American World Policies

There is an added use to which such higher taxation may be put. By means of a larger collective expenditure, a more equal distribution of income and a wider consumption by the masses may be secured. What can be attained by industrial action, such as strikes, can be effected in even greater measure through fiscal action. Taxes, to redress inequality, should be sharply graduated. By taxes on unearned increment and monopoly profits, by the regulation of the wages, prices, dividends and profits of great corporations, we could increasingly divert large sums to wage-earners, consumers, stockholders and to the nation as a whole. By increasing the consumption both of individuals and of the national unit, such taxation would give an impetus to home industrial development. If this deflection of wealth from the rich caused a temporary lack of capital, the resulting rise in interest rates would stimulate saving and repair the evil.

Such a progress would mean not only an advance towards a fuller, freer and more active life for the population but also a diminution of the impulse to imperialistic adventure and war. An increased income for the men at the bottom creates a broader economic base, a less top-heavy structure, with smaller necessity for support from without. It increases our home market, widens the home investment field and reduces the intense sharpness of competition for the profits of the backward countries. It affords the opportunity to be disinterested in foreign policy and to work for the promotion of international peace. Equally important is its effect upon the national psychology. It gives the people a stake at home. A device, familiar to certain statesmen, is to divert the people's minds from domestic affairs by arousing animosity against the foreigner. Is it impossible to allay hatred of the foreigner by concentrating interest on home concerns?

Psychologically this process is nothing but immunisation. A disease may be resisted by the absence in the blood and tissues of substances needed by the bacteria for their growth and increase. As we may immunise the body, so we may immunise the mind of individual or nation. We protect our children from error, not by forbidding the publication of false doctrine but by creating in the child's mind a true knowledge and a faculty of criticism. Similarly to guard against the infection of the war spirit a public opinion can be created in which war bacteria will find no nutriment.

To immunise society is not, however, a mere juggler's trick; we cannot ask Washington to legislate us into immunity. What is needed is a potent social change, arousing enthusiasms and antagonisms, and involving a new attitude towards business and politics, freedom and discipline; a new efficiency; a new balance of power within society; a new attitude towards the state; a new value placed upon the life of each individual. Such a change involves a patriotism so exigent that the nation will resent poverty in Fall River or Bethlehem as it resents murder in Mexico. Many Americans would find such a revolution in our conditions and attitudes uninteresting or worse; some, with vast material interests at stake, would prefer a dozen wars. Against this indifference and opposition, the change, if it comes, must make its way.

Such a progress would not, of course, create perpetual peace within the community. We read much to-day of satiated nations, unwilling to fight for more, but considered from within, there is no satiated society. Everywhere groups fight for economic, political or social advancement. In a democratic community the mass of the people, and especially the manual workers, though in a more favourable economic situation, would still be unsatisfied. Conflict would endure. It is well that it should be so, for a society in which all were contented in a buttressed, routine life would go to war through sheer boredom.

The economic antidote to imperialism thus resolves itself into a very necessary intellectual and emotional antidote. The lure of war persists even to-day, when soldiers dig themselves into burrows and individual courage is lost in the vast magnitude of the contest. Nor can you counteract the temptation to fight (or have others fight) by preaching sermons against war, for the sermon and the bugle-call seem to appeal to different cells in the brain. All you can do is to polarise a man's thoughts and inspire him with other interests, ambitions and ideals. A full, varied, intense life is a better antidote than a mere vacuity of existence, without toil, pleasure, pain or excitement. In his search for an antidote to war, William James points out how utterly the ordinary pacifist ignores the stubborn instincts that impel men to battle. "We inherit," he says, "the war-like type.... Our ancestors have bred pugnacity into our bone and marrow, and thousands of years won't breed it out of us. The popular imagination fairly fattens on the thoughts of war." The men at the bottom of society, James assures us, "are as tough as nails and physically and morally almost as insensitive," and if not to these then to all "who still keep a sense for life's more bitter flavours … the whole atmosphere of present-day Utopian literature tastes mawkish and dishwatery." For the discipline of war, William James wishes to substitute another and more strenuous discipline, "a conscription of the whole youthful population to form for a certain number of years a part of the army enlisted against Nature." "The military ideals of hardihood and discipline would be wrought into the growing fibre of the people; no one would remain blind as the luxurious classes now are blind, to man's relations to the globe he lives on, and to the permanently sour and hard foundations of his higher life. To coal and iron mines, to freight trains, to fishing fleets in December, to dish-washing, clothes-washing and window-washing, to road-building and tunnel-making, to foundries and stokeholes, and to the frames of sky-scrapers, would our gilded youths be drafted off, according to their choice, to get the childishness knocked out of them, and to come back into society with healthier sympathies and soberer ideals."114

