Part 3
They will sign a treaty of settlement providing for unified administration of the great industrial district by a mixed commission to-morrow afternoon in the presence of the council of the League of Nations.
This is regarded as the greatest achievement of the League, with the possible exception of the international court project, for it brings to an end a dispute which nearly led to war between Germany and Poland, precipitated a local revolution, almost split the Allies asunder when Prime Minister Lloyd George and Premier Briand had their famous controversy and has held back Europe’s industrial recovery materially because of the unsettled conditions it caused.
Do you mean to tell me that the Germans and Poles in Chicago don’t want a league which will help their countries? I don’t believe it. Don’t forget also that the Irish, under the treaty recently made by Great Britain, can be represented in the League of Nations. But it can never be a real League until all nations are in.
So I appeal to all real citizens of my native country to urge upon this, the greatest federation of states the world has ever known, to coöperate with the greatest commonwealth of nations (the British Empire) which the world has ever known.
Let us give all less fortunate countries a chance. Let us be tender to all who suffer. Let our help go out to them in their need. The world needs the Anglo-Saxon ideals now. Don’t be afraid of joining a league of peace. Be afraid _not_ to join. The greater love is winning all the way down the line. The religions of the world are being judged by their fruits. The religion which makes men love all mankind; the religion where God is love, whose followers are loving, is the religion which will draw all men into it. Hate of any man or of any nation is a poison which kills. Women mistrust all who hate, all who preach or teach hate. In the name of God, who is Love, let us remember that by our fruits shall we be judged. Let us see that they are the fruits of the spirit, which are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, and patience.
VI[F]
“_Women are young at politics but they are old at suffering._”
Nothing I can put into words can ever make you Canadians realise what it means to me--a returned war veteran--to get back to Canada. I am a peculiar person, and yet I am a fortunate one. The Good Book says “the greater the love, the greater the life,” and I have many loves. Being born a Virginian, I began by loving Virginia first. You Canadians should also love Virginia. She gave you some of your common laws, and Virginia led the way to America being governed by the best laws that any country has ever, so far, invented--the common laws of England. When people think--and voters should think--they will see that every citizen born and living on this great continent of America owes more than they know to the men who fought for freedom in England long before America was ever thought of at all. The British fought their first battle against autocracy in 1214. King John learnt then what the poor old Kaiser had to learn in 1918. Let the whole world remember that the men who first fought for modern democracy, fought at Runnymede.
There is nothing in being a Member of Parliament in any country; we politicians know that. But there is something very satisfactory in being the first woman to represent a constituency of the fighting men of Devon--my second love.
My third love is Canada. I do not love Canada for her hills or plains, or vast resources, or snowy peaks, or anything which you read of in guide books. I love Canada because of her fifty thousand men who gave their bodies as a loving sacrifice for their hills and plains and homes. The only thing worth loving is unselfishness. The only thing which mars life is selfishness. It was at Plymouth I first saw them land, your Canadian sons, and it was there that I realised that heroes away from home take a lot of watching.
I gave them all that I could, and how splendidly they accepted it. I found out there, during the war, that if you really love people you can say anything you like to them--if you don’t--you can’t say “Bo” without somehow hurting them. I wish you Canadians could all have seen that realest bit of Canada in England--“Cliveden.” We, my husband and I, only gave some of the buildings and the grounds and a few odd things. The Canadian Red Cross gave the rest, and I should like to say here in Ottawa that I saw a great deal of what all countries did for their soldiers, and no country did more than Canada. No hospitals were better equipped, no doctors more skilled, no nurses more devoted, and no men were braver. This may be forgotten in after-war grievances, but it should never be.
When I speak of what men stood from me, perhaps I had better give you some idea of what they bore with patience and fortitude. Many times a month I would give them a temperance lecture. Temperance lectures were needed--in war as well as peace. I would not begin with: “Thou shalt not.” I began with a picture of Canada, their mothers, their sweethearts at home, what they wished and prayed for them. Then I would paint a picture of what having a “grand time” meant--drink, women, etc., and then the awful consequences which so often followed a “grand time“--sometimes prison, sometimes worse than prison, nearly always misery. They would listen because they knew I cared. I did care--and I still care. That’s why I am in politics. One boy came up to me as he was going on leave, after one of my horrible talks, gave me his money and said: “Here, Mrs. Astor, you’ve just ruined my holiday.” I might have ruined what he thought would be a good holiday, but I realised I had done what his mother wanted me to do.
