Community Civics and Rural Life Part 10

Small and Vincent, An Introduction to the Study of Society (American Book Co.), Book II, Chapters i-iv.

CHAPTER VII

OUR NATIONAL COMMUNITY

IMPERFECTIONS OF OUR NATIONAL COMMUNITY

It is important to get in the habit of thinking of our nation as a community, just as we think of our school or town or rural neighborhood as one. This is not always easy to do because of its huge size and complicated character. It would be wrong, too, to get the idea that it is a perfect community--none of our communities is perfect. Conflicts of interest are often more apparent than community of interest. Teamwork among the different parts and groups that make up our nation is often very poor.

Although our government is a wonderfully good one, it is still only an imperfect means of cooperation. Our nation is far from being a complete democracy, for there are many people in it who do not have the full enjoyment of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and large numbers of our "self-governing" people really have little or no part in government.

LOYALTY TO IDEALS

It need not give us an unpatriotic feeling to acknowledge the imperfections of our nation or of our government; for communities GROW, not only in size, but also in ability to perform their proper work, just as individuals do. We call a person conceited who thinks that he is perfect, especially if he boasts of it. But his conceit is itself an imperfection and a hindrance to growth.

So the patriotic citizen is not one who is unable to see defects in his community, or who refuses to acknowledge them, but one who has high CIVIC IDEALS and is loyal to them, who understands in what respects these ideals have not been reached, and who, as a member of the community, contributes everything he can to keep it growing in THE RIGHT DIRECTION.

"The problem of government is, after all, the problem of human growth. ... The one constant and inconstant quant.i.ty with which man must deal is man--changing, inert, impulsive, limited, sympathetic, selfish, aspiring man. His inst.i.tutions, whether social or political, must come out of his wants and out of his capacities. Luther Burbank has not yet made grapes to grow on thorns or figs on thistles. Neither has any system of government made all men wise..."--FRANKLIN K. LANE.

Is it possible for a community to be 100 percent perfect? Why?

What people in your community take no part in government?

May people who cannot vote have any influence upon government?

Explain.

Has a good citizen a right to criticize his government? What is the difference between helpful and harmful criticism?

What is an "ideal"? a "civic ideal"?

WELDING OF THE NATION BY WAR

It is easier now than usual to think of our nation as a community, because the war with Germany served to arouse our "national spirit," and showed very clearly the importance in our national life of those elements which characterize all community life-- common purpose, interdependence, and organized, cooperation (see Chapters I-III). The creation of a National Army did much to bring this about.

When the benefits which come to the nation through the creation of the National Army are catalogued, the fact that it has welded the country into a h.o.m.ogeneous society, [Footnote: "h.o.m.ogeneous society"--a society or community all of whose parts and members have like purposes and interests.] seeking the same national ends and animated by the same national ideals, will overtop all other advantages. The organization of the selected Army fuses the thousand separate elements making up the United States into one steel-hard ma.s.s. Men of the North, South, East, and West meet and mingle, and on the anvil of war become citizens worthy of the liberty won by the first American armies. [Footnote: Major Granville R. Fortesque, in National Geographic Magazine, Dec., 1917]. How this welding of the parts of the nation together was brought about by the war is suggested by the words of an old Confederate soldier who wrote to a friend in the North:

"During the war between the states I was a rebel, and continued one in heart until this great war. But now I am a devoted follower of Uncle Sam and endorse him in every respect."

DIVERSE ELEMENTS IN OUR NATION

The fact that our nation contained in its population large numbers of people from practically every country of Europe caused no little anxiety when we entered the European war. Our population embraces a hundred different races and nationalities. Of these, ten million are negroes and three hundred thirty-six thousand are Indians. Thirty-three million are of foreign parentage, and of these, thirteen million are foreign-born. Five million do not speak English, and there are one thousand five hundred news papers in the United States printed in foreign languages. Five and one- half million above the age of ten years, including both foreign and native, cannot read or write in any language. New York City has a larger Hebrew population than any other city in the world, contains more Italians than Rome, and its German population is the fourth largest among the cities of the world. Pittsburgh has more Serbs than the capital of Serbia. It is said that there were more Greeks subject to draft in the American army than there were in the entire army of Greece. Would all these people be loyal to our nation, or would they divide it against itself?

LOYALTY OF DIVERSE ELEMENTS

The war, in fact, showed us that there were some among us who had never really become "members" of our nation and who were dangerous to our peace and safety. It also showed us the danger that comes from the presence of so many illiterates, or of those who cannot use the English language; for such people, even though loyal in spirit to the United States, cannot understand instructions either in the army or in industry, and otherwise prevent effective cooperation. And yet the most striking thing that the war showed us in regard to this mixed population is that the great ma.s.s of it, regardless of color or place of birth, is really American in spirit and loyal to our flag and the ideas which it represents.

NATIONAL SAFETY DEPENDS ON HARMONY

Another weakness within our nation that the war emphasized is the lack of harmony between wage earners and their employers. There were many sharp conflicts between them. Strikes occurred, or were threatened, in factories, shipyards, mines, and railroads, that blocked the wheels of industry at a time when the nation needed to strain every nerve to provide the materials of war. This lack of harmony between workmen and employers, which in war threatened our national safety, has existed for many years and has always been an obstacle to national progress. But the common purpose of winning the war caused employers and wage earners, in most cases, to adjust their differences. In nearly every case, one side or the other, or both sides, yielded certain points and agreed not to dispute over others, at least for the period of the war. The national government did much to bring this about by the creation of labor adjustment boards to hear complaints from either side and to settle disputes. If our national community life is to develop in a wholesome way, complete cooperation between workmen and employers must be secured and made permanent on the basis of interests that are common to both.