Even in a society which would permit an industrial conscription both of rich and poor, a certain latent bellicosity, making for war, would undoubtedly persist. There seems to be an irreducible minimum of jingoism, just as whatever your precautions, you cannot quite do away with rats or noxious germs. No nation is free from this cheapest intoxicant. You may find it with the expensive American on his travels or on the cracker-barrels in the country store and you cannot help stumbling over it in the yellow journals and in many dull and respectable newspapers which do not know that they are yellow. Even the self-depreciating type of American may turn out to be a jingo if you will trouble to take off his peel.

Such jingoism, however, though unpleasant may be quite innocuous. We all have a trace of it as we all are supposed to have a trace of tuberculosis. So long as our jingoes confine themselves to merely trumpeting national virtues, actual and imputed, we may rest content. Such men will scarcely be capable of stirring a whole population to war, if men are living under decent conditions, struggling for still better conditions, and competing on a high plane. If we can secure prosperity, efficiency and equality and can make life fuller, more intense, varied and romantic, the ravages of jingoism will be circumscribed.

It will be argued, however, that though we make our conditions what we will we shall still be anxious to fight at the first opportunity. "It is evident," says Prof. Sumner,115 "that men love war; when two hundred thousand men in the United States volunteer in a month for a war with Spain which appeals to no sense of wrong against their country and to no other strong sentiment of human nature, when their lives are by no means monotonous or destitute of interest, and where life offers chances of wealth and prosperity, the pure love of adventure and war must be strong in our population." If two hundred thousand volunteer for a war when we are not obviously attacked, will not the whole country go to war for the sake of "honour"?

It would be foolish to answer this question categorically; no one can predict what a nation will do when wounded in its self-esteem. The heir of thousands of centuries of fighting, man is to-day, as always, a fragile container of dynamite, not guaranteed against explosion, and there are experts in the touching off of dynamite. When Bismarck falsified the Ems despatch he knew exactly what its effect would be upon the French sense of honour. But "honour" is an ambiguous word, meaning everything, from a scrupulous regard to national obligations freely entered upon to a mere truculent bellicosity. The honour of nations, in the sense that nations usually fight for honour, is mere prestige, and prestige is not much more than an acknowledgment of formidableness. The Danes and the Dutch are honourable, but, in the sense in which the word is ordinarily used, neither Denmark nor Holland can afford honour. The claims of national honour, moreover, are strangely shadowy and transitory. What seems imperatively demanded by honour at the moment becomes insignificant later. For a number of years the United States paid tribute to the Barbary pirates; our citizens were sold into slavery and his Serene Majesty, the Dey of Algiers, treated our representative in a manner which a great power to-day would hardly adopt in an ultimatum to Paraguay or San Marino.116 But it was not then convenient to fight and so we pocketed our honour until a more convenient occasion. The Dey of Algiers has long since gone to the scrap-pile of history, while the United States remains, a respected and honourable nation.