I only did what hundreds of English women did for your sons. I never like speaking of war without speaking of what the women did. I know what Canadians who got the chance did--no women ever did better. In England the whole nation had the chance and the whole nation took it. No, not the whole nation. Some wrote diaries. The people who wrote diaries in the War--well, they wrote diaries! Never judge the people of England by the people who wrote diaries!
But war is over; the men have gone; they can’t come back. The question is--will their spirits go “marching on”? One looks round the world and wonders if they have died in vain. They did not die in vain; but they will unless we, with their unselfishness, go “marching on.” America started the idea of a league of nations. Some persons for political purposes, started the idea that a league of nations would make American mothers send their sons across the sea to fight for unheard-of countries. All countries are alike in this--they all have a vast amount of ignorant voters and prejudiced politicians, always playing the political game. All countries have some apathetic people who are frightened of being drawn into public life; but let us thank God that all countries have some people of high ideals, true patriotism and sound sense--people who, having adopted the religion of Christ in its various forms, remember the Tenth Chapter of St. Luke, and feel they can’t pass on as the Priest and Levite did, for they feel that those that lie stripped and wounded are their concern. Those are the people who will save Christian civilisation as we know it, not the civilisation we see, but as it might be. Even as it is, it is far better than any civilisation so far tried. You may say that this is idealism. Well, we have tried materialism and it has very nearly wrecked civilisation; another time it will--so it ought. Civilisation based on materialism has been wiped out before, and pray God it always will be. So don’t let us be afraid of trying more idealism. I have spoken to many thousands of people in America. I can’t pretend to know all the problems of America; they are enormous. I only pretend to know a little, and that little is more than some politicians know, but they will know when it is too late. Now when politicians lack a great principle to fight for they have to fall back on something that will stir the popular imagination. In a country with a mixed population that is easy enough--there are some politicians in America who would be willing to win on any anti-British policy. Some people in America would try to misrepresent the League of Nations as a league started in England by England, for the benefit of the British Empire; they know perfectly well that it is not true, and politicians, like people, who are not telling the truth, are playing a losing game. I don’t say that they will lose at once, but lose they will. All politicians and all nations who appeal to prejudice, hate, and self-preservation, which is only a form of selfishness, have missed the new spirit, the spirit of hundreds of thousands of men whose souls go “marching on.” They are not so far away as some would think. These men belong to all countries, enemy as well as Allies. In the hearts of mothers of all countries the seeds of peace are sown. They are dumb as yet in some countries, they are apathetic in others, but, mark me, they are there.
Women are young at politics, but they are old at suffering; soon they will learn that through politics they can prevent some kinds of suffering. They will face the political issue as they have faced all others when called upon; few men have tried their mothers and found them wanting, and nearly all men have tried their mothers at some time. If women will only do their own thinking and base that thinking on Christ’s teaching, I feel that our entry into politics will be worth while. We are the mothers of nations. If we individually judge our neighbours by their best and not their worst, the nation will do the same.
Canada has a great future; Canada more than any country can prove to America that the British Empire is based on laws which strive to be fair to all men and women, and do harm to none. Canada, with her French and English living in peace and legislating together can show that the Entente need never go. And Canada, too, can help me to explain to England that those who bark the loudest in America are those who least understand the best and most real in America, and very often are not Americans at all. All nations can have great futures, but all greatness can only be founded on what is truly great. Your fifty thousand Canadians have shown the way; let us never forget that the greatest Way-shower of all came teaching us to do unto others as we would they should do unto us. The nations that do that will conquer all opposition, surmount all obstacles and secure the only true greatness.
VII[G]
“_Law, humanity, and Christianity make a perfect state._”
Education is a dangerous thing unless it is started on the right lines. To start educating yourself for yourself is certainly one of the most misleading or mistaken forms of self-improvement. Real education should educate us out of self into something far finer--into a selflessness which links us with all humanity. Political education should do the same. The more I see of life the more I see that the only way is the narrow way and broad view.
When I landed here in New York about six weeks ago I expected to make two speeches and then go to Virginia and renew my youth. I have made altogether forty speeches--I spent only eleven days in Virginia and my youth has obviously not been renewed. However, in spite of talking, I have learned a lot--I have found out what a glorious thing it is to belong to two countries and try to be prejudiced against none. I’ve learned, too, how well all countries and all states think of Virginia, and well they might. It was in Virginia that the first laws of the best law-makers in the world were put into practice on this North American Continent--the common laws of England. It’s a wonderful tribute to these laws when one thinks of how well they have worked away from the little island on which they were started. Changed and improved, if you will, but always the same. Here we see all kinds of people from all kinds of countries, living uncommonly well and peacefully under these common laws. They seem almost like the Divine law in that they embrace all sorts and conditions of men.
