A Straight Deal Part 2

It was quite out of the question, he said, to comply with any such ridiculous demands. Then the Americans ceased to seem harmless. Certain steps were taken by the commanding officer, some leading citizens were collected and enlightened through the only channel whereby light penetrates a German skull. Thus, by a very slight taste of the methods by which they thought they would cow the rest of the world, these burghers were cowed instantly. They had thought the Americans afraid of them. They had taken civility for fear. Suddenly they encountered what we call the swift kick. It educated them. It always will. Nothing else will.

Mathias Erzberger will, of course, disclaim his letter. He will say it is a forgery. He will point to the protestations of German repentance and reform with which he sweated during April, 1919, and throughout the weeks preceding the delivery of the Treaty at Versailles. Perhaps he has done this already. All Germans will believe him--and some Americans.

The German method, the German madness--what a mixture! The method just grazed making Germany owner of the earth, the madness saved the earth.

With perfect recognition of Belgium's share, of Russia's share, of France's, Italy's, England's, our own, in winning the war, I believe that the greatest and mast efficient Ally of all who contributed to Germany's defeat was her own constant blundering madness. Americans must never forget either the one or the other, and too many are trying to forget both.

Germans remain German. An American lady of my acquaintance was about to climb from Amalfi to Ravello in company with a German lady of her acquaintance. The German lady had a German Baedeker, the American a Baedeker in English, published several years apart. The Baedeker in German recommended a path that went straight up the ascent, the Baedeker in English a path that went up more gradually around it. "Mine says this is the best way," said the American. "Mine says straight up is the best," said the German. "But mine is a later edition," said the American. "That is not it," explained the German. "It is that we Germans are so much more clever and agile, that to us is recommended the more dangerous way while Americans are shown the safe path."

That happened in 1910. That is Kultur. This too is Kultur:

"If Silesia become Polish Then, oh G.o.d, may children perish, like beasts, in their mothers' womb.

Then lame their Polish feet and their hands, oh G.o.d!

Let them be crippled and blind their eyes.

Smite them with dumbness and madness,both men and women."

From a Hymn of German hate for the Poles.

Germany remains German; but when next she springs, she will make no blunders.

Chapter V: The Ancient Grudge

It was in Broad Street, Philadelphia, before we went to war, that I overheard the foolish--or propagandist--slur upon England in front of the bulletin board. After we were fighting by England's side for our existence, you might have supposed such talk would cease. It did not.

And after the Armistice, it continued. On the day we celebrated as "British Day," a man went through the crowd in Wanamaker's shop, asking, What had England done in the War, anyhow? Was he a German, or an Irishman, or an American in pay of Berlin? I do not know. But this I know: perfectly good Americans still talk like that. Cowboys in camp do it. Men and women in Eastern cities, persons with at least the external trappings of educated intelligence, play into the hands of the Germany of to-morrow, do their unconscious little bit of harm to the future of freedom and civilization, by repeating that England "has always been our enemy." Then they mention the Revolution, the War of 1812, and England's att.i.tude during our Civil War, just as they invariably mentioned these things in 1917 and 1918, when England was our ally in a struggle (or life, and as they will be mentioning them in 1940, I presume, if they are still alive at that time).

Now, the Civil War ended fifty-five years ago, the War of 1812 one hundred and five, and the Revolution one hundred and thirty-seven.

Suppose, while the Kaiser was butchering Belgium because she barred his way to that dinner he was going to eat in Paris in October, 1914, that France had said, "England is my hereditary enemy. Henry the Fifth and the Duke of Wellington and sundry Plantagenets fought me"; and suppose England had said, "I don't care much for France. Joan of Arc and Napoleon and sundry other French fought me"--suppose they had sat nursing their ancient grudges like that? Well, the Kaiser would have dined in Paris according to his plan. And next, according to his plan, with the Channel ports taken he would have dined in London. And finally, according to his plan, and with the help of his "army of spies"

