People of Destiny: Americans as I saw them at Home and Abroad

by those who desire his influence in their family quarrels, difficulties, and conditions of life. Before the war the United States was wonderfully aloof from the peoples of Europe. The three thous

f one, a certainty of the other, and it was this certain gift which called to multitudes of men and women-Russians and Russian Jews, Poles and Polish Jews, Czechs, and Bohemians, and Germans of all kinds-to escape from the bondage which cramped their souls under the oppression of their own governments, and to gain the freedom of the Stars and Stripes. To the popular imagination of Europe, America was the world's democratic paradise, where every man had equal opportuni

d from their political entanglements and interdependence, the United States could adopt a clear and straightforward policy of self-development on industrial lines. Her diplomacy was as simple as a child's copy-book maxim. Her ambassadors and ministers at European courts had no need of casuistry or Machiavellian subtlety. They had an exceedingly interesting and pleasant time reporting back the absurdities of European embassies, the melodrama of European rivalries, the back-stairs influence at work in secret treaties, the assassinations, riots, revolutions, and political crises which from time to time convulsed various countries-and the corrupt bargainings and jugglings between small powers and great powers. The American representatives in Europe watched all this as the greatest game on earth, but far away from the United States, and without the slightest effect upon the destiny of their own country, except when it excited Wall Street gamblers. American diplom

rival nations should hack at one another in a frenzy of slaughter. The American in Europe who came to have a look 'round was astonished at the old-fashioned ways of people-their subservience to "caste" ideas, their allegiance to the divine right of kings, as to the "Little Father" of the Russian people, and the "shining armor" of the German Kaiser, and their apparent contentment with the wide gulf between underpaid labor and privileged capital. He did not realize that his own liberty of ideas and high rate of wage-earning were due to citizenship in a country free from militarism and its crushing taxation, and free also from hereditary customs upheld by the power of the sword used in civil strife as well as in international conflict, by the imperial governments of Russia, Germany, and other powers whose social philosophy was no different, though less tyrannical in expression. The American said, "I like Europe as a peep-show, and it's a good place to spend money in; but we can teach you a few things in the United States; one of them is equality, and another is opportunity." He was right, and it was his luck. Because of those privileges many pilgrims of fortune went to America from all the countries of Europe, in a great tide of emigration, adopting American citizenship in most cases soon after sighting the Statue of Liberty-"old Lib.," as I heard her called. The United States received these foreigners in hundreds of thousands and became "the melting-pot" of races. The melting process, however, was not so rapid as some people imagined, and

hority, and it has caused an entire change in the mental attitude of all American citizens toward the conditions and relationships of life, because that sense of utter liberty they had before the war is limited now by the knowledge that at any time the Republic of which they are citizens may call upon them for life itself and for all service up to that of death, and that, whatever their ideas should be, they may not refuse. In that way they have no l

will never see again, and looking forward to the future, which is still doubtful to them in its destiny. I went to them on a visit during the period between armistice and peace, when mentally, I think, they were in a

ughter-fields. They were impatient for America to get into the conflict against German aggression. As the Germans became more ruthless of humane laws, more desperate in their attacks upon non-combatant as well as military populations by sea and air and land, these Americans became sick and fevered at the thought of their own neutrality, and supported Colonel Roosevelt in his driving influence to get the United States into the war. They became more and more embittered with President Wilson, who adopted an academic view of the jungle scenes in Europe, dissociated the German people from the crimes of their war lords, and expounded a Christian philosophy of world politics which seemed like cowardice and humiliation of American pride to people stung to fury by German insults and outrages. These thoughts were beginning to seethe like yeast throughout masses of American people,

t outrage the signal of war. They had no patience with his careful letter-writing, his anxiety to act as a moral mentor instead of as a leader of great armies in a fight against world criminals.... At last Wilson was forced to act, even his caution being overmastered by the urgent necessity of intervention on behalf of Great Britain and France and Belgium, panting and bleeding from e