Nations which are sure of themselves, like men who respect themselves, are somewhat slower to resent affronts than nations which are insecure and fearsome. In 1914 Austria was solicitous of her honour, which, she believed, was assailed by Servia, and Russia was solicitous of hers, for these two powers were engaged in a contest over the fears and prepossessions of the Balkan States, and "honour" meant adherents. But when in the same year, a Mexican government offered what was believed to be an affront to the United States, our people were in no mood to feel insulted. We did not need prestige. After all, questions of honour are usually questions of interest. In the Lusitania controversy, we did not receive the apologies which we believed were due to us. But as we had no interest in fighting Germany, and as Germany gained less from her submarine campaign than she would have lost in a war with us, the matter was amicably, though not logically, settled or at least postponed. Had we, however, been in a different economic position, had a few million unemployed men been striking, rioting and threatening to revolt, or, on the other hand had we had plans for our aggrandisement at the expense of Germany, acts of war would have followed within twenty-four hours of the massacre. We should have been far more "jealous in honour." But we were otherwise engaged. The headlines were full of the events in Europe and the horror of that tragedy in the Atlantic, but the gaze of America was inward. We were interested day by day in the ambitions of peace.

Thus our hope of remaining at peace ourselves and of contributing to the peace and economic reorganisation of the world depends not only upon the conservation and development of our natural resources but also upon a distribution of wealth and income which will widen the consumption by the masses and will give to the whole population the opportunity of a full, varied and purposeful life. All these things, as well as the moral discipline which is so urgently needed, can be secured only as we learn to apply a national policy to our own nation. It is our own slackness, our own "state-blindness," our lack of a complete democracy, which increases our chances of imperialism and war. It is, on the other hand, our increasing willingness to take a national view of internal affairs, our increasing desire to base American prosperity upon American resources and to make life fuller and more valuable, that acts as a deterrent to war and fits us for the difficult task of contributing to a world peace.

Finally such a contribution to the peace of the world implies the condition that our own foreign policy shall not be in conflict with the international ideals which we are seeking to promote. If we ourselves are interested in the parcelling out of backward countries, we shall not be able to exert a restraining influence upon nations whose necessities are greater than ours. By this is not meant that we are to stay at home completely and enjoy no rights beyond our borders. Such an effacement would mean a monastic seclusion for the United States. But while in the world beyond there is a fair field for peaceful competition, in which we also may take our part, our hope of promoting economic internationalism depends upon our not playing a lone hand, upon our abstention from a selfish and short-sighted policy of national aggression and upon our free co-operation with other nations seeking the goal of international peace.

CHAPTER XV

AMERICAN INTERESTS ABROAD

No nation in its foreign policy is completely disinterested, in the sense that it willingly abandons or sacrifices its larger interests. What generosity it displays is usually in smaller matters, like a rich man's gift to a beggar. England may sacrifice interests in Jamaica to uphold the principle of human freedom, while at the same time fighting China to force the admission of opium. Similarly the United States may generously return money to Japan (as in the Shimonoseki case) or to China, or relieve the sufferers of Messina or of Belgium. In really vital matters, however, nations are not self-sacrificing, but tenaciously pursue their own interests.

There are two senses, however, in which a nation may be disinterested in its foreign policy. Either it may possess no interest or its separate interest may be so small in relation to its larger interests elsewhere that it is willing to make a sacrifice. If, for example, the present war ended in a deadlock and the two groups of powers, unwilling to trust each other, were to confide Constantinople and the straits to the keeping of the United States, it would be almost unthinkable that we should be false to the trust. We should have no interest in favouring one group of nations as against the other; we should have no political axe to grind and no economic or territorial gains to make. We should be fair and disinterested because we had no interest.

Our recent attitude toward Cuba, the Philippines and Mexico has been relatively disinterested in the second sense. We might have made money by exploiting these countries. We could have held Cuba; we might have imported a million Chinese into the Philippine Islands and grown rich on their toil, while in Mexico, where we already had invested a large capital which was menaced and in part destroyed by the revolution, we could have taken what we wanted and held what we took. Certain motives of decency prevented us from following this ruthless course; our self-satisfaction was worth more to us than a few hundred million dollars. The important fact, however, was that we were not pressed for this wealth. We were not compelled by poverty or pressure of population to grab what we could. We were able to seek a larger interest, to lay the basis of a slower but surer prosperity and to gain the good will, if not of Cubans, Filipinos and Mexicans, at least of the nations generally. In the long run it was a policy that will pay, and our conditions are such that we can still afford to consider the long run.