overseas, he would have dined in New York and the White House. For German madness could not have defeated Germany's plan of World dominion, if various nations had not got together and a.s.sisted. Other Americans there are, who do not resort to the Revolution for their grudge, but are in a commercial rage over this or that: wool, for instance. Let such Americans reflect that commercial grievances against England can be more readily adjusted than an absorption of all commerce by Germany can be adjusted. Wool and everything else will belong to Mathias Erzberger and his breed, if they carry out their intention. And the way to insure their carrying it out is to let them split us and England and all their compet.i.tors asunder by their ceaseless and ingenious propaganda, which plays upon every international prejudice, historic, commercial, or other, which is available. After August, 1914, England barred the Kaiser's way to New York, and in 1917, we found it useful to forget about George the Third and the Alabama. In 1853 Prussia possessed one ship of war--her first.

In 1918 her submarines were prowling along our coast. For the moment they are no longer there. For a while they may not be. But do you think Germany intends that sc.r.a.ps of paper shall be abolished by any Treaty, even though it contain 80,000 words and a League of Nations? She will make of that Treaty a whole basket of sc.r.a.ps, if she can, and as soon as she can. She has said so. Her workingmen are at work, industrious and content with a quarter the pay for a longer day than anywhere else.

Let those persons who cannot get over George the Third and the Alabama ponder upon this for a minute or two.

Chapter VI: Who Is Without Sin?

Much else is there that it were well they should ponder, and I am coming to it presently; but first, one suggestion. Most of us, if we dig back only fifty or sixty or seventy years, can disinter various relatives over whose doings we should prefer to glide lightly and in silence.

Do you mean to say that you have none? n.o.body stained with any shade of dishonor? No grandfather, great-grandfather, great-great-etc.

grandfather or grandmother who ever made a scandal, broke a heart, or betrayed a trust? Every man Jack and woman Jill of the lot right back to Adam and Eve wholly good, honorable, and courageous? How fortunate to be sprung exclusively from the loins of centuries of angels--and to know all about them! Consider the h.o.a.rd of virtue to which you have fallen heir!

But you know very well that this is not so; that every one of us has every kind of person for an ancestor; that all sorts of virtue and vice, of heroism and disgrace, are mingled in our blood; that inevitably amidst the huge herd of our grandsires black sheep as well as white are to be found.

As it is with men, so it is with nations. Do you imagine that any nation has a spotless history? Do you think that you can peer into our past, turn over the back pages of our record, and never come upon a single blot? Indeed you cannot. And it is better--a great deal better--that you should be aware of these blots. Such knowledge may enlighten you, may make you a better American. What we need is to be critics of ourselves, and this is exactly what we have been taught not to be.

We are quite good enough to look straight at ourselves. Owing to one thing and another we are cleaner, honester, humaner, and whiter than any people on the continent of Europe. If any nation on the continent of Europe has ever behaved with the generosity and magnanimity that we have shown to Cuba, I have yet to learn of it. They jeered at us about Cuba, did the Europeans of the continent. Their papers stuck their tongues in their cheeks. Of course our fine sentiments were all sham, they said.

Of course we intended to swallow Cuba, and never had intended anything else. And when General Leonard Wood came away from Cuba, having made Havana healthy, having brought order out of chaos on the island, and we left Cuba independent, Europe jeered on. That dear old Europe!

Again, in 1909, it was not any European nation that returned to China their share of the indemnity exacted in consequence of the Boxer troubles; we alone returned our share to China--sixteen millions. It was we who prevented levying a punitive indemnity on China. Read the whole story; there is much more. We played the gentleman, Europe played the bully. But Europe calls us "dollar chasers." That dear old Europe!

Again, if any conquering General on the continent of Europe ever behaved as Grant did to Lee at Appomattox, his name has escaped me.

Again, and lastly--though I am not attempting to tell you here the whole tale of our decencies: Whose hands came away cleanest from that Peace Conference in Paris lately? What did we ask for ourselves? Everything we asked, save some repairs of damage, was for other people. Oh, yes! we are quite good enough to keep quiet about these things. No need whatever to brag. Bragging, moreover, inclines the listener to suspect you're not so remarkable as you sound.

