and his domestic policy from Wall Street? CHAPTER X THE ANCIENT FAITH AMERICA is a nation of incurable dreamers. The heart of the people is not found in ledgers, their aspirations are not expressed in profits, and never at any time have schemes of purely material advancement possessed the largest appeal. The soul of the many is found in the far-flung idealism of the Declaration of Independence, not in the cautious phrases of the Constitution. False prophets and strange gods have won no more than lip- service, for deep in the heart of the nation an abiding faith in the ultimate triumph of love, justice, and brotherhood remains untouched. Financial genius may be given its sorry day of homage, yet its right to control the destinies of America has never 147 148 Wilson and the Issues failed to be resisted, and the great money- makers do not live in memory beyond the reading of their wills. Vision, spirit, ideals, without the clue afforded by these dream words, the United States stammers and is unintelligible. Democracy never has been, and never can be, other than a theory of spiritual prog- ress, and those who view it as a mere pro- gram of materialism place their feet in a blind path. The slightest study of human progress makes plain that the things which count in the evolution of civilization to higher levels are ever and always those flames of the spirit that blaze without re- gard to intellectual formulas or certain- ties of profit. When has greed ever entertained the visions that turned arid wastes into smil- ing orchards, spun steel gossamer across dizzy chasms, sent air-ships aloft, or has given new lands to the foot of civilization? When did the multiplication-table mind ever free a captive, crush an evil, liberate justice, or bless the world with a larger hap- The Ancient Faith 149 piness ? All that is fundamentally big and fine lias been the work of so-called ^Vision- aries ' ' who ran gantlets of ridicule and op- position. In the outset every great move- ment, every wonderful idea, is a dream, and democracy was evolved to make these dreams come true. It may not be denied that almost from tlie first these truths have been challenged with persistency and skill. A base and de- structive sordidness, masquerading as prac- ticality, has been offered as a substitute for the sublime abstractions that Jefferson molded into form, and derision has been trained constantly upon everything that could not be handled by adding-machines. A commercial aristocracy, by sinister con- trol of government, press, and pulpit, has been able to cast the surface of things in shapes of its own desire, and it is only in spasms of revolt that the real thought and purpose of the great mass of people have gained expression. It is this spirit of revolt that Woodrow Wilson has quickened and strengthened; 150 Wilson and the Issues it is this spirit of revolt that the profit- mongers have determined to crush once and forever. It is the crime of the President that he has dared to stand with the ex- ploited many against the powerful few, leading the fight of the people against their ancient enemies for the recovery of the ancient faith. They hate him for his ac- tivities, but most of all, they hate him for the courage of his thought. He has not been afraid to cry out against the sham *^ practicality '^ that was slowly destroy- ing the creative genius of the American people. He has battled for the release of the national mind from its slavery to un- relieved materialism, and striven to restore idealism to its proper place in American life. Victory for this man means victory for democracy ; it is to beat democracy back into bondage that he is being fought by the great money lords. Woodrow Wilson is in no sense a her- ald. The revolution of betrayed idealism has been in progress for more than a cen- tury, and in the last decade particularly The Ancient Faith 151 there has been steady assault upon evil and outworn institutions. These passionate gropings of the spirit in the direction of ideals professed and not practised have merely lacked great leadership and au- thoritative expression. This is what Woodrow Wilson gives. He comes as a leader, as a nucleating force, as a clear, rallying cry to the almost mystic passions that are peculiarly the dominant note of the day. He fits the need of the bloodless revolution as skin fits the hand, bringing purpose and courage to the struggle for nobler fulfilment of the hopes and aspira- tions that thrilled those who first sought refuge in the New World from the op- pressions of the Old— the struggle for real democracy. *^It has been common,'' said the late Justice Miller, *'to designate our form of government as a democracy, but in the true sense in which that word is properly used it is about as far from it as any other of which we are aware. ' ' The answer to the dreams of freedom 152 Wilson and the Issues of the original colonists was found in the London Company, three times chartered to take over the lands and resources of \^irginia, in the Dutch West Indies Com- pany, which foisted the patroon system on the New Netherlands, and in the Ply- mouth Company of New England, all breed- ing a landholding aristocracy that repeated and