The great merit of these common laws is this: They enable everyone to work out his own salvation in his own way. Now, we know that neither the law nor the state can make a man. But a good law, and a good state can go a long way toward helping a man to make himself. We must have law, humanity, and Christianity to make a perfect state. I think we--and to-night I speak as a Virginian, not a British M. P. (so bear with me, as my time is growing short and I won’t speak as a Virginian again for some time)--we can feel that we have built this country on these three--a good deal of law, some humanity, and some Christianity.
Think of what America has taken on to her shores in the last hundred years! Now, it was not only humanity or Christianity which made us welcome the immigrants, any more than it was the search of these two qualities which brought them. They have come from necessity and we welcomed them from necessity. They brought much to the country and some have taken much away. It’s amazing to see how many returned to their native countries after a period of about twenty-five years. In the meantime they have helped develop the country, and if your common law and common humanity and common Christianity has been brought into action, we will have helped to develop them, and when they leave these shores they will carry away more than mere money. When we look at Europe to-day we almost wish we had sent more.
Many of these immigrants make fine citizens. Just think what Mr. Straus has done for the infant welfare of this city. Many never leave the country again. But many of them--until they learn better--just make a mass of illiterate voters who are used by our less fine citizens for political purposes, and their purposes are not for the betterment of our country or any other country, but too often for a richer and a fuller life in the worst sense of the word.
Now, I am getting down to political education--a thing of vital importance for every citizen of this country. This is a very interesting thing and something that we can be proud of. Both of our great parties, like most great parties in all countries, have their dark sides. It seems that all countries must go through periods of political corruption. Some countries linger in that state longer than others. We have suffered constantly from politicians or political crooks, but we have so managed that no party has ever dared nominate or bring forward any man but an honest man as President--they haven’t all been Sir Galahads, or George Washingtons, or Abraham Lincolns--but they have all been like Cæsar’s wife--above suspicion. That we may recall with pride. That’s what I point out, when I hear people fearing that certain of our less desirable citizens will get high office. They just don’t.
People are so apt to feel apathetic or indifferent about local politics. So long as the taxes don’t go too high and the local “bosses” don’t get too rich too quick--we shrug our shoulders and go on. I don’t blame the local bosses....
This is an extraordinarily interesting age. But between spiritualists who see what the dead think and the psychoanalysts who see what we don’t think, one has to be up and doing. So it is in everything--in religion, in business, in games, and in politics. If we are content to have only our Presidents fine and to have less fine local politicians, we are making it awfully hard for a President to do fine things. We are simply making it possible for less fine politicians to do anything they like. I don’t pretend to be an educated woman, but I have a slight understanding of human nature and a positive nose for politics and politicians. Political education should begin with the A B C of politics. It should begin right down low, and for many of us it should begin right now. We have here one of the greatest countries in the world--it’s a country which differs from any country in Europe, not only on account of its size and nature and natural resources, but because of its hopefulness.
Pandora never let loose a better angel thing than when she let loose the angel of hope. The three things that have struck me most about America are its hope, its spirit of confidence in the future, and its varied mysterious opportunities. It has an active and hard-working people, but added to this it has no outside cares, it has no great and powerful neighbours, and no anxiety as to what they are going to do. You have no idea what an obsession these things are in Europe. In Europe the soil is limited and over-populated; nations have to depend upon their foreign trade to find employment and food for themselves. All the time they are consumed with fear lest they should be attacked and their bone taken from them.
France is naturally afraid of Germany; Germany of Russia; and England, though not afraid of her neighbours any more than America is, is perpetually anxious lest the whole of Europe should sink into chaos. Not only would this intensify unemployment and bad times, but think of the added misery of those already suffering people! In England we can almost hear the cries of the starving children of Europe. You here are far away from all this, and for that and your innumerable blessings be thankful. No one asks you to give up a single blessing, no one even envies you any of them, but one can say this--when you realize your blessings and know what Europe is, what will you do?
Will you--will we--be like the Priest and the Levite that pass by and say “That starving, bleeding man is no concern of mine--it’s probably his own fault--until he gets up and makes an effort it’s not my job to help him. It’s a revolting sight and simply spoiled my day”?
