Pamphlet number 1

EY Randolph Bourn*

Cover drawing orlgina'ly appeared In fh3 Anarchist publication. "War Commentary", March, 1942.

Printed at Tucson, Arizona MCMLXXII

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THE STATE

Government I* tynonymout with neither State nor Nation. It it the machinery by which the nation, organized at a State, car-He* out ft* State functions Government it t framework of the administration of laws, and the carrying out of the public force. Government ii the idea of the State put into practical operation in the hand* of definite, concrete, fallible men. It la the vitibie sign of the Invisible grace. It it the word made fteth. And it hai necettarity the limitation! inherent in ail practicality. Government it the only form In which we can envltage the State, but It it by no meant identical with It. That the State it • myttlcal conception It tomsthing that mutt never be forgotten. Itt glamor and itt tlgnlOcance linfer behind the framework of Government and direct itt activities

Wartime brings the ideal of the State out into very dear relief, and revealt attitude* and tendenciet that were hidden. In timet of peace the tente of the State flagt In a republic that Is not militarized. For war It etsentially the health of the State. The ideal of the State It that within itt

territory Its power and influence thou id be universal. At the Church if the medium for the spiritual salvation of men, so the. Stste is thought of as the medium for hit political salvation. Ita idealism if a rich btood flowing to ell the members of the body politic. And it i» precisely In war that the urgency for union seems greatest, and the necessity for universality seems most unquestioned. The State Is the organisation of the herd to act offensively or defensively against another herd similarly organized. The more terrifying • the occasion for defense, the closer will become the organization and the more coercive the Influence upon each member of the herd. War sends (he current of purpose and activity flowing down to the lowest level of the herd, and to its most remote branches. All the activities of society are linked together as fast as possible to this central purpose of making a military offensive or a military defense, and the State becomes what in peacetimes It has vafhly strug-' gied to bccome~tbe Inexorable arbiter and determinant of men's businesses and attitudes and. opinions. The slack is taken uf>, the cross-currents fade out, and the nation moves lumberingly and slowly, but with ever accelerated speed and Integration, towards the great end, towards that "peacefulness of being at war," of which t P. Jacks has so unforgetably spoken.

The classes which are abie to play an active and not merely a passive role in the organization for war get a tre-- mendous liberation of activity and energy. Individuals \ are jolted out of their okf routine, many of them are given new positions of responsibility, new techniques must be learnt Wearing home ties are broken and women who would have remained attached with infantile bonds are liberated for service overseas. A vast sense of rejuvenescence pervades the significant desMS, a sense of new importance In the world. Old national Ideals are taken out. re-adapted to the purpose and used as the universal touchstones, or molds into which aU thought la pouted, Every Individual citizen who in peacetimes had no function to perform by which he could Imagine himself an expression or living fragment of the State becomes an active amateur agent of the Government in reporting spies and £ diatoytlists, in raising Government funds, or In propagating .such measures as are considered necessary by officialdom, . Minority opinion, which k> times of peace, was only irritating

and coutd not be dealt with by law unless it was conjoined with actual crime, becomes with the outbreak of war, a case ' for outlawry. Criticism of the State, objections to war; lukewarm opinions concerning the necessity or the beauty of conscription, art made subject to ferocious penalties, far exceeding in severity those affixed to actual pragmatic crimes. Public opinion, . as expressed in the newspapers, and the pulpfts and the schools,, becomes one *olld block. . "Loyalty/' or rat her war orthodoxy, becomes the sole test for all professions^ techniques. occuj>ation*.-Partlcubrly is this true hi the sphere of the intellectual life. There the smallest taint is hold to spread over tl»e whole soul so that-a protestor of physics Is fps* facto disqualified to teach physics or to hold honorable place in a university-the republic of teaming-If ha is at att unsound on the war. Even mere association with persons thus tainted is considered to dfs<tualtfy a teacher. Anything pertaining to the enemy becomc* taboo. His books are suppressed wherever possible, his language la forbidden. His artistic products are considered to convey In the subtlest spiritual way taints of vast poison to the soul that permits itself to enjoy them. So enemy music is suppressed, and energetic measures of ^pprebriufn taken against those whoie artistic consciences are not ready to perform such an act of self*sacrifice. The rage for loyal conformity works 1m-. partially, and often In diametric opposition to other orthodoxies and traditional conformities, or Ideals. The triumphant ortho- . doxy of the State Is shown at Its apex perhaps when Christian preachers lose their pulpits for taking In more of' less literal terms the Sermon on the Mount, and Christian zealot* are •etit to prison for twenty years for distributing tracts which argue that war If imscdptura?.