exaggerated the feudalism of Europe. The Declaration of Independence, sub- lime preface to a victorious rebellion, brought a new joy and certainty to the land; and yet when democracy seemed an assured fact, old chains were riveted anew. With the return of peace, Tories and Loy- alists came running from their hiding- places, and aided by reaction, the wealthy classes soon regained their former power. The men chosen as delegates to the Con- stitutional Convention were drawn entirely from the aristocratic, landholding class, and though scarcely eleven years had passed since the Declaration, only six of the fifty-six men who signed it were mem- bers of the Convention. The Ancient Faith 153 James Madison felt that ^^the minority of the opulent must be protected against the majority. The Constitution ought to secure the permanent interests of the coun- try against innovation." Said Gouverneur Morris: *^The first branch, originating from the people, will ever be subject to precipitancy, changeabil- ity and excess. This can only be changed by ability and virtue in the second branch, which ought to be composed of men of great and established property — aristoc- racy; men who, from pride, will support consistency and permanency, and to make them completely independent, they must be chosen for life, or they will be a use- less body." Property qualifications robbed the great majority of the right to vote and to hold office. In Massachusetts no man could be governor unless possessed of $5000; North Carolina required $5000 in freehold real estate; and Georgia went further with a requisite of $20,000 and five hundred acres. The iron test of the democratic spirit of 154 Wilson and the Issues America is amazingly exhibited in the suc- cessful struggle against these odds. Armed only with the dynamic power of a belief, the people marched doggedly to their goal, although it was not until 1846 that the Constitutional Convention of New York crowned full manhood suffrage by specific inhibition of feudal tenures. The abolition of chattel slavery, carry- ing with it a final perfection of union, again gave ground for the old pride and certainty ; but out of the vast changes — the growth of cities, the sweep of railroads, the dawn of industrialism — there stole an- other, and in many respects, a greater menace. Ideals were swallowed up in a very madness of money-making : practical- ity, in the sense of profit earning, became a fetish, business a god; quickly, almost without opposition, the control of govern- ment was turned over to the financial in- terests of the country. It is contended that the Roosevelt ad- ministration ushered in a new order, and in a certain sense this is true. He denied The Ancient Faith 155 the established assumption that great mag- nates could do no wrong, and with his cry of ^* personal guilt" aroused the conscience of the people to fever-heat. There is no intent to take away from the value of his services, and yet his activities, although honest, were essentially oligarchic and miles removed from an understanding of democracy. Mr. Eoosevelt differed from his prede- cessors only in that he demanded punish- ment for the evil-doers of special privilege. It was not the system with which he quar- reled, but with individual malefactors. Under analysis he is seen to believe in control, not freedom, and in protection rather than in the abolition of the evils that necessitate protection. His intent was to do good for the people, according to his own ideas of good, rather than to let people do good for themselves according to their ideas. It cannot be found that he dissented fundamentally from the bland theory that all intelligence is vested in a choice few or that prosper- 156 Wilson and the Issues ity is a class product, and from the first he betrayed a f eeUng that the radical move- ment is the pet property of high-minded lords of the manor with leisure on their hands. As a matter of fact, there is every ground for the assertion that Mr. Eoose- velt's contributions to the cause of democ- racy were far less important than those of Mr. Taft. Where the former worked in kaleidoscopic colors, the latter 's effects were in unrelieved black and white. Mr. Taft's belief in the necessity and virtue of a ruling class w^as religious in its fervor, and in no wise did he attempt to hide it or confuse it. As a consequence, he provoked conflicts, challenged comparisons, gloried in solemn asseverations of his faith, all to the end that the battle-lines were clearly drawn. Mr. Eoosevelt colored and ob- scured the aristocratic features of Ameri- can life; Mr. Taft isolated them so per- fectly that the hour of revolt was hastened immeasurably. Both of them, in their dif- The Ancient Faith 157 ferent ways, paved the way for Woodrow Wilson. Let it be said again that not since Lin- coln, not since Jefferson, has any man so felt and expressed the passionate idealism that is the soul of America. To a revolt that was vague and sporadic he brought no beggarly contributions of expediency and opportunism, but the clear, inspiring certainties of a lifetime. As far back as 1879 we find him pro- testing in signed articles against secrecy in connection with governmental affairs, cry- ing