Joy in the Morning | Page 7

difficult to realize.
American. The Great War made revolutionary changes. That condition
of unpreparedness was one. That there will never be another war is the
belief of all governments. But if all governments should be mistaken,
not again would my country, or yours, be caught unprepared. A general
staff built of soldiers and free of civilians hampering is one advantage
we have drawn from our ordeal of 1917.
Englishman. Your army is magnificently efficient.
American. And yours. Heaven grant neither may ever be needed! Our
military efficiency is the pride of an unmilitary nation. One Congress,
since the Great War and its lessons, has vied with another to keep our

high place.
Englishman. Ah! Your Congress. That has changed since the old
days--since La Follette.
American. The name is a shame and a warning to us. Our children are
taught to remember it so. The "little group of wilful men," the eleven
who came near to shipwrecking the country, were equally bad, perhaps,
but they are forgotten. La Follette stands for them and bears the curses
of his countrymen, which they all earned.
Englishman. Their ignominy served America; it roused the country to
clean its Augean stables.
American. The war purified with fire the legislative soul.
Englishman. Exactly. Men are human still, certainly, yet genuine
patriotism appears to be a sine qua non now, where bombast answered
in the old day. Corruption is no longer accepted. Public men then were
surprisingly simple, surprisingly cheap and limited in their methods.
There were two rules for public and private life. It was thought quixotic,
I gather from studying the documents of the time, to expect anything
different. And how easily the change came!
American. The nation rose and demanded honesty, and honesty was
there. The enormous majority of decent people woke from a
discontented apathy and took charge. Men sprang into place naturally
and served the nation. The old log-rolling, brainless, greedy public
officials were thrown into the junk-heap. As if by magic the stress of
the war wrung out the rinsings and the scourings and left the fabric
clean.
Englishman. The stress of the war affected more than internal politics.
You and I, General, are used to a standard of conduct between
responsible nations as high as that taken for granted between
responsible persons. But, if one considers, that was far from the case a
hundred years ago. It was in 1914, that von Bethmann-Hollweg spoke
of "a scrap of paper."

American. Ah--Germans!
Englishman. Certainly one does not expect honor or sincerity from
German psychology. Even the little Teutonic Republic of to-day is
tricky, scheming always to get a foothold for power, a beginning for the
army they will never again be allowed to have. Even after the Kaiser
and the Crown Prince and the other rascals were punished they tried to
cheat us, if you remember. Yet it is not that which I had in mind. The
point I was making was that today it would be out of drawing for a
government even of charlatans, like the Prussians, to advance the sort
of claims which they did. In commonplace words, it was expected then
that governments, as against each other, would be self-seeking. To-day
decency demands that they should be, as men must be, unselfish.
America. (Musingly.) It's odd how long it took the
world--governments--human beings--to find the truth of the very old
phrase that "he who findeth his life must lose it."
Englishman. The simple fact of that phrase before the Great War was
not commonly grasped. People thought it purely religious and reserved
for saints and church services. As a working hypothesis it was not
generally known. The every-day ideals of our generation, the
friendships and brotherhoods of nations as we know them would have
been thought Utopian.
American. Utopian? Perhaps our civilization is better than Utopian. The
race has grown with a bound since we all went through hell together.
How far the civilization of 1914 stood above that of 1614! The
difference between galley-slaves and able-bodied seamen, of your and
our navy! Greater yet than the change in that three hundred years is the
change in the last one hundred. I look at it with a soldier's somewhat
direct view. Humanity went helpless and alone into a fiery furnace and
came through holding on to God's hand. We have clung closely to that
powerful grasp since.
Englishman. Certainly the race has emerged from an epoch of intellect
to an epoch of spirituality--which comprehends and extends intellect.
There have never been inventions such as those of our era. And the

inventors have been, as it were, men inspired. Something beyond
themselves has worked through them for the world. A force like that
was known only sporadically before our time.
American. (Looks into old ditch.) It would be strange to