But although we have been occasionally disinterested or have shown at least a chemical trace of disinterestedness, our foreign policy has usually pursued concrete national aims. It has been a conservative, relatively uneventful policy, consisting for the most part in a quiet, unhurried advancement of our interests, with a not excessive consideration for the opinions of other nations. We have been cautious though persistent. We have avoided forcing quarrels upon powerful nations until we had grown irresistible. Usually we obtained the large thing, but where we could obtain it only by fighting formidable opponents, we compromised. When as in 1861 we found ourselves in a dangerous position, we endured aggression by France and Spain until we were again free to compel redress. Time worked for us, the passing years were our allies and we could afford to move slow. But we moved always in one direction—toward our perceived national interest.

The issue, therefore, is not whether we shall sacrifice our national interests, but whether in our foreign policy we shall pursue ultimate, or at least relatively permanent, interests in a large way or seek immediate, smaller gains. It is a choice similar to that which a great store makes when it sells standard goods at a fixed price instead of seeking immediate advantage by petty cheatings and interminable and multitudinous hagglings. As nations advance towards power, stability and security, they are enabled to base their programmes increasingly on long time views and, ceasing to be interested in small advantages, to seek their larger interests in a policy of tolerance and seeming magnanimity. It was to England's real interest to be scrupulously fair in peace time toward weaker naval nations; it was equally to her larger interest to open her dependencies to the trade of the world and to accord political rights to her lately conquered Dutch subjects in South Africa. A tighter and harder policy would have been short-sighted. Even had it gained immediate advantages, it might have left England in a day of adversity with the great powers ranged against her.

The choice between immediate and ultimate interest in foreign policy presents itself daily. We could, for example, simply take the Danish West Indies, instead of paying for them, and doubtless might secure ourselves against a future retaliation by the great powers. Such an adventure, however, to say nothing of its ethics, would be monstrously stupid. Or, while the European nations are looking elsewhere, we might "go" into Mexico and keep what we wanted. We have a better excuse than in 1846 and an equally safe opportunity. We should be richer to-morrow if we took Mexico, but would it pay in the end? Would such a conquest accord with our larger policies and our true ambitions in the world?

It is in this light that we should view the problem of our foreign policy as it shapes itself to-day. We must preserve certain national interests, material and spiritual. We must ward off certain dangers, securing ourselves as other nations secure themselves. But for better or worse, we have become a world power and a world influence, and what we do outside, as well as within, our borders, must affect the decisions and actions of other nations. If our ideal is not aggrandisement or empire but an equal fellowship with other great nations, if we desire to contribute to the progress of international development and not merely get all we can in the scramble, how shall we shape our foreign policy? On what broad general principle shall we decide the urgent questions which arise day by day in most unexpected conjunctions?

The answer to these questions is not easy; there is not even an agreement as to what our interests are. What, after all, do the hundred million Americans want beyond their borders? What are we willing to fight for rather than forego? What do we already have or claim, the retention of which would justify us in fighting?

How we shall answer this depends upon our temperament and our special interests. Certain Americans would advise us to fight all Europe, rather than recede from an action already determined upon or acknowledge that American policy is conditioned by the will of foreigners. One need not argue against such convictions. It is the current, instinctive philosophy of "My country right or wrong, wise or foolish; my country against the world." To fight all Europe, however, is not to fight at all, but merely to be assassinated. To act as though Europe had no rights which America needs respect is to adopt a principle profoundly hostile to our own welfare.

To a financier, whose interests in Mexico, Guatemala or Indo-China are attacked, war seems preferable to a neglect of those interests. He would not put the matter so crudely; he would say that he preferred defeat or even disaster to a peace dictated by fear. What would lead him to this patriotic conclusion, however, would be the conviction that to do nothing would lose him his property, whereas even a disastrous war would cost him only his share in the national loss. And the war might be gained or even avoided, if only the United States were bold enough. He would, therefore, define our national interests as including all those things to which we in our good judgment believed that we had some claim.