out with all a young man's fervor against the secret committees of congress, which invited evil and corruption. Dur- ing his student days in Princeton he is seen relinquishing a desired prize well within his grasp because he would not, even in scholastic debate, advance arguments in support of what he deemed an oligarchic theory. Nor can too much be made of his fight for the democratization of the university 158 Wilson and the Issues during the days when he held the presi- dency; for although the field was small, the issues involved were those fundamen- tals that bedrock the nation. For those who may have been led into the belief that the Wilson brand of democracy is a recent product, born of political expediency, a reading is recommended to those speeches in which he fought the tendency to glorify money, scourged the drift to plutocracy, and earned the hatred of a class that at- tacked him as a ^* socialist," a **leveler," and a ' ^ confiscator. ' ' In his books and speeches liberty and progress are favorite words, and every ut- terance, written or spoken, breathes a mighty faith in the oneness of the Ameri- can people when an end is put to the falsi- ties and inequalities that compel oppres- sion and breed hate. It is indeed unfortunate that the poli- tics of the past have not been of a kind to make for more general and accurate un- derstanding of the true Wilson personal- ity. Out of the hackneyed descriptive — The Ancient Faith 159 *'the common people" — there has grown a tradition that commonness is the one proper method of popular appeal. It is an actual habit of many so-called statesmen to prepare for campaigns as though they were mummers about to play some rustic part calling for uncouth dress and speech. This species of vulgar charlatanism has confused democracy with mere physical boisterousness, and in many minds there is insistence upon hand-shaking, shoulder- clapping, and ability to remember first names as the real democratic tests. Woodrow Wilson is an embodied dis- sent to this wretched superstition. Even did his temperament not preclude the tricks and obvious insincerities of the poli- tician type, he has too exalted an appre- ciation of public service to betray it by time-squandering activities designed only to advance his own popularity. Instead of wasting effort on the accepted formu- las of campaign democracy, he is giving his days, his thought, and his strength to real democracy. Few Presidents have had 160 Wilson and the Issues such full comprehension of the solemn re- sponsibilities imposed by the highest office in the gift of the people, and few indeed have made such complete surrender of pri- vate life — its habits and pleasures — to the imperative demands of public duty. It is a matter of frequent comment that he has few friends. What is this but rec- ognition of the bitter truth that friendship is the great American conspiracy in re- straint of public duty ? Who can have for- gotten the malignant attacks upon Joseph W. Folk because he dared to prosecute the criminals who had aided in securing his nomination? Who doubts that where one strong man is true to his oath, scores have permitted the specious obligations of care- lessly formed friendships to tie their hands and bridle their tongues? Affection is a guide that has led many honest, sincere men into byways of broken faith and virtual dishonor. There is no warrant in fact for the in- sinuation that Woodro w Wilson is * * cold. ' ' His student days, his professorial years, The Ancient Faith 161 the whole record of his life up to his en- trance into political life, all proclaim a man of warm feeling, much emotionalism, and most winning geniality. Nobody ever sang a better song, told a better story, or placed higher value upon the joys of social intercourse. The insistence that he is the last word in well-ordered intellect, a per- sonality as cold and remote as though Kant^s ^^ Critique of Pure Eeason" were galvanized into action, is the stupidity of muddlers who have lost all touch with the elemental simplicities. As one follows the man from his entrance into public life, the * Hhinking-machine ' ^ theory becomes in- creasingly absurd, for at every point there is plain indication of white-heat passion, and indubitable evidence of an instinctive devotion to democratic ideals far more dominating than the mere convictions that proceed from conscious thought. It is not only to conserve his time and his energies that he has walled himself in, but more particularly to guard himself against his warmths and his impulses. 