THE EFFECT OF A COMMON PURPOSE

Such facts as these show how easy it is, in a huge, complex community like our nation, for conflicts to arise among different sections and groups of the population; and how difficult it is always to see the common interests that exist. But they also show how such conflicts tend to disappear when a situation arises which forces us to think of the common interests instead of the differences. All else was forgotten in the common purpose to "win the war." No sacrifice was too great on the part of any individual in order that this national purpose might be served. Everywhere throughout the country, in cities and in remote rural districts, service flags in the windows testified that the homes of the land were offering members that the nation and its ideals might live.

Men, women, and even children contributed their work and their savings and denied themselves customary comforts to help win the war. THE ENTIRE NATION WAS WORKING TOGETHER FOR A COMMON PURPOSE.

OUR NATIONAL PURPOSE

We have said that this common purpose was to "win the war." But there were purposes that lie much deeper than this, without which it would not have been worth while to enter the war at all. As we saw in Chapter I, our nation is founded on a belief in the right of every one to life and physical well-being; to be secure in one's rightful possessions; to freedom of thought--education, free speech, a free press; to freedom of religion; to happiness in pleasant surroundings and a wholesome social life; and, above all, to a voice in the government which exists to protect these rights.

It was to secure a larger freedom to enjoy these rights, "for ourselves first and for all others in their time," that our nation was solidly united against the enemy that threatened it from without. But it was with this same purpose that the War of Independence was fought, that our Const.i.tution was adopted, that slavery was abolished, that millions of people from foreign lands have come to our sh.o.r.es. It is this common purpose that makes the great ma.s.s of foreigners in our country Americans, ready to fight for America, if necessary even against the land of their birth. It is this for which the American flag stands at all times, whether in peace or in war.

What proof can you give of a "national spirit" in your locality during the war?

What evidence can you give to show that this national spirit is or is not as strong since the war closed?

What was the "National Army"? the "National Guard"? Which of these organizations was most likely to develop a "national spirit"? Why?

What good reasons can you give for the action of the government in consolidating the Regular Army, the National Army, and the National Guard into a "United States Army"?

What arguments can you give in favor of requiring all instruction in the public schools to be given in the English language?

What arguments can you give in favor of teaching lessons in citizenship in foreign-language newspapers?

What foreign nationalities are represented in your locality?

Make a blackboard table showing the nationality of the parents and grandparents of each member of your cla.s.s.

Give ill.u.s.trations to show that "winning the war" was the controlling purpose in your community during the war.

In what way has the war made YOU think about the right-to-life and the need for physical well-being? about security in property?

about freedom of thought? about the desirability of an education?

about the right of people to pleasant surroundings? about self- government?

Show how the Spanish-American war was fought for the same purpose as that mentioned in the paragraph above.

Write a brief theme on "What the Flag Means to Me."

NATIONAL INTERDEPENDENCE

The attempt to work together in the war made it very apparent how dependent the nation is upon all its parts, and how dependent each part is upon all the others. It was often said that "the farmers would win the war." At other times it was said to be ships, or fuel, or airplanes, or railroad transportation, or trained scientists and technical workers. The truth is, of course, that all these things and many more were absolutely necessary, and that no one of them would have been of much value without all the others.

It is true that the winning of the war depended upon the farmers, because they are the producers of the food and of the raw materials for textiles without which the nation and every group and person in it would have been helpless. But the farmer could not supply food to the nation without machinery for its production, and without city markets and railroads and ships for its distribution. Machinery could not be made, nor ships and locomotives built, without steel. For the manufacture of steel there must be iron and fuel and tungsten and other materials. And for all these things there must be inventors and skilled mechanics, and to produce these there must be schools. And so we could go on indefinitely to show how the war made us feel our interdependence. What we need to understand, however, is that THIS INTERDEPENDENCE IS CHARACTERISTIC OF OUR NATIONAL LIFE AT ALL TIMES; the war only made us feel it more keenly.

NATION-BUILDING IN WAR TIME

During the war, strange as it may seem, while we were devoting our national energies to the work of destruction incident to war, we as a nation made astonishing progress in many ways other than in the art of war--in what we might call nation-building.

In some ways we made progress in a year or two that under ordinary circ.u.mstances might have required a generation. A striking ill.u.s.tration of this is in the development of a great fleet of merchant ships at a rate that would have been impossible before the war. Beginning with almost nothing when the war began, we had, in less than two years, a merchant fleet larger than that of any other nation, and that in spite of the constant destruction of ships by the enemy. The chairman of the shipping board of the United States government says that this is because the necessities of the war made the whole nation see how much it depends upon ships, and caused not only ship-builders, but also engineers and manufacturers and businessmen and the Navy department of the government, and many others, to concentrate upon this problem, with the result that we discovered methods of shipbuilding, and of loading and unloading and operating ships when they were built, that will probably enable us to maintain permanently a merchant marine, the lack of which we have deplored for many years.