Part 3

With our ever-increasing number of ignorant Southern European immigrants, who have come from countries where republican forms of government are practically unknown, it seems that our inherited tradition of a republican democracy will be undermined through ignorance, unless, indeed, these new citizens be given an understanding of our history and the meaning of our systems.

To-day many specious types of radicalism, that are for the most part pleasant Utopian dreams of the future, standing upon no foundation and drawing no nutriment from the past, are thundered about most seriously. In life and in statecraft there is one great teacher,--Experience. A man weighs the advisability of a certain step by his past experience, and this must be the basis of thought when determining matters of political science. A reader of American History may find food for thought in comparing the manner in which the half-baked political theorists of to-day come to their conclusions with that of the great American statesmen of the past. To-day we are opportunists. Instead of weighing experience and testing the future, we jump helter-skelter at what seems of temporary value. In dreaming of the future you must remember the past or your dreams are futile. Emerson somewhere tells us, that when you are drawn into an argument upon moral values, you should always ask your opponent whether he has carefully digested his Plato. If he has not, you may placidly refuse to continue the altercation, as he to whom Plato is unknown is unfit to talk with a thinking man upon problems of higher morality. I believe that in like manner we could close the mouths of many trumpeters of social uplift through sumptuary legislation. Ask them if they have carefully read their histories. If they have not, and probably the accent will be on the "not," you may safely snub them, by insisting that they turn to the past, before they have the right to ask people to listen to their talk of the present and the future.

At the time of the founding of our Republic, in Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton we had three supreme _students_ of government. Perhaps more than to any other one cause the success of our "American Experiment" is due to the profound knowledge and scholarly attainment of those three men. Upon them rested the responsibility of founding a government "of the people, for the people, and by the people" that would neither be subverted by the wiles of a demagogue or the power of an oligarchy, nor become chaotic through the unrestrained influences of the proletarian populace. To Jefferson we owe the Declaration of Independence, to Madison a great part of the thought and the wording of the Constitution, to Hamilton the body of the Federalist Papers. Their thought was not the thought of the minute, but of all time. In all their writings we can see their thorough grasp of the faults and virtues of the governments of almost every nation in past ages. They knew, as too few of our public men know, that the future cannot be made out of whole cloth, but must evolve from the past. They had studied men and the political needs and powers of men. The result has been the establishment of a government that has stood the shock of almost a century and a half, a period during which almost all other civilized governments have been the prey not to peaceful but to violent evolution. Upon the passing of the great Revolutionary triumvirate we were fortunate in having men of the intellectual calibre of John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, and Daniel Webster. They were thinkers as well as great orators, students of the past as well as guardians of the present.

It is a profitable study to read of the youth of great statesmen. Almost invariably you will find them as young men such as would to-day be sneered at as "book-worms." Napoleon, Pitt, Gladstone, Cavour, Mirabeau, the great Americans and many, many others before they entered public life were profound followers of the goddess of learning. It is not surprising to find that many of them obtained wisdom and enthusiasm from the pages of Plutarch's "Lives of the Ancient Greeks and Romans." It was in Greece and Rome that we find the origins of most of our laws and institutions, and in the lives of the men who helped to establish them we may read of the tests and needs in their development. Considering the studies of great men it is always amusing to read the calendar which, upon the request of Mr. Madison, Senior, it is said, Jefferson arranged for the working hours of James Madison, Junior. Please note that Madison's health broke down from overstudy while at Princeton, and it is not to be wondered at, for here is the schedule: until eight in the morning he should confine himself to natural philosophy, morals and religion; from eight until twelve, read law and condense cases, "never using two words where one will do"; from twelve to one, read politics in Montesquieu, Locke, Priestley, Malthus, and the Parliamentary Debates; in the afternoon relieve his mind with history, and when the evening closes in, regale himself with literature, criticism, rhetoric, and oratory.

In those days they indeed believed in thoroughly equipping themselves for public life!

A few years ago there was an agitation afoot in favor of establishing the systems of the Initiative, Referendum, and Recall. In the North, the South, the East, and the West it was hailed by the spellbinders as the cure-all for corrupt legislation and undesirable laws. It was argued that citizens, who did not have enough political acumen to elect honest and efficient representatives, would have enough to become their own law-makers. In the height of the political campaign Nicholas Murray Butler, the President of Columbia University, published a small book entitled "Why Should We Change Our Form of Government?" The author presented the hazardous risk that our profoundly important representative system would run of being subverted into a chaotic absolute democracy by instituting laws that would deprive the executive, legislative, and judicial departments of their independence and prestige. The republican forms would lapse back two thousand years to those democratic systems of the Grecian states that too invariably paved the way to the despotism of tyrants or the chaos of mob rule.

