EUROPE-AND THE AMERICAN STATE OF MIND

Frederick James Gregg

FROM the moment when Austria dropped a lighted match—made in Germany— among the powder barrels of Europe, the United States found herself the solitary, first class conservator of modern institutions. Every fresh explosion meant that another revered custom or practise had gone'to smash abroad. International Law was buried in the ruins of Belgium; Party or Parliamentary rule ended; solemn guarantees were reduced to "scraps of paper"; alliances fell apart; for the freedom of the press was substituted the whim of the censor, and one nation after another deserted its habits of government.

The United States did not believe that Prussia would repudiate the principles which controlled warfare between civilized States, or put in force the doctrine of " Kriegsrason " (which justifies any "fearfulness"), since Germany had been a party to the Hague Regulations, one of which declares, in flat contradiction to the present military method of the Kaiser's forces, that "the right of belligerents to adopt means of injuring the enemy is not unlimited." That admission was ignored blandly in the German reply to the President's note.

There is a widespread appreciation here of the extent of the injury done to International Law, with all that this involves. The other day at the Pan-American Financial Conference at Washington, when Dr. S. P. Triana, a delegate from Columbia, declared that: "We in America, north and south, should be prepared to make our inviolability stronger every day." He went on "We have seen what that inviolability means in this war." In pleading for "the flag of right that should be the flag of this continent," and the policy of "the Americas for Americans," he made it clear that the Latin Republics to the south of us now realize to what an extent the Monroe Doctrine is a defence of the law and rights of nations, in spite of what Dr. Burgess and the other Germanophile critics of that famous theory may say.

AMERICA refuses to admit that the rules of the game may be suspended, or that anything like a state of anarchy exists in the world. Considering herself bound by the limitations imposed on the nations, by and with their own consent, she is in a position to work for the future. Even Secretary Daniels has changed his ideas as to the needs of the navy, and, stimulated by public opinion, openly expressed, he is willing now to have Congress display—as Congress undoubtedly will display—a generous spirit towards what is not only this country's first but second and third line of defence.

The United States does not admit the validity of the doctrine of "fearfulness." Nor does she admit that the laws of warfare may be ignored because it is difficult to observe them, and, at the same time, get all the fine results possible out of such novelties as the Zeppelin, the submarine, and the deadly gas that walks like the pestilence in darkness.

The United States, fortunately free from all entangling foreign alliance, and having small respect for the dark ways of European diplomacy, has insisted and is insisting, on the rights of neutrals, and proposes to protect the fundamental principles of International Law from violation by any State or group of States, even in the way of retaliation. Because our diplomacy is straightforward, German critics in military uniforms say it is of the "shirtsleeve " sort. But the skill displayed by Franklin, Adams, Olney, Hay and Root, is enough to indicate the absurdity of such a sneer.

"It must be admitted," said an American the other day, "that dreadful things happen in every war." But it cannot be forgotten that Americans conducted the great Civil War without outrages, absolutely without the ravaging of women and the murdering of children.

DR. JAMES MONROE TAYLOR remarked pointedly in his Columbia University address of May 30—an address which will be long remembered in that institution—that for nations as for individuals, the important thing is, not so much what they do, as the state of mind in which they do it. The force of this distinction has been exemplified in the dealings of Washington with Berlin. American anger has been stirred by German acts on land and on the high seas. But the German state of mind towards the rights and property, the lives and bodies of neutrals and non-combatants, has been simply the despair of our government, from the time of the invasion of Belgium.

The American state of mind was expressed most positively in the Declaration of Independence; most constructively in the Constitution, and most finely in the Gettysburg Address. It was embodied in the notes addressed to the Powers by John Hay when he was trying to save China, and in the speeches delivered by Elihu Root when he went to South America as a member of President Roosevelt's cabinet.

The Teutonic state of mind is expressed by the Kaiser's innumerable speeches and prayers, and by the Prussian idea of World Empire. Any nation or race that thinks itself destined to establish a sort of "overlordship," in the nations, is bound to despise International Law. This was so in the case of Napoleon the Great, who called himself the successor of Charlemagne. It is so in the case of William II, who aspired to be a sort of successor to Napoleon as the predominant figure in Europe. The Hohenzollern "Kaiser" means "Caesar," and "Caesar" means "universal rule."

THE theory lying at the base of the Law of Nations is the early Roman one that there must be always a rule to fit every case. This is expressed in Equity by the maxim that "for every wrong there is a remedy." If one Power may try to set itself up as supreme over all the rest, International Law simply comes to an end, seeing that International Law implies an equality of right as between the big and the little, the powerful and the weak.

The Monroe Doctrine and the theory of the "open door" in China, were not at any time aggressive in purpose, or intended to increase the power of the United States. In the one case, as in the other, the intention was to protect weaker nations from the ambitious projects of European countries—to save South America from being acquired piecemeal, by settlements to be turned into open possessions, and to save China from the disintegration planned by Germany, Russia, and Japan. The resentment felt by this country over the recent coup by the Mikado's ministry in the Far East will be satisfied when more pressing problems have been solved. In the meantime, by her indecent determination to make hay while the sun shone; to " get busy " behind the backs of her allies, while they were engaged with a common enterprise elsewhere, Japan has virtually put herself out of the war. Whatever advantages she has gained must be only temporary and dubious. She has most certainly broken her treaty obligations.

T TNDER the pressure of a unique situation Parliamentary government has virtually and practically come to an end in England, and, by means of the Defence of the Realm Act, emergency measures became law which virtually abolished the liberty of the citizen, on the one hand, and on the other gave the government power to undertake matters ordinarily left to private enterprise. To offset the "efficiency" of Germany, resulting from absolute government control of everything and everybody in the Teutonic Empire, Great Britain, France and Italy had to follow suit. So that in each of these countries the government has the authority to do anything it has a mind to. As a result there are some who think that many years will elapse before anything like constitutional or normal conditions can be restored, so that the people may once more get back the supreme authority in their own hands. The Socialists will not be slow to point out that while the Great War was in progress all the big nations of Europe were organized, in fact, as Socialist communities. Indeed, between Prussian autocracy, with its everlasting meddling and interfering in the concerns of the individual, and the Socialist dream of the ideal State—or everything for the State— there is not so vast a gap after all.

So that, in contrast with England and France, the United States is in the curious position of being the only one of the three great democracies in which government by the people is in actual operation to-day. She is, therefore, in a position to guarantee the continuance of democratic ideas and ideals—if she will.