The Times/1917/07/16/The New America

by Ian Hay

The New America.

By Ian Hay.

I.

The Melting Pot.

 

Twelve months ago the average American could see no particular reason for joining in the war. To-day he is in it. Why?

Roughly speaking, countries (and individuals) fight for one of four reasons. They may fight from sheer lust of conquest, or because their liberties are actually in danger, or because the provocation received is so severe that self-respect renders a further passive attitude impossible, or—and this is what can raise war from the level of the abattoir to the level of the crusade—because a great principle is at stake.

Until recently none of these four propositions made any great appeal to America as a whole. In the first place, to a peace-loving people, inhabiting "God's own country" already, a war of aggression was superfluous and unthinkable. Nor was it apparent to America as a whole that American liberties were in danger. To the Missourian farmer there appeared to be not the remotest relation between his own tranquil and prosperous existence and the fact that the British Navy was abroad on the high seas. Again, the issue for which the Allies were fighting—the great principle at stake—the principle upon which the American Constitution itself is founded—had been so clouded and distorted by the arts of Bernstorff and his press-gang, that America in general inclined to the view that there was a good deal to be said on both sides, and that John Bull in particular was not in the habit of indulging in war simply for exercise. Lastly, although national pride had been stung to the quick by the Lusitania outrage, the German propagandists were able to point out with perfect truth that those who perished in the Lusitania had been officially "warned" before going on board. This astonishing piece of impudence impressed quite a number of stay-at-home Americans into a hazy belief that if neutrals are foolish enough to travel on belligerent ships they render themselves justly liable to instant assassination. German propaganda also insisted on the fact that the British blockade was interfering with neutral rights, and actually succeeded in many cases in creating an impression that there is no moral difference between taking life and taking property.

Why the States Held Back.

That, a year ago, was the general attitude of the American proletariat towards the four fundamental causes which may bring a nation into war. To the British people, face to face with the grim realities of the struggle, this attitude was absolutely unintelligible. With little opportunity, and less leisure, to study or consider the variegated local conditions in America's 48 States, all that the average Englishman saw across the sea was a people which "came not forward in the day of battle"—a people which, not being for us, was against us—led by a President who demanded satisfaction for German insults solely through the medium of futile correspondence. Perhaps that was a severe attitude, but the average Englishman may be forgiven for adopting it, because it was the attitude of a very large and very important section of the American people as well. Hard things may have been said about America in France, and Great Britain, and Canada during the first two years of the war, but they are benedictions compared with some of the things which Americans have said about themselves. All over the country, in New York, and New England, and Virginia, and Kentucky, and California, and Oregon (and very particularly at Oyster Bay), I have heard the most unsparing criticisms uttered by thinking, travelled Americans against their own apathetic countrymen. Such men were bitterly ashamed of the figure which their beloved America had cut in the eyes of the world, and they were burning to see her step forward and play her part in the war, not merely because of the principle at stake, but in order that she might "make good" in certain matters of national honour.

With this earnest and powerful influence at work, why did America hold aloof so long? That is the question which has been debated in Allied circles for many a day. It has been debated, as already noted, with even greater vehemence in certain American circles. And the explanation—the explanation which the stay-at-home Englishman and the stay-at-home American have both failed equally to grasp—can be found by looking at the map and comparing the size of the United States with the size of the other countries of the world. We who live in an island which it is possible to traverse in a day; where everybody is acquainted with everybody else's point of view; where the population contains practically no foreign element; where it is possible to read the London papers in practically any part of the country on the morning of publication, can have but little conception of the different angles of vision, the conflicting interests, and the abysmal ignorance of one another which characterize the heterogeneous elements of the great nation across the sea.

A Study of the Map.

What does the map show us? A country—or rather continent—stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Tropics to Canada. New York State alone is not much smaller than England; California is larger. Within the boundaries of this huge federation you will find every type of humanity, several distinct languages, every degree of education, every shade of public opinion. Most countries are dominated by their capital. In America there are a vast number of populous cities, each a little centre in itself, with its own newspapers and its own opinion of things in general and the rest of America in particular. Again, the sturdy American democrat is apt to smile upon our social watertight compartments, and tells us that "in the United States we are one class only." But in truth America is, above all other countries, the home of intellectual and social extremes. Let us take a few examples. In the universities of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, to mention only a few—for this great land is literally sown with seminaries, nobly endowed—you will find scholars of world-wide reputation. In New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and the great cities of the South you will find families of wealth and refinement whose ancestry can be traced back three or four hundred years. There is no prouder aristocracy in the world. In public life you will find bankers, financiers, and heads of great commercial enterprises who have achieved the last word in business organization. Some one once said that there were only three invincible organizations in the world—the Roman Catholic Church, the German Army (before the war, presumably), and the Standard Oil Company of America. Again, in the laboratories and workshops of the Northern States you will find mechanical and inventive genius at its highest point. The names of Thomas Edison and Orville Wright are the first which suggest themselves as illustrations.