The other way is the way of the Samaritan. We can help him up, clean him up, heal him up, and let him share some of our blessings. I have no doubt which is the right policy--which is in the end the most paying policy.
The other day I saw that the American Government asked the British Government to help protect her oil interests in Mesopotamia through the League of Nations. I am glad to say she did it. Soon after I saw that the Allies sent a note asking America to join them and inquire into atrocities against a Christian population. America refused. I ask you which is the more important in the end, oil concessions or bleeding humanity.
Now, I don’t want to leave here having said anything to hurt any person or party. All persons and all parties have been much too kind to me. There’s enough trouble in the world to make one dread adding an ounce to it. But I should like just to say before leaving that I think the politician who, because of lack of principle, feels that he must appeal to prejudices or hatred--class, national, or international--is playing a losing game. They have missed the new spirit, and I believe as firmly as I ever believed anything that there is a new spirit abroad. It may be that this World War has set us thinking. It may be that women are the leaven in the lump, but as certainly as the Kaiser found might was not right in 1918, the politicians or parties who think that they will win out on prejudice or anti-British or anti-German or anti-what you will propaganda are doomed to failure. They may not fail at once, but fail they will. A mind that hates is a mind that is sick, and a mind which boasts of itself is as a frog which puffeth itself up. Only the mind which is genuinely out to help all humanity is the kind of mind which deserves and will get the support of all the right kind of people.
Playing politics may be all right when there is nothing seriously wrong with the world. Just now the human race needs human beings and not boss politicians. Quacks are failing all the world over and fundamentals are winning, and the safe policy for politicians and nations is not to do others, but to do unto others as you would they should do unto you.
ENGLAND
VIII[H]
“_A fool without fear is sometimes wiser than an angel with fear._”
It was very kind of the English Speaking Union and the League of Nations Union American Committee to have thought of giving me this welcome. It was particularly appropriate that they should have asked the First Lord of the Admiralty to preside, and gracious of him to come. You see, if I have done any good in any way in public life, it’s due to the men and women of England’s most famous port--Plymouth. I think we can safely call it the most historical port in the world for two reasons: first, it was off Plymouth that the Armada was defeated. That may seem just a big sea-fight of ancient days. It was not thought so by the enemy at the time. They knew what it meant. It meant that England would be free to worship God in her own way--not free enough for some, but far freer than any other place in the world at that time. Then, from Plymouth, those who found their more advanced ideas about religious freedom hampered, sailed away to America, where they carried on their English traditions of freedom. There, in course of time, all men from all countries found freedom to worship God in their own way. I think it would have shocked them had they realised that some whom they welcomed to their shores would preach hate in the name of God toward the country from which they came; yet that is what they have done, some of these people who went to America. They have not understood that true freedom can never come to a man or a nation that hates. I, personally, have never feared people who preach hate--never--and in 1918 I was proved right. The nation which hated most was most handsomely defeated. The people in America who preach hate will also some day be defeated, and I don’t believe their days is far off.
I am an unregenerate Anglo-Saxon, not because I am a Virginian-born British M. P., not because I care so desperately for the British Empire or the United States, but because I care for something even greater than these two great countries. I care for civilisation based on Christianity. I’ll admit that I have not seen much of it yet, but I’ve seen glimpses of it, and I’ve seen thousands of men lay down their lives because it seemed the nearest right. It seemed nearer right than the belief that might is right. They had a vision, and that vision goes on. It’s in many a heart, and it’s the hope of the world. Other countries have visions, but no other countries in the world have fought and won so many battles for freedom as the English-speaking peoples. The Reformation, it is true, began in Germany, but it was in England that its spirit flourished. Anglo-Saxonism stands to me for true freedom, spiritual progress, high moral ideals, and a great sense of service. It is based on the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. I know we fail miserably to carry out our high ideals, but we have no illusions about our virtue when we do fail. We don’t talk nonsense about the superman or our thwarted souls. We know every one of us well enough right from wrong. We have an ideal, and if we will only listen to our consciences we realise that the Kingdom of God is within us, and it’s our failure, not God’s, if this Kingdom seems so far away.
Now there must be people in all nations who feel like this, but I believe that there are more people in the English-speaking countries who have been taught this than in any other countries. They have been taught a progressive Christianity. They have been taught to think for themselves, and that is why I am so keen that these two great nations should not only go on thinking for themselves, but should think how to help all mankind. To be great for ourselves is the poorest sort of greatness. It is pitiful, because it is not great at all.