Essay On American Contribution and the Democratic Idea | Page 7

of
that group of nations, let us once be convinced that we are called in to a
great combination for the rights of mankind, and America will unite her
force and spill her blood for the great things she has always believed in
and followed."
"America is always ready to fight for the things which are American."
Even in these sombre days that mark the anniversary of our entrance
into the war. But let it be remembered that it was in the darkest days of
the Civil War Abraham Lincoln boldly proclaimed the democratic,
idealistic issue of that struggle. The Russian Revolution, which we
must seek to understand and not condemn, the Allied defeats that are its
consequences, can only make our purpose the firmer to put forth all our
strength for the building up of a better world. The President's masterly
series of state papers, distributed in all parts of the globe, have indeed
been so many Proclamations of Emancipation for the world's oppressed.

Not only powerful nations shall cease to exploit little nations, but
powerful individuals shall cease to exploit their fellow men. Henceforth
no wars for dominion shall be waged, and to this end secret treaties
shall be abolished. Peoples through their representatives shall make
their own treaties. And just as democracy insures to the individual the
greatest amount of self-determination, nations also shall have
self-determination, in order that each shall be free to make its world
contribution. All citizens have duties to perform toward their fellow
citizens; all democratic nations must be interdependent.
With this purpose America has entered the war. But it implies that our
own household must be swept and cleaned. The injustices and
inequalities existing in our own country, the false standards of worth,
the materialism, the luxury and waste must be purged from our midst.

III
In fighting Germany we are indeed fighting an evil Will--evil because it
seeks to crush the growth of individual and national freedom. Its object
is to put the world back under the thrall of self-constituted authority. So
long as this Will can compel the bodies of soldiers to do its bidding,
these bodies must be destroyed. Until the Will behind them is broken,
the world cannot be free. Junkerism is the final expression of reaction,
organized to the highest efficiency. The war against the Junkers marks
the consummation of a long struggle for human liberty in all lands,
symbolizes the real cleavage dividing the world. As in the French
Revolution and the wars that followed it, the true significance of this
war is social. But today the Russian Revolution sounds the keynote.
Revolutions tend to express the extremes of the philosophies of their
times--human desires, discontents, and passions that cannot be
organized. The French Revolution was a struggle for political freedom;
the underlying issue of the present war is economic freedom--without
which political freedom is of no account. It will not, therefore, suffice
merely to crush the Junkers, and with them militarism and autocracy.
Unless, as the fruit of this appalling bloodshed and suffering, the
democracies achieve economic freedom, the war will have been fought
in vain. More revolutions, wastage and bloodshed will follow, the
world will be reduced to absolute chaos unless, in the more advanced
democracies, an intelligent social order tending to remove the causes of

injustice and discontent can be devised and ready for inauguration. This
new social order depends, in turn, upon a world order of mutually
helpful, free peoples, a league of Nations.--If the world is to be made
safe for democracy, this democratic plan must be ready for the day
when the German Junker is beaten and peace is declared.
The real issue of our time is industrial democracy we must face that
fact. And those in America and the Entente nations who continue to
oppose it will do so at their peril. Fortunately, as will be shown, that
element of our population which may be designated as domestic
Junkers is capable of being influenced by contemporary currents of
thought, is awakening to the realization of social conditions deplorable
and dangerous. Prosperity and power had made them blind and arrogant.
Their enthusiasm for the war was, however, genuine; the sacrifices they
are making are changing and softening them; but as yet they can
scarcely be expected, as a class, to rejoice over the revelation--just
beginning to dawn upon their minds--that victory for the Allies spells
the end of privilege. Their conception of democracy remains archaic,
while wealth is inherently conservative. Those who possess it in
America have as a rule received an education in terms of an obsolete
economics, of the thought of an age gone by. It is only within the past
few years that our colleges and universities have begun to teach modern
economics, social science and psychology--and this