162 Wilson and the Issues The man himself is not changed; it is his position that has changed. This isolation, of which there has been complaint, is the iron determination of Woodrow Wilson, not his temperamental expression. His loneliness has its private deprivations, but these are balanced by public compensations. In his administration no conditions can arise where policies, striking against in- timacies, will be turned aside. Such a President must necessarily be somewhat contradictory to those whose conception of democracy has been gained from professional office-seekers, and such as had been led to expect a ^'feet-on-the- desk" administration by Woodrow Wil- son's campaign insistence on ^'open doors.'' A more exact comprehension of the man himself is dawning, however, and out of final appreciation the country may gain a new political type as rich in dignity, self-respect, and loyalty as the old type was fawning, standardless, and time-wasting. A new day has dawned in American life, and anything may be asked of its noon. The Ancient Faith 163 The conception of government as a sov- ereign power, aloof, remote, magisterial, is being rapidly replaced by a demand that government shall take its place in the world of work, sustaining and supplementing the generous energies that are putting equal justice into law, abolishing slums, substi- tuting opportunity for almsgiving, water- ing deserts, and harnessing streams, safe- guarding the w^eak, devising plans for a fairer distribution of the products of labor, and taking some of the hate and cruelty out of life. It is the new practicality. At the close of the Taft administration it was said truly that America witnessed a race between reformation and revolution. Woodrow Wilson has won the victory for reformation, and stands to-day as a firmer champion of law and order than any of those who oppose and attack him in de- fense of indefensible privileges. He has made it possible to achieve inevitable re- adjustments in true sanity and safety, for in leading people back to ancient ideals he has led them away from the violences that. 164 Wilson and the Issues bred by materialism, would have been em- ployed in the destruction of materialism. It is not legitimate business that he has fought, but ^ loaded dice" business; it is not enterprise that he has sought to curb, but criminal rapacity. As never before in the history of the United States, honest, law-abiding industry and adventure are aided, advanced, and protected; complaint can come in fairness only from the forces of lawless greed. His foreign policies, no less than his domestic policies, are the decisions of one with vision to see beneath the stagnancies of materialism down to the well-springs of truth. It has been his high privilege to prove that wholesale blood-letting is not the only solution of international disputes, or the single effective manner of consum- mating desires deeply rooted in justice. Purity of purpose is seen to possess com- pulsion as well as battalions, and frater- nity has been recognized as a force no less than siege-guns. The fallacy that countries and flags must The Ancient Faith 165 compel respect is displaced by the better conception that respect is a thing to be earned, and there is final understanding that hurt to a nation's honor comes always from within, never from without. The inherited and cherished fetish that international relations are inescapably hos- tile, because the success of one country inevitably entails the injury of the other, has gone the way of witchcraft, and a new national pride is beginning to put emphasis upon leadership in justice rather than in bullying exhibitions of brute strength. Across the sea the youth and flower of great races are being rushed to death. Millions of precious lives, rich in possi- bilities of creation and production, are be- ing blown away on the winds of a vast destruction, and the march of human prog- ress ends in bloody trenches. In the red light that streams from this death-grapple it has become possible for the people of America to see clearly old paths and new roads, to mark the abysses that have been edged and the heights that may be gained. 166 Wilson and the Issues The policies that *^ shamed'^ the United States are increasingly recognized as fundamental truths to which there will be universal repair in the time when war- wrecked nations gather to remold their shattered destinies. The racial mixture that is America may quiver with sympathy for those blood-brothers who go to death on European battle-fields, yet the domi- nant thrill is one of national pride in the demonstrated supremacy of American in- stitutions and ideals. Idealism, so derided in the beginning, has saved the national purse, conserved the national energies, de- stroyed national evils, and given us confi- dence in ourselves, besides inspiring and deserving the confidence of others. A people manumitted and facing the heights, a nation admired of the world and re- spected, its material interests bedrocked in international friendships — against these tangible, demonstrable benefits, how unut- terably shabby stand the returns that were promised by the sordid, destructive pro- gram of the so-called practicality that has The Ancient Faith 167 been imposing its vicious doctrines upon the United States for so long a time! Are these hard-won heights to be aban- doned? In its hour of greatest hope, is democracy to surrender? Are the people of the United States so lost to the spirit of Henry and Jefferson and Lincoln that they prefer chains to freedom? Is it possible to build a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, or must human- ity, by reason of its own stupidities, blind- nesses, incapacities, and cowardice yield inevitably to the rule of the self-selected few? These, after all, are the questions to be answered in November. THE END I