But all this virtue doesn't in the least alter the fact that we're like everybody else in having some dirty pages in our History. These pages it is a foolish mistake to conceal. I suppose that the school histories of every nation are partly bad. I imagine that most of them implant the germ of international hatred in the boys and girls who have to study them. Nations do not like each other, never have liked each other; and it may very well be that school textbooks help this inclination to dislike. Certainly we know what contempt and hatred for other nations the Germans have been sedulously taught in their schools, and how utterly they believed their teaching. How much better and wiser for the whole world if all the boys and girls in all the schools everywhere were henceforth to be started in life with a just and true notion of all flags and the peoples over whom they fly! The League of Nations might not then rest upon the quicksand of distrust and antagonism which it rests upon today. But it is our own school histories that are my present concern, and I repeat my opinion--or rather my conviction--that the way in which they have concealed the truth from us is worse than silly, it is harmful. I am not going to take up the whole list of their misrepresentations, I will put but one or two questions to you.

When you finished school, what idea had you about the War of 1812?

I will tell you what mine was. I thought we had gone to war because England was stopping American ships and taking American sailors out of them for her own service. I could refer to Perry's victory on Lake Erie and Jackson's smashing of the British at New Orleans; the name of the frigate Const.i.tution sent thrills through me. And we had pounded old John Bull and sent him to the right about a second time! Such was my glorious idea, and there it stopped. Did you know much more than that about it when your schooling was done? Did you know that our reasons for declaring war against Great Britain in 1812 were not so strong as they had been three and four years earlier? That during those years England had moderated her arrogance, was ready to moderate further, had placated us for her brutal performance concerning the Chesapeake, wanted peace; while we, who had been nearly unanimous for war, and with a fuller purse in 1808, were now, by our own congressional fuddling and messing, without any adequate army, and so divided in counsel that only one northern state was wholly in favor of war? Did you know that our General Hull began by invading Canada from Detroit and surrendered his whole army without firing a shot? That the British overran Michigan and parts of Ohio, and western New York, while we retreated disgracefully? That though we shone in victories of single combat on the sea and showed the English that we too knew how to sail and fight on the waves as hardily as Britannia (we won eleven out of thirteen of the frigate and sloop actions), nevertheless she caught us or blocked us up, and rioted unchecked along our coasts? You probably did know that the British burned Washington, and you accordingly hated them for this barbarous vandalism--but did you know that we had burned Toronto a year earlier?

I left school knowing none of this--it wasn't in my school book, and I learned it in mature years with amazement. I then learned also that England, while she was fighting with us, had her hands full fighting Bonaparte, that her war with us was a sideshow, and that this was uncommonly lucky for us--as lucky quite as those ships from France under Admiral de Gra.s.se, without whose help Washington could never have caught Cornwallis and compelled his surrender at Yorktown, October 19, 1781.

Did you know that there were more French soldiers and sailors than Americans at Yorktown? Is it well to keep these things from the young?

I have not done with the War of 1812. There is a political aspect of it that I shall later touch upon--something that my school books never mentioned.

My next question is, what did you know about the Mexican War of 1846-1847, when you came out of school? The names of our victories, I presume, and of Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott; and possibly the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, whereby Mexico ceded to us the whole of Texas, New Mexico, and Upper California, and we paid her fifteen millions. No doubt you know that Santa Anna, the Mexican General, had a wooden leg. Well, there is more to know than that, and I found it out much later. I found out that General Grant, who had fought with credit as a lieutenant in the Mexican War, briefly summarized it as "iniquitous." I gradually, through my reading as a man, learned the truth about the Mexican War which had not been taught me as a boy--that in that war we bullied a weaker power, that we made her our victim, that the whole discreditable business had the extension of slavery at the bottom of it, and that more Americans were against it than had been against the War of 1812. But how many Americans ever learn these things?