The title of the essay was rather startling to those who had been advocating the new measures without having thoroughly analyzed their true meaning and import. The distinguished scholar brought clear thinking to bear upon the situation, whereas before it had been befogged in the spread-eagle oratory of demagogues, and the catch-as-catch-can subtleties of ignorant theorists. Clear thinking, President Butler's and that of others, won the day and the measures are now well-nigh forgotten. I mention this as but an instance of the value to our nation of men who have political and historical knowledge with the ability to think clearly upon the important points of our social progress.

I heard President Wilson, some months before he entered upon his distinguished political career, address in an informal manner a group of University students. He said in part (my quotation is rather a paraphrase, as I would not dare to transcribe from memory the words of the most perfect stylist of our time): "Gentlemen, in many European countries in times of national crises and disturbances the nation looks to the Universities and the question is asked, 'What do the young men of the Universities think?' In America unfortunately this question is rarely asked, as all realize that the men at the Universities _do not think_."

This is a bitter arraignment of the intellectual life at our universities, and if the speaker's conclusion was correct the same must to a great degree be said of the intellectual life of our nation. The public's antipathy to broad political matters is the most dangerous vice that can undermine a republic, and it is the one that is most seriously affecting ours. It would be extraordinary, if it were not so pathetic, the way in which, without taking toll of the experience of the past, without drawing analogies nor seeking wisdom, we go muddling, blundering on into the future.

That there is nothing new under the sun is perhaps more true in matters pertaining to political problems than in any other branch of affairs. History repeats itself, repeats itself, repeats itself, as if it never grew tired of begging the world to learn true lessons. In proportion as the number of our citizens appreciate that truism and sincerely pursue its corollaries, we will have a sound political condition.

When Aristotle, a wise man in his generation, said that it was in the nature of human institutions to decay, he knew whereof he spoke. It is painfully apparent to the student of history and governments. What were the seeds of decay that smouldered and finally undermined the Grecian democracies, the power of Carthage and of Tyre, the world-embracing Roman Empire, the Venetian Republic, the Holy Roman Empire, proud Spain of Charles V, and France of the seventeenth century? Has the English Empire run its course to make way for the more vital power of the Germanic People? In each and every one of these decadences, if we wish our national life to retain its pristine spirit, there are lessons to be learned by the United States of America. Our experiment has not necessarily met the test of time. Our nation is not liable to be the exception from those that have slid down the path to ruin. There is a Germany, despotic yet powerful, that perhaps must some day be met in mortal combat; if the danger lies not there, perhaps it will be another. In any case our loins must be girt with power and strength, our citizenship must be hardy, our political fabric solid.

To retain our virtues, to preserve our national life from decay, is the responsibility upon the shoulders of our generation. It is for this that we must "read and reflect on history" and apply it directly to life. What an analogy may be drawn between the Roman Usurpers in the time of the Empire's decadence throwing money at the street crowds to obtain their support, and our modern politicians bidding for the old soldier vote by passing absurdly extravagant pension bills! This mulct of the treasury is now on the wane, but is the new power in politics, the labor unions, going to obtain legislation and favors because it can poll a large vote upon election day? Such things are signs of decadence. Must we not learn from the French Revolution that its failure as a constructive force was due to an attempt to legislate morality into existence--and yet we continue to pass as laws measures that have truly been dubbed "amendments to the Ten Commandments." How many of the great nations and institutions have had their backs broken through too excessive centralization, yet, to-day there are but few individuals and no political party that stand in opposition to our ever-increasing tendency towards federalism, in contradistinction to community government. Until the outbreak of the World War, England, Germany and Russia each had a terrible internal problem: England attempting to Anglicize Ireland, Russia to Russianize Poland, Germany to Germanize Alsace and Lorraine. There was this thorn in the side of each nation: by brute force they were trying to denationalize another country. England was failing after three hundred years of wasted men and resources, Russia was covering a volcano that had smouldered for generations, after over forty years Germany had as ugly a wound to nurse as in the beginning. Yet with these examples, good Americans, with confident smiles, for three years have been laughing at the Democratic administration on account of their Mexican policy. "Conquer Mexico," the wiseacres say. Yes, conquer Mexico the way England has tried and failed to conquer Ireland!