Now for a slightly different angle. Living under the same flag with these-less conspicuous, mayhap, but returning two Senators to Congress per State notwithstanding-you will find men of the "Solid South," who still remember the "carpet-bagger" of the North and the dreadful days of the Reconstruction period-men to whom the word "Yankee," instead of meaning, as to us, an American citizen, is still almost a term of opprobrium. In the Middle West you will find farmers of Kansas and Illinois who regard New York City as an annexe to hell, and who care nothing for world politics so long as their pigs get safe to Chicago and their wheat to Minneapolis. Further west again, cut off from their fellow-countrymen by trackless deserts and impassable mountains, you will find isolated communities, like Denver and Salt Lake City, each with its own activities, traditions, and public opinion. Further west still, in country that grows more beautiful and wonderful as you proceed, you will come to the Pacific Slope, where oranges and peaches grow in the open air, and flowers bloom all the year round, but where life is beginning to be complicated by Asiatic problems of which the East knows nothing. In the North-West, again, you will find certain thriving seaport towns, not altogether insensible of the proximity of Canada. (Seattle, for instance, has a great deal more in common with Vancouver than with San Francisco.) Lastly, in South-Western States like Arizona and New Mexico you will encounter certain interesting and primitive communities (each, remember, returning its quota to Congress), who invent their own customs and practise the same without assistance. The other day, for instance, in one of these States a crowd of about a thousand white persons, men and women, decided that a certain negro criminal ought to die forthwith. So they put him in a cage, poured paraffin oil over him, and roasted him alive. No one seems to object to these engaging tribal customs. At least, Washington took no steps in the matter, and apparently never does. But the incident affords us a useful sidelight upon the difficulty of standardizing American thought.

Nationalities and Languages.

Take nationality, and language again. First of all, let us get over the delusion that America is entirely inhabited by our "cousins "-people of pure British descent. Before the war nearly two million immigrants entered the United States every year. Very few of these could speak English. To-day, it is said, only one-half of the inhabitants of Manhattan Island (the main part of New York City) are American born. If you take a walk down the lower end of Fifth Avenue during the dinner-hour, when the mighty sky-scraping office buildings of perhaps forty storeys have temporarily decanted their human contents on to the pavement below, you will find yourself elbowing your way through a crowd which is more fitted to serve as an ethnological museum than as a representative body of capital citizens. Within the compass of a mile you will probably hear seven or eight languages spoken—French, German, Italian, Russian, Polish, Lithuanian, Yiddish, and Czech. Possibly you will not hear English spoken once. You will see men standing at street corners reading newspapers printed in German, or Hebrew, or Modern Greek—papers printed and published daily in New York. New York alone contains more Germans than many large German cities. The same may be said of Chicago. Indeed, the Mayor of that city recently excused himself from issuing an official invitation to Marshal Joffre and the French Mission on the ground that "Chicago is the third German city of the world." But the rest of Chicago declined to stomach this dreadful insinuation; the Mayor was overruled, and Joffre paid a triumphant visit. In other great cities, such as St. Louis, Milwaukee, and Cincinnati, the German population, though actually smaller, is relatively still greater.

And the German is not the only foreign element. In South-Western States like Texas and New Mexico, and even in Southern California, there is a strong Mexican strain, and the Spanish tongue is constantly heard. In San Francisco, again, you will find a considerable Chinese and Japanese element, who, although they take no part in politics, add to the variegated nature of the American population. Down in Louisiana. New Orleans still retains something of its ancient Gallic atmosphere. In numerous reservations throughout the country you will find the remnants of the moribund Indian tribes; and finally on every hand you will encounter a vast, vigorous, and increasing negro population, all nominally in possession of the franchise. Throw in a few oddments from Cuba, the Philippines, and Honolulu, and you have the tale complete.

And this is the country which we, in our tight little parochial island, expect to speak and act upon questions of international importance with a single voice!

(To be continued.)