Do not most of them, upon leaving school, leave history also behind them, and become farmers, or merchants, or plumbers, or firemen, or carpenters, or whatever, and read little but the morning paper for the rest of their lives?

The blackest page in our history would take a long while to read. Not a word of it did I ever see in my school textbooks. They were written on the plan that America could do no wrong. I repeat that, just as we love our friends in spite of their faults, and all the more intelligently because we know these faults, so our love of our country would be just as strong, and far more intelligent, were we honestly and wisely taught in our early years those acts and policies of hers wherein she fell below her lofty and humane ideals. Her character and her record on the whole from the beginning are fine enough to allow the shadows to throw the sunlight into relief. To have produced at three stages of our growth three such men as Washington, Lincoln, and Roosevelt, is quite sufficient justification for our existence

Chapter VII: Tarred with the Same Stick

The blackest page in our history is our treatment of the Indian. To speak of it is a thankless task--thankless, and necessary.

This land was the Indian's house, not ours. He was here first, n.o.body knows how many centuries first. We arrived, and we shoved him, and shoved him, and shoved him, back, and back, and back. Treaty after treaty we made with him, and broke. We drew circles round his freedom, smaller and smaller. We allowed him such and such territory, then took it away and gave him less and worse in exchange. Throughout a century our promises to him were a whole basket of sc.r.a.ps of paper. The other day I saw some Indians in California. It had once been their place. All over that region they had hunted and fished and lived according to their desires, enjoying life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We came.

To-day the hunting and fishing are restricted by our laws--not the Indian's--because we wasted and almost exterminated in a very short while what had amply provided the Indian with sport and food for a very long while.

In that region we have taken, as usual, the fertile land and the running water, and have allotted land to the Indian where neither wood nor water exist, no crops will grow, no human life can be supported. I have seen the land. I have seen the Indian begging at the back door. Oh, yes, they were an "inferior race." Oh, yes, they didn't and couldn't use the land to the best advantage, couldn't build Broadway and the Union Pacific Railroad, couldn't improve real estate. If you choose to call the whole thing "manifest destiny," I am with you. I'll not dispute that what we have made this continent is of greater service to mankind than the wilderness of the Indian ever could possibly have been--once conceding, as you have to concede, the inevitableness of civilization. Neither you, nor I, nor any man, can remold the sorry scheme of things entire. But we could have behaved better to the Indian. That was in our power. And we gave him a raw deal instead, not once, but again and again. We did it because we could do it without risk, because he was weaker and we could always beat him in the end. And all the while we were doing it, there was our Bill of Rights, our Declaration of Independence, founded on a new thing in the world, proclaiming to mankind the fairest hope yet born, that "All men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights," and that these were now to be protected by law. Ah, no, look at it as you will, it is a black page, a raw deal. The officers of our frontier army know all about it, because they saw it happen. They saw the treaties broken, the thieving agents, the trespa.s.sing settlers, the outrages that goaded the deceived Indian to despair and violence, and when they were ordered out to kill him, they knew that he had struck in self-defense and was the real victim.

It is too late to do much about it now. The good people of the Indian Rights a.s.sociation try to do something; but in spite of them, what little harm can still be done is being done through dishonest Indian agents and the mean machinery of politics. If you care to know more of the long, bad story, there is a book by Helen Hunt Jackson, A Century of Dishonor; it is not new. It a.s.sembles and sets forth what had been perpetrated up to the time when it was written. A second volume could be added now.

I have dwelt upon this matter here for a very definite reason, closely connected with my main purpose. It's a favorite trick of our anti-British friends to call England a "land-grabber." The way in which England has grabbed land right along, all over the world, is monstrous, they say. England has stolen what belonged to whites, and blacks, and bronzes, and yellows, wherever she could lay her hands upon it, they say. England is a criminal. They repeat this with great satisfaction, this land-grabbing indictment. Most of them know little or nothing of the facts, couldn't tell you the history of a single case. But what are the facts to the man who asks, "What has England done in this war, anyway?" The word "land-grabber" has been pa.s.sed to him by German and Sinn Fein propaganda, and he merely parrots it forth. He couldn't discuss it at all. "Look at the Boers," he may know enough to reply, if you remind him that England's land-grabbing was done a good while ago.