The political value of history lies in its disclosures of the defects that have brought on decay, and the stumbling blocks that make trouble. In reading history we must keep our eyes on the present. It is unreasonable to believe that our government is an infallible one, or that our national existence, maintained with the most stable governmental authority, combined with the widest possible latitude for the liberty of men, is any more infallible than the many other systems that have met with disaster in the past. The reading of history is valuable, in that it enables us to have those visions of the future that will be fruitful in that they are moulded by our experiences in the past. Such visions, inculcating power of judgment, are never more requisite than in these days in which the blind pacifist, the quack reformer, the misguided theorist, and the wide-promising demagogue are abroad in the land. We must study our lessons of the past that we may spurn those governmental cure-alls evolved, according to Alexander Hamilton, "in the reveries of those political doctors, whose sagacity disdains the admonitions of experimental instruction."

American history properly forms the most fruitful subject of study for Americans, and yet one must have a wide background to obtain the proper crop. One must soon be led to the investigation of our legislative, executive and judicial functions as they developed through the evolution of constitutional government in England. The democratic models traced to the Grecian states, the seeds of "sans-culotte" philosophy that Jefferson and Tom Paine brought from France, the thought of political scientists such as Plato, Machiavel, Locke, and Montesquieu open fields in which every reader may learn lessons that will guide his judgment in the ever-important problems of the day.

A citizenship educated to a knowledge of the past is a bulwark that will defend the integrity of our nation. Such a citizenship is in truth an ideal in that it is unobtainable, but it is a splendid ideal and one that should be our guiding star. In a government such as ours it is intolerable that an educated man should cast his vote by habit, and yet how often do we hear the opinion expressed that such and such a man would vote the straight Democratic or Republican ticket no matter what the platform, no matter who the candidate? This study of political parties is itself fruitful. One hundred years ago the Democratic party was the party of decentralization and "laissez-faire," but to-day, since the Bryan influence has had such sway, it eclipses the Republican party as the exponent of centralization and paternalism. There are, however, thousands of voters who continue to vote the straight Democratic ticket, believing that the party stands for the same principles as it did when their fathers first voted. This is but an incident of man becoming an indifferent, incapable political animal. Too much of such indifference is a fatal disease to a country of universal franchise.

History has no business in the closet! "History and your Vote," gentlemen,--and now, in several states, you of the fairer sex,--is a phrase worth remembering upon election day.

*CHAPTER V*

*CLIO'S VINTAGE*

History after all is the true poetry.--CARLYLE

To the one who drinks of the wisdom of Clio, the Muse of history, there will come manifold riches other than the accrued satisfaction of well-weighed political judgment. A knowledge of history, in its broadest sense, may well be said to be the essential foundation of all cultural education. The movements in science, philosophy, music, literature and the plastic arts are all inseparably intertwined, and they have as their controlling background the political actions of men and the economic forces that move peoples.

It is as impossible to thoroughly understand the poetry of Wordsworth, Shelley or Byron without having an appreciation of the political and economic events of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Era, as it is to conceive of the Epics of Homer without the Trojan War. The music of Bach and Haydn has as its foundation the reasonableness in religion, philosophy and political thought of the eighteenth century, as the music of Wagner and Chopin the unreason and rampant individualism of the early nineteenth. The books of the Cromwellian period reflect the illiberality and severity of the Puritan parliaments: the books of the Restoration reflect the French upbringing of Charles II. Wars and rumors of war, famine and years of plenty, new discoveries and great invasions make up the life of the world, and it is of this life that literature and music are made. We could indefinitely cite instances of the influence that history has had upon the arts, but in this chapter let us consider history as an art, history as literature.

No historian who deserves the name should write "dry" histories. The greatest historian is he who has an inspired passion for delving into the past, and the ability to interpret it in its living, human aspects. The "scientific" student who considers his mission that of arriving at the precise facts is not an historian but a "dry-as-dust" recorder. He is useful, however, in providing the material that will enable the true historian to cast illuminating spotlights upon the centuries that have gone before. Mr. William Roscoe Thayer, one of the most distinguished of our American historical writers, tells us that "Hi'_story_'--let us not forget--is five-sevenths _story_." The historians whom we want to read are those who tell us the dramatic _story_ of the past. Two-sevenths of their ability should, perhaps, be their infinite patience and intellectual honesty in gathering, sorting and weighing documents and other sources of information, but the other five-sevenths must be that ability which is the genius of the story teller. Someone has said that every historian must be his own "dry-as-dust," his own bespectacled investigator of authentic facts,--if the rest of him is an impassioned teller of tales we have a supreme historian. Gibbon, before the days of elaborately prepared source books, before the days of thoroughly indexed libraries, ransacked the learned treasuries of Europe and Asia Minor for information; to this infinite patience there was added in his character the gifts of the artist and the dreamer. The result, after ceaseless labor, was the monumental, yet fascinating and comparatively reliable, "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," a book that is acknowledged the acme of historical perfection.