but it was not because of them that the people of the United States were uplifted by a wonderful exaltation and that they put their full strength into preparing themselves for a long and bloody war. Every little home was turned into a Red Cross factory. Every young man of pluck and pride was eager to get the first call for active service in the field. Girls took on men's jobs, old ladies knitted until their eyes were dim. Hard business men gave away their dollars in bundles, deni

ng American officers who had been training with British staffs and battalions before they fought alongside British troops. And in American homes I met women who were still waiting for their men whom they had sent away with brave faces, hiding the fear in their hearts, and now knew, with thankfulness, that they were safe. Victory had come quickly after the entry of the

s acts and speeches and silences. When in an article which I wrote soon after my landing I said I was "all for Wilson" I received an immense number of letters "putting me wise" as to the failure of the President to gain the confidence of the American people and their grievous apprehensions that he was, out of personal vanity and

g power. He said, practically: "Everybody shows himself bigger than party. I will, too. All together now! But you prove it and give me a party Senate, not a Senate picked from the best brains of this America, but a Democratic Senate, so that I can have full power in the Peace Conference." The laugh that went up must have hit the stars, and we almost forgot the war to watch the election. Can you imagine Roosevelt in New York in this crisis? He held a monster meeting and said what he thought, through his teeth. "Unconditional surrender for Germany, no matter what it costs" (not idle words-Quentin's death in France had cost Roosevelt his famous boyishness of spirit), "and a Senate that will curb autocratic power in America." Then he told his hearers that they would not need a key to understand his speech. Now, power goes to people's heads. Mr. Wilson had changed. Time and again opposition in Congress failed. You would hear, "Wilson

clash of opinion among the guests, husbands differing from wives, brothers from sisters, and friends from friends, over the personality and purpose of the President, and the practical possibilities of a League of Nations. The defenders of the President waived aside all personal issues and supported him ardently because they believed that it was only by the application of his

g powers of France, Belgium, and England, who desired revenge as well as reparation, and the death of German militarism under the heel of an Allied militarism based on the old German philosophy of might. The Pr

isolation-and a plague on all your little nations!" said civilians as well as soldiers. Bitter memories of French "economy" spoiled for American soldiers the romance of the Lafayette tradition. "I lost my leg," said one man, "for a country which charged for the trenches where we fought, and for people who put up their prices three hundred per cent. when the American armies came to rescue them. France can go to hell as far as I'm concerned."... Nevertheless, it became more clear to thinking minds in America that the days of "isolation" were gone, and that for good or evil the United States is linked up by unbreakable bonds of interest and responsibility with other great powers of the world. Never again can she be indifferent to their fate. If another great convulsion happens in Europe, American troops will again be there,

n both those countries between the old régime and the new. The influence of America will be the determining power in the settlement of Ireland on a basis of common sense free from the silly old fetishes of historical enmities on both sides. It will intervene to give a chance of life to the German race after they have paid the forfeit for their guilt in the last war, and will, I am certain, react against the stupid philosophy of enduring vengeance with its desire to make a slave-state in Central Europe, which still animates bloody-minded men and women so passionate of revenge that they are kindling the fires of another terrible and devastating war. The United States of America is bound up with the fate of Europe, but its people will still remain rather aloof in mentality f

test of that simplicity which is found in middle-class homes, where neither anarchy is welcome nor aristocratic privilege. America is the empire of the wage-earner, where even her plutocrats have but little power over the independence of the people. It is a nation of nobodies great with the power of the common man and the plain sense that governs his way of life. Other nations are still ruled by their "somebodies"-by their pomposities and High Panjandrums. But it is the nobodies whose turn is coming in history, and America is on their side. In that great federation of United States I saw, even in a brief visit, possible dangers that may spoil America's chance. I saw a luxury of wealth in New York and other cities which may be a vicious canker in the soul of the people. I saw a sullen discontent among wage-earners and home-coming soldiers because too many people had an unfair share of wealth. I met American Junkers who would use the military possibilities of the greatest army in the world for imperialistic adventures and world dominance. I heard of anarchy being whispered among fore