Well, we shall certainly look at the Boers in due time, but just now we must look at ourselves. I suppose that the American who denounces England for her land-grabbing has forgotten, or else has never known, how we grabbed Florida from Spain. The pittance that we paid Spain in one of the Florida transactions never went to her. The story is a plain tale of land-grabbing; and there are several other plain tales that show us to have been land-grabbers, if you will read the facts with an honest mind. I shall not tell them here. The case of the Indian is enough in the way of an instance. Our own hands are by no means clean. It is not for us to denounce England as a land-grabber.

You cannot hate statistics more than I do. But at times there is no dodging them, and this is one of the times. In 1803 we paid Napoleon Bonaparte fifteen millions for what was then called Louisiana. Napoleon had his t.i.tle to this land from Spain. Spain had it from France. France had it--how? She had it because La Salle, a Frenchman, sailed down the Mississippi River. This gave him t.i.tle to the land. There were people on the bank already, long before La Salle came by.

It would have surprised them to be told that the land was no longer theirs because a man had come by on the water. But n.o.body did tell them.

They were Indians. They had wives and children and wigwams and other possessions in the land where they had always lived; but they were red, and the man in the boat was white, and therefore they were turned into trespa.s.sers because he had sailed by in a boat. That was the t.i.tle to Louisiana which we bought from Napoleon Bonaparte.

The Louisiana Purchase was a piece of land running up the Mississippi, up the Missouri, over the Divide, and down the Columbia to the Pacific.

Before we acquired it, our area was over a quarter, but not half, a million square miles. This added nearly a million square miles more. But what had we really bought? Nothing but stolen goods. The Indians were there before La Salle, from whose boat-sailing the t.i.tle we bought was derived. "But," you may object, "when whites rob reds or blacks, we call it Discovery; land-grabbing is when whites rob whites--and that is where I blame England." For the sake of argument I concede this, and refer you to our acquisition of Texas. This operation followed some years after the Florida operation. "By request" we "annexed" most of present Texas--in 1845. That was a trick of our slaveholders. They sent people into Texas and these people swung the deal. It was virtually a theft from Mexico. A little while later, in 1848, we "paid" Mexico for California, Arizona, and Nevada. But if you read the true story of Fremont in California, and of the American plots there before the Mexican War, to undermine the government of a friendly nation, plots connived at in Washington with a view to getting California for ourselves, upon my word you will find it hard to talk of England being a land-grabber and keep a straight face. And, were a certain book to fall into your hands, the narrative of the Alcalde of Monterey, wherein he sets down what of Fremont's doings in California went on before his eyes, you would learn a story of treachery, brutality, and greed. All this acquisition of territory, together with the Gadsden Purchase a few years later, brought our continent to its present area--not counting Alaska or some islands later acquired--2,970,230 square miles.

Please understand me very clearly: I am not saying that it has not been far better for the world and for civilization that we should have become the rulers of all this land, instead of its being ruled by the Indians or by Spain, or by Mexico. That is not at all the point. I am merely reminding you of the means whereby we got the land. We got it mostly by force and fraud, by driving out of it through firearms and plots people who certainly were there first and who were weaker than ourselves. Our reason was simply that we wanted it and intended to have it. That is precisely what England has done. She has by various means not one whit better or worse than ours, acquired her possessions in various parts of the world because they were necessary to her safety and welfare, just as this continent was necessary to our safety and welfare. Moreover, the pressure upon her, her necessity for self-preservation, was far more urgent than was the pressure upon us. To make you see this, I must once again resort to some statistics.

England's area--herself and adjacent islands--is 120,832 square miles.