America and Her Problems
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Library of Congress America and her problems. AMERICA AND HER PROBLEMS The MMCo. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK·BOSTON·CHICAGO·DALLAS ATLANTA·SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED LONDON·BOMBAY·CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO PAUL H. B. D'ESTOURNELLES DE CONSTANT AMERICA AND HER PROBLEMS BY PAUL H. B. D'ESTOURNELLES DE CONSTANT MEMBER OF THE SENATE OF FRANCE AND DELEGATE TO THE PEACE CONFERENCES AT THE HAGUE, 1899 AND 1907 LC New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1915 All rights reseved E168 .83 America and her problems. http://www.loc.gov/resource/lhbtn.11688 Library of Congress COPYRIGHT, 1915, By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published May, 1915. Norwood Press J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick &Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. $200 MAY 27 1915 ©Cl.A401151 v PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION To my Friends in the United States This book, the fruit of a lifetime of observation, study and travel in distant countries, was written during 1911, 1912 and 1913; that is to say, almost on the eve of the war now being waged. It is an act of faith in American and in human idealism. My object was to give it living interest, and, for this purpose, I have devoted the first part of it to a faithful description of the country as I saw it, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Mexico to Canada, in the infinite variety of its magnificent scenery. During the last ten years I have paid several visits to the United States, which I have learned to know very imperfectly —it could not be otherwise with a continent—but to the best of my ability. I have tried to describe, for my readers' benefit, the United States as I saw them, with the numerous problems—internal, external, economic, political and moral—that confront them. I have tried to make these problems spring out of the ground, so to speak; to make the soil tell its own story and explain its needs, its resources and the future of the inhabitants who have assumed the responsibility of developing it. I have introduced the greatest possible number of those who are taking part in this great work in a country where no one is idle, where every one contributes to the accomplishment of a common vi duty, where women and children share in it, where education is general, not only in universities and churches America and her problems. http://www.loc.gov/resource/lhbtn.11688 Library of Congress but in clubs and countless associations constituted by an incessant stream of immigration. I have not endeavored to minimize the difficulties that confront the population in which so many nationalities and different races, often uncongenial, end by becoming assimilated or living side by side. I have expressed my admiration for the manner in which they struggle against inherited error, routine and egoism, against drink, slavery, injustice and violence in all its forms. My primary purpose is to make this an educational work, appealing to the ardent activity of the young and to the enthusiasm as well as to the good sense of public opinion. It was written in a spirit of confidence, after an experience of forty years of a laborious peace, in the strong hope that the danger of a great European war might be averted by the combined effect of concerted efforts and the coöperation of those disinterested workers who, in countless numbers, are scattered all over the world and who ask for nothing better than to unite and act together. To those skeptics who looked upon war as either a solution or a fatality, I have held up the greatest republic in the new world as an example. I had two objects. One was to do my best not only to show the United States how fully I appreciated their vast resources, but to make them realize the incalculable service they could render to civilization, as well as to themselves, by remaining faithful to their peace policy, which is the main cause of their prodigious prosperity. Secondly, after defining this peace policy and quoting facts to show that it was inspired neither by short-sightedness nor by cowardice, I have tried to indicate its patriotic grandeur and its advantages for other nations, especially for those who believed in the superiority of militarism. I have given my vii readers a choice between two forms of actual experience—two models, the first, to be followed, a peace policy, and the second, to be avoided, a policy of adventure and armament. Since the first edition of this book appeared in French, in 1913, war has broken out. Events have proved, better than all arguments, that this war will bring no advantage to the governments that premeditated and declared it. As I have always foreseen, it stands out in America and her problems. http://www.loc.gov/resource/lhbtn.11688 Library of Congress its true light as a bad action and a piece of bad business, as an indescribable crime and a monstrous absurdity, perhaps even a form of suicide. All the hatred, sorrow, mourning and irreparable ruin it will leave as a heritage to our children will only too thoroughly justify the efforts of those disinterested men who have tried their utmost to avert it. Had they had but one chance in a thousand to succeed, it was their duty to take that chance. The publication of an English edition of this book in the United States will be timely, for it is becoming more and more necessary that the young states of the new world should avoid imitating old Europe's mistakes. The spirit of domination will lose more and more of its prestige, while a policy of justice and conciliation will impose itself as being the only one corresponding to the aspirations and progress of humanity. We now have to decide the question that might serve as a conclusion to this work: the armed peace policy being condemned by facts, with what are we to replace it? How are we to organize a peace that is not foredoomed to end in universal war? The present war will teach neutrals a terrible lesson. Whether they like it or not, their interests are bound up with those of the belligerents who are fighting for peace and justice. Fortunately for themselves and for civilization, they can no more free themselves from this bond than they can escape from the more and more complex obligations viii of international intercourse. On the other hand, they do not want to compromise themselves. Their position is extremely difficult. What is their duty? Nothing could be a more delicate matter, for instance, than for the government of the United States to avoid becoming involved in this world conflagration and, in a word, to remain neutral. But how are we to understand neutrality itself? No one suggests that the United States should take up arms, as a nation, on behalf of any of the belligerents, but, on the other hand, no one can conceive the neutrality of the land of American independence as amounting to indifference. In showing that the duty of the American government is to deliver the world from the scourge of war, I do not draw the conclusion that it can insure the organization of peace by holding aloof. On the contrary, my belief is that such abstention, so far from keeping American influence intact, would amount to an abdication and would disqualify America and her problems. http://www.loc.gov/resource/lhbtn.11688 Library of Congress America. My view, at the very outset of the war, was that it was the duty of the United States government to make an indignant protest against the violation of Belgian neutrality and of the Hague conventions, signed by its representatives. Its duty and interest were to make this protest all the more vigorously in view of the fact that it remained neutral. Its persistent silence has been an immense disappointment for its friends, and, I believe, a great mistake; if it will not play its part as a defender of treaty obligations during the war, what authority will it have to advise the negotiation of other treaties after the war? It will not be listened to. So far from making peace easier, the United States government will have contributed to discrediting it and making it impossible. Let us, however, put this burning question aside. The present war raises plenty of others for the consideration of neutrals. The first is whether national defenses should be in a state of preparation or non- preparation. This is another ix other difficult case to elucidate. How are we to escape both dangers: preparing too much or not enough? I have felt bound to express myself unmistakably on this point, as well as on others, such as the abuse of governmental and parliamentary powers and of those in the hands of politicians, business men and their newspapers; as, for instance, excessive protection, the yellow peril, the Indian and negro questions and those raised by Mexico, the Panama canal, the Philippines, etc. The problems I mentioned in 1913 as containing serious ground for consideration have become questions of life or death for the United States since the war. It is not without interest that a foreigner should have studied them beforehand in a spirit of profound sympathy for the new worlds and with the conviction that it is their destiny to regenerate civilization. Long before I visited the United States I had looked at them with a friendly eye. I began to know America, without having crossed the ocean, first by my own marriage, thirty years ago, and afterwards through the gentleness, courage and spirit of justice shown by several American men and women living or traveling in France, where they represented their country better than legions of newspapers could have done.