WAR AND THE HERO

War la the health of the State. . It automatically set* Hi motion throughout society these Irresistible force* for uniformity foe passionate co-operation with the Government hi coercing tale obedknee the mhwrtty group* and Individual* which lack . tilt larger herd gem* ' The machinery of government sets turf enforces the drastic penaftfe*. the mineritfe* are-efthef iiwlmldgntf tote •Hence* or beeught stewfy arwmd by a J'-v mM* proea** ot pmaMtn mtf Mem W lhesr it^o- "

to be convening them. Of course the idea) of perfect loyalty, perfect uniformity if never really attained, the classes upon whom the amateur work of coercion fall* are unwearied in their zeal, but often their agitation instead of converting, merely serves to stiffen their resistance. Minorities are rendered sullen, and some intellectual opinion bitter and satirical. But in gen* eral, the nation i?v war-time attains a uniformity Of feeling, a hierarchyi Of values culminating at the undisputed apex of the State ideal, which could not possibly be produced through any other agency than war. Other values such as artistic creation, knowledge, reason, beauty the enhancement of life, ar* instantly and almost unanimousty sacrificed, and the significant classes who have constituted themselves the amateur agents of the State, are engaged not only in sacrificing these values for themselves but In coercing all other persons, into sacrificing them.

War-or at least modern war waged by a democratic repub. lie against a powerful enemy-seems to achieve for a nation almost ail that the most inflamed political idealist could desire. Citi* tens are no longer indifferent to their Government, but each celt of the. body .politic is brimming with life and activity. We are at last on the way to fiill realisation of that collective community In which each individual somehow contains the virtue of the whole. In a nation at war. every citizen Identifies himself With the whole, and feels immensely strengthened In that identification. The purpou and desire of the collective community live in each person who throws himself whole-heartedly into the-cause of war. The Impeding distinction between society and the Individual Is almost blotted out. At war. the Individual becomes almost /Identical with his society. He achieves a superb self-assurance, an Intuition of the Tightness of alt his ideas and emotions, so that In the suppression of opponents or heretics he Is Invincibly strong) he feels behind him all the power of the collective community. The Individual as social being In war teems to have achieved almost his apotheosis. Not for any religious impulse could the American nation have been expected to show such devotion en masse, such sacrifice and labor. Certainly not for any secular good, such at universal education or the subjugation of nature, would it have poured forth K* treasure and its life, or would It have permitted such stem coercive measures

to be taken against it, such as conicripting Its money and Its men. But for the take of a war of offensive self-defense. undertaken to support a difficult cause to the slogan of 'democ-racy'. It would reach the highest level ever known of collcctlve effort

For these secular good*. connected with the enhancement of life, the education of man and the use of the intelligence to realize rea*on and beauty in the nation'* communal living, are alien to our traditional ideal of the State, The State I* intimately connected with war, for It 1$ the organisation of the collective community when it act* In a political manner, and to act in a political manner toward* a rival group has meant, throughout all hiftory~war.

There li nothing Invidious in the use of the term; 'herd/ In connection with the State. It la merely an attempt to reduce closer to first principle* the nature of thi* Institution In the *hadow of which we all live, move and have our being. Ethnologist* are generally agreed that human society made ft* fir*t appearance a* the human pack and not a* a collection of Individual* or of couple*. The herd i* in fact the original unit, and only a* it wa* differentiated did per*onal Individuality develop. All the mo*t primitive -surviving tribe* of men arc shown to live in a very complex but very rigid *ocial organization where opportunity for Individuation it «carcely given. These tribe* remain strictly organized herd*, and the difference between them and the modern State is one of degree of *ophi*tlcat<on and variety of organization, and not of kind.