A few months ago, a woman of intellect, a wide traveller, an omnivorous reader, a mother of a large family, an efficient manager in whatever she undertook, was asked the name of the book that had made the most impression upon her life. Without a moment's hesitation she replied, Carlyle's "History of the French Revolution." Upon questioning her, we found that she had read the two large volumes three times, and with each rereading there had awakened in her the sentiments aroused by the greatest dramatic tragedy, the most intense human story.

Carlyle was not a scientific historian, he did not write histories for other historians; he wrote as one whom God directed to put upon pages of flame the characters, the drama, the magnificent incidents, the cruelties, the braveries, the cowardices, the heroisms of "the truth that is stranger than fiction." It is indeed more interesting to read of what men have done as depicted by the historian, than what they might have done as depicted by the second-rate novelist!

If you have not read the "French Revolution," read it at once! The author has taken the most dramatic period in modern times and he has treated it as it deserves. It has the power of tragedy, whose mission is, according to Aristotle, "to purify the soul through fear and terror." Your soul will be enlightened, you will be made to feel, as all great history makes you feel, that life is played upon a wondrous highway, and that the sights and works upon the way are of the sort to make you live in a trembling condition of wonder and expectancy. The city crowds will have new meaning: men and women, for having once been participants in the terrible cataclysm of one hundred and twenty year ago, are still of the stuff to accomplish strange deeds, and to fulfil undreamed-of destinies.

Has it occurred to you what a relatively small and insignificant number of familiar acquaintances we are able in our daily life to have? How many men and women do you know who have guided the destinies of nations, led great armies into the field, or are to meet death in their attempts to overthrow the tyranny of a despot or a bigot? In history we may meet them, and become acquainted with their problems and struggles. The past is a select drawing-room into which we all may enter. We may derive inspiration from the same wells that prompted the Crusaders to set out time after time in their well-nigh fatal effort to drive the Moslems from Jerusalem; we may absorb the spirit that moved Cromwell's Ironsides; we may appreciate the pettiness of our own weaknesses and vexations in comparison with the odds against which some of History's heroes have fought and conquered. It is pleasant to live in the court of Louis XIV and to talk with kings and princes through the pages of St. Simon's "Memoirs"; it is a spiritual tonic and excitement to follow the careers of the Indian Missionaries through Parkman's glowing pages! It is in truth more downright "fun" than doing most things!

Undoubtedly it is true that Napoleon's ruthless ambition brought devastation to the lands that he conquered, and sorrow to the nation whose young men he led to the cannon's mouth, and yet I sometimes think that greater than the Code Napoleon, which he instituted, is the inspiration that his career has been to the young men of all countries. How many boys have dreamed their vision of the future when following the work of the little Corsican, who at the age of twenty-seven led the armies of France across the Alps to crumple in a series of whirlwind campaigns the proud power of Austria. And there was William Pitt, the Younger, who at twenty-four became Prime Minister of England, one-armed and half-blind Nelson at Trafalgar Bay, Lincoln, the rail-splitting President, Olive, Garibaldi, Hampden, and how many another has been a light that beckons our future soldiers and statesmen?

In every epoch of history we will find new horizons opened that will enrich and broaden our daily life; in every vital struggle we will find individuals and peoples who have acted in such a way that we should hope to be guided by them in our struggles and ambitions; in the failures of the past we may obtain moral lessons for the present and the future; in cooerdinating our forces and forming our judgments we will obtain a training for our minds which will be of use to every man in carrying out the enterprises in which he is engaged.

Dr. Johnson well said that the traveller brings from his journeys that which he brings to them. It is indeed pitiful to be in Paris and to see countless American tourists rushing about "seeing Paris." What a difference there is between those who bring to the storied city on the Seine a familiarity with her past, and those who bring nothing but time and money to spend. For the first, there are human dramas lurking in the shadows of Notre Dame; Quasimodo, the strange dwarf in Hugo's great romance, still swings on the bells of the belfry; the narrow streets and turbulent cafes may still contain the instigators of the Reign of Terror and their shouting mobs of "sans culottes"; Camille Desmoulins may still be visualized in the Cafe Royal plucking the leaves to make his tricolor cockade. At every turn, in every ancient building, there are rich historic memories that may feed the traveller who has prepared himself.