Those with no special interest in foreign investments are less solicitous. A default on the bonds of Mexican railways is less costly to the Iowa farmer or Boston stonemason than the contraction of debts for the purpose of pacifying Mexico. To fight England or Germany seems more costly to the average American than to forego extra opportunities for making money in China or the Argentine. Even the farmer or stonemason, however, feels that the United States has certain interests and rights abroad. Our citizens should have the right to travel freely upon the high seas and in foreign countries and to enjoy privileges and immunities granted to citizens of other nations. We should have equal access with other nations to the sources of raw materials and to world markets, subject to the reserved right of each nation, including the United States, to levy customs duties for the protection of its own industries. Finally we should enjoy the right of investing our capital and conducting our businesses abroad under the equal protection of the laws of the particular country.

All this is of course vague. It does not determine what protection we should assure ourselves in a country whose government is corrupt or unstable, nor does it consider the contingency of a weak nation, granting under duress more favourable conditions to some other foreign nation than to us.

While however we cannot arrive at any final decision as to the details of our foreign policy, we can at least formulate in general terms certain principles which we may seek to apply. The most vital of these principles is equal opportunity for all nations, and no special advantage for ourselves or others.

In accepting such a principle the United States would be merely applying to a territory, over which it held a dominant influence, a policy which, if universally applied by all the Great Powers, would immensely reduce the area of international friction. To apply such a principle in good faith is the first and most obvious contribution that we can make to economic internationalism. We cannot in reason demand the open door in Asia or in Europe's colonies if in our own colonies and in other lands where we are paramount, we adopt a contrary policy. We can afford to concede this principle of equal opportunity because of our resources at home and the large share of trade and investment opportunities which will come to us without special favours. What we might get above that is not worth the risk. A policy of taking all we can get, whether other nations suffer or not, is, apart from all other considerations, injudicious.

Such a policy of aggression might be cloaked for instance under the Monroe Doctrine, a vague tenet, capable of contraction or infinite expansion. If we allow our speculators to determine its meaning, we shall in due course interpret the doctrine as the right of the United States to control South America politically and exploit it industrially. The downward path to such an interpretation is easy. To secure an inside track in Latin America we need only look askance upon concessions to Europeans and with benevolence upon concessions to Americans. We can place obstacles in the way of foreign corporations recovering damages for injuries suffered, while we aid American companies to secure redress. We can make our ministers to Latin America "business agents" of exporters and big banking concerns. Such a policy would mean economic and eventually political control, the much feared conquista pacifica.

If we embark upon such a policy we shall earn the hatred both of Europe and of Latin America. Hitherto the Monroe Doctrine has been safe from serious attack by Europe because England with her preponderant sea-power has been commercially the chief benefactor, and the other nations believed that, for the time being at least, South America was held open for joint exploitation. Moreover, Europe had nearer problems in the disposition of Balkan territory and in the partition of Africa and sections of Asia. So long as European nations were not ready to divide up Latin America, or so long as they believed that it would remain independent and thus open to the commerce of all, the temptation to fight for a slice of the great continent, though alluring, was not sufficiently powerful to overcome the sense of the peril of such an undertaking. For Germany to seek to conquer a part of Brazil would have been to add all the American nations to her already long list of enemies. But this tolerance of the Monroe Doctrine is conditioned upon our playing the part of a guardian and not of a conqueror. We can neither monopolise Latin America industrially nor rule it politically (which might involve the same result) without trenching upon the common patrimony of Europe. To secure the inside track means therefore either to fight all Europe, which is impossible, or to share the booty with one or two allied powers, like England and France, and thus to enter into all the complications and dangers of European politics. A Pan-Americanism of this sort would involve us in the next Balkan imbroglio or the next quarrel over the Persian Gulf, and our peace would be at the mercy of any little monarch who struck the first blow at one of our allies.