Essay On American Contribution and the Democratic Idea | Page 6

war, the spirit of the North responded to the call, and, despite the
vilification of the President, was true to him to victory. More
significant still, in view of the events of today, is what then occurred in
England. The British Government was unfriendly; the British people as
a whole had looked upon our Civil War very much in the same light as
the American people regarded the present war at its inception--which is
to say that the economic and materialistic issue seemed to overshadow
the moral one. When Abraham Lincoln proclaimed it to be a war for
human freedom, the sentiment of the British people changed--of the
British people as distinct from the governing classes; and the textile
workers of the northern counties, whose mills could not get cotton on

account of the blockade, declared their willingness to suffer and starve
if the slaves in America might be freed.
Abraham Lincoln at that time represented the American people as the
British Government did not represent the British people. We are
concerned today with peoples rather than governments.
It remained for an American President to announce the moral issue of
the present war, and thus to solidify behind him, not only the liberal
mind of America, but the liberal elements within the nations of Europe.
He became the democratic leader of the world. The issue, simply stated,
is the advancement of democracy and peace. They are inseparable.
Democracy, for progress, demands peace. It had reached a stage, when,
in a contracting world, it could no longer advance through isolation: its
very existence in every country was threatened, not only by the
partisans of reaction from within, but by the menace from without of a
militaristic and imperialistic nation determined to crush it, restore
superimposed authority, and dominate the globe. Democracy, divided
against itself, cannot stand. A league of democratic nations, of
democratic peoples, has become imperative. Hereafter, if democracy
wins, self-determination, and not imperialistic exploitation, is to be the
universal rule. It is the extension, on a world scale, of Mr. Wilson's
Mexican policy, the application of democratic principles to
international relationships, and marks the inauguration of a new era.
We resort to force against force, not for dominion, but to make the
world safe for the idea on which we believe the future of civilization
depends, the sacred right of self- government. We stand prepared to
treat with the German people when they are ready to cast off autocracy
and militarism. Our attitude toward them is precisely our attitude
toward the Mexican People. We believe, and with good reason, that the
German system of education is authoritative and false, and was more or
less deliberately conceived in order to warp the nature and produce
complexes in the mind of the German people for the end of preserving
and perpetuating the power of the Junkers. We have no quarrel with the
duped and oppressed, but we war against the agents of oppression. To
the conservative mind such an aspiration appears chimerical. But
America, youngest of the nations, was born when modern science was
gathering the momentum which since has enabled it to overcome, with
a bewildering rapidity, many evils previously held by superstition to be

ineradicable. As a corollary to our democratic creed, we accepted the
dictum that to human intelligence all things are possible. The virtue of
this dictum lies not in dogma, but in an indomitable attitude of mind to
which the world owes its every advance in civilization; quixotic,
perhaps, but necessary to great accomplishment. In searching for a
present-day protagonist, no happier example could be found than Mr.
Henry Ford, who exhibits the characteristic American mixture of the
practical and the ideal. He introduces into industry humanitarian
practices that even tend to increase the vast fortune which by his own
efforts he has accumulated. He sees that democratic peoples do not
desire to go to war, he does not believe that war is necessary and
inevitable, he lays himself open to ridicule by financing a Peace
Mission. Circumstances force him to abandon his project, but he is not
for one moment discouraged. His intention remains. He throws all his
energy and wealth into a war to end war, and the value of his
contribution is inestimable.
A study of Mr. Ford's mental processes and acts illustrates the true
mind of America. In the autumn of 1916 Mr. Wilson declared that "the
people of the United States want to be sure what they are fighting about,
and they want to be sure that they are fighting for the things that will
bring the world justice and peace. Define the elements; let us know that
we are not fighting for the prevalence of this nation over that, for the
ambitions of this group of nations as compared with the ambitions