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE STATE

Psychologist* recognize the gregarious Impulse a* one of the *trongc*t primitive pulls which keeps together the heuf* of tbt different species of higher animals Mankind J* ro exception. Our pugnacious evolutionary history has prevented the Impulse from ever dying out This gregarious Impulse la tht tendincy tOf imitate, to conform/ to coalesce together/ , and Is most powerful when the herd believes Itself threatened with attack. Animals crowd together for protection* and men become most consdoot of their - cotitcthrfty ft. tfee threat of war. Cm$ttmnr*?* ofcotfeetMty Mngt ^tmtitof* '

and a feeling of masted strength, which In turn arousee pugnacity and the battle it on. In civilized man, the gregarious Impulse acts not only to produce concerted action for defense, but also to product identity of opinion. Since thought is a form of behavior, the gregarious impube floods up Into Its realms and demands that sense of uniform thought which wartime produce* so successfully* Ar.d It la In thla Heeding of the conscious life of society that gftgariouancas work* Ha. havoc.

For |ust as in medttn societies the scx*in*tlnct Is enormously ' over-supplied for the requirements of human propagation, so the gregarious impulse is enormously over*«upptled for the work of protection which it is called upon to perform. If would be quite enough if we were gregarious enough to enjoy the companionship of others, to be able to cooperate with them, and to feel a alight malaise at solitude. Unfortunately/ however, this impulse is not content with these reasonable and healthful demands, but Insists that like-mlndcdncs* shall prevail everywhere, in all departments of life. So that all human profrttt. ail novelty* and non<onformity, must be carried against the resistance of thla tyrannical herd-instinct which drive* the Individual into obedience and conformity with the majority. Even In the moat modem and enftghtened societies this impulse, shows little algn of abating. Aa it le driven by inexorable economic demand out of the sptere of utility, it seems to fasten itself ever more fiercely In the realm of feeling and opinion, so that conformity comes to be a tHiftf aggreasivety desired and demanded.

.The gregarioua hnpulie keeps its hoW all the more viruleotly because when the group la in motion or la taking any positive action, this feeling of being with and supported by the collective herd yery greatly feeds that wiii to power, the nourishment el whkh the individual organism so coffftantly demands. You fed powerful by conforming, end you feel foHom and WpJtte If you are out of the crowd. While even if you de . not get any access of power by thinking and feeling )u*t ae everybody atat In yeur group doee, you get at legal thewanw .feeling of obedlene* thigeeitfctog JrresptnsiWrtf of protection ,

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obedience*-this gregarious Impulse becomes Irresistible in society. War stimulates it to the highest possible degree, sending the Influence of its mysterious herd-current with its inflations of power and obedience to the farthest read es of the society, to every individual and little group that can possibly be affcctcd. And it Is these impulses which the $tate«the organization of the entire herd, the entire collectivity—Is founded on and makes use of.

There is, of course, in the feeling towards the State a large element of pure filial mysticism. The sense of insecurity, the desire for protection, sends one's desire back to the father and mother, with whom is associated the earliest feelings of protection. It Is not for nothing that one's StateJs still thought of as Father or Motherland, that one's relation towards It is conceived in terms of family affection. The war has shown that nowhere under the shock of danger have these primitive childlike attitudes faifed to assert themselves again, as much In this country as anywhrrc. If we have not the intense Father* sense "Of the German who worships his Vaterland, at least In Uncle Sam we have a symbol of protecting, kindly authority,, and in the many Mother-posters of the Red Cross, we see ^ow-easily in the more tender functions of war scrvice. the ruling organization Is conceived in family terms. A people at war have become in the most literal sense obedient, respectful. trustful children again, full of that naive faith In the all-wlsdcu: and all-power of the adult who takes care of them, imposes his mii^ but necessary rule upon them and In whom they lose their re-sponsibility and anxieties. In this recrudesccncc of the child, there Is great comfort, and a certain influx of power. On most people the strain of being an Independent adult weighs heavily, and upon none more than those members of the significant classes who have bequeathed to them or have assumed the -responsibilities of governing. The State provides the convenientest of symbols under which these classes can retain all the actual pragmatic satisfaction of governing, but can rid themselves of the. psychic buAlenofadulthood. They continue t? direct Industryand government and all the Institutionsofsoclety pretty much as be* fort, but in their own conscious eyes and In the eyes of the gem eral public, they are turned from their selfish and predatory ways, and have become loy*h servants or society, or something greater

than they-the State. The man who moves from the direction of a large business In New York to a post in the war management Industrial service in Washington does not apparently alter very much hit power or his administrative technique. But psychically, what a transfiguration has occurred! His Is now not only the power but the glory! And his sense of satisfaction Is directly proportion*! not to the genuine amount of, personal sacrifice that may be involved in the change but to the extent to which he retains his industrial prerogatives and sense of command.

from members of this clajsa certain insuperable indignation arises If the change from private enterprise to State service Involves any real loss of power and personal privilege. If there Is to be pragmatic sacrifice, let it be, they feel, on the field of honor, in the traditionally acclaimed deaths by battle, in that detour to suicide, as Nietzsche calls war. . the State in wartime supplies satisfaction for this very real craving, but Its chief value Is the opportunity it gives for this regression to infantile attitudes, In your reaction to an imagined attack on your country or an insult to its government, you draw closer to the herd for protection, you conform in word and deed, and you insist vehemently thai everybody efse shall think, speak and act together. An J you fix your adoring gaze upon the State, with a truly filial look, as upon the Father of the flock, the quasl-psrsonal symbol of the strength of the herd* <md the leader and determinant of your definite action and Ideas.

The members of the working-classes, that portion at least which doe* not Identify itself with the significant classes and seek to imitate it and rise to It, are notoriously less affected by the symbolism of the State, or. In other words, are leis patriotic than the significant classes. For theirs is neither the power nor the glory. The State in wartime does not offer , them the opportunity to regress, for, never having acquired social adulthood, they cannot lose U. If they have been drilled and regimented, as by the industrial regime of the last century, they go cut docilely enough to do battle for their State, but they art almost entirely without that filial sense and even without that herd-intellect sense which Operates so powerfully ftmonf their "betters". They Uvi habitually in an Industrial serfdom, by which though nominally free, they art fn practice as adass bound to » sysfem of • machine-production the .

implement* of which they do not own, and in the distribution of whose product they have not the *lightc*t voice, except what they can occasionally exert by a veiled intimidation which draw* •lightly more of the product in their direction. From such *erf* dom. military comcription Is not *o great a change. But into the military enterprise they go. not with tho*e hurrah* of the *ignificant cfa**e* who*e in*tinct* war *o powerfully feed*, but with the *ame apathy with which they enter and continue in the indu*tri*l enterprise.

From thi* point of view, war can be called almo*t an tipper* cla** *port. The novel fntere*t* and excitement* it provide*, the inflation* of power, the *at!*faction It give* to those very tenacious human lmpul*e*"gregarlou*nc** and parcnt-regre**lon -endow it with all the qualities of a luxuriou* collective game which i* felt Intensely fu*t In proportion to the *en*e of *<gn;ficant rule the perfon ha* in the clas*-divi*ion of hi* *ociety. A country at war.-particularly our own country at war-.doe* not •ct a* a purely homogeneou* herd. The *lgniflcant classes have all the herd'fecling in all it* primitive intensity, but there are barrier*, or at lca*t differential* of intensity, so that this feeling doe* not flow freely without Impediment throughout the entire nation. A jnodcrn country repre*ent* a long historical and *ociai procc** of. disaggregation of the herd. The nation at peace 1* not a group, it i* a network of myriad* of group* repre*entlng the cooperation »nd *lmllar feeling of men on all *ort* of plane* and In ail *ort* of human interest* and enter* prise*, tn every modern lndu*tr!al country, there are parallel plane* of economic cla**e* with divergent attitude* and in*ti« tution* and interests-bourgeois and proletariat-with their many *ubdivl*ton* according to power and function, and even their Interweaving. *uch a* those more highly *kiiled worker* who habitually identify them*e!ve* with the owning and tht eigniflcant cla**e* and *trive to ral*e them*eive* to the bour* geoi* level. Imitating their cultural *tandard* and manner*.

• Then ,there are rellglou* group* with a certain definite, though weakening *en*e of kln*hