Essay On American Contribution and the Democratic Idea

Essay On American Contribution

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Title: On The American Contribution
Author: Winston Churchill (USA author, not Sir Winston Churchill)
Release Date: March, 2004 [EBook #5399] [Yes, we are more than one
year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on June 30, 2002]
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CONTRIBUTION, BY CHURCHILL ***

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AN ESSAY ON THE AMERICAN CONTRIBUTION AND THE
DEMOCRATIC IDEA
By Winston Churchill
Failure to recognize that the American, is at heart an idealist is to lack
understanding of our national character. Two of our greatest
interpreters proclaimed it, Emerson and William James. In a recent
address at the Paris Sorbonne on "American Idealism," M. Firmin Roz
observed that a people is rarely justly estimated by its contemporaries.
The French, he says, have been celebrated chiefly for the skill of their
chefs and their vaudeville actors, while in the disturbed 'speculum
mundi' Americans have appeared as a collection of money grabbers
whose philosophy is the dollar. It remained for the war to reveal the
true nature of both peoples. The American colonists, M. Roz continues,
unlike other colonists, were animated not by material motives, but by
the desire to safeguard and realize an ideal; our inherent characteristic
today is a belief in the virtue and power of ideas, of a national, indeed,
of a universal, mission. In the Eighteenth Century we proposed a
Philosophy and adopted a Constitution far in advance of the political
practice of the day, and set up a government of which Europe predicted
the early downfall. Nevertheless, thanks partly to good fortune, and to
the farseeing wisdom of our early statesmen who perceived that the
success of our experiment depended upon the maintenance of an
isolation from European affairs, we established democracy as a
practical form of government.
We have not always lived up to our beliefs in ideas. In our dealings
with other nations, we yielded often to imperialistic ambitions and thus,
to a certain extent, justified the cynicism of Europe. We took what we
wanted--and more. From Spain we seized western Florida; the
annexation of Texas and the subsequent war with Mexico are acts upon

which we cannot look back with unmixed democratic pride; while more
than once we professed a naive willingness to fight England in order to
push our boundaries further north. We regarded the Monroe Doctrine as
altruistic, while others smiled. But it suited England, and her sea power
gave it force.
Our war with Spain in 1898, however, was fought for an idea, and,
despite the imperialistic impulse that followed it, marks a transition, an
advance, in international ethics. Imperialistic cynics were not lacking to
scoff at our protestation that we were fighting Spain in order to liberate
Cuba; and yet this, for the American people at large, was undoubtedly
the inspiration of the war. We kept our promise, we did not annex Cuba,
we introduced into international affairs what is known as the Big
Brother idea. Then came the Platt Amendment. Cuba was free, but she
must not wallow near our shores in an unhygienic state, or borrow
money without our consent. We acquired valuable naval bases.
Moreover, the sudden and unexpected acquisition of Porto Rico and the
Philippines made us imperialists in spite of ourselves.
Nations as well as individuals, however, must be judged by their
intentions. The sound public opinion of our people has undoubtedly
remained in favour of ultimate self-government for the Philippines, and
the greatest measure of self-determination for little Porto Rico; it has
been unquestionably opposed to commercial exploitation of the islands,
desirous of yielding to these peoples the fruits of their labour in
developing the resources of their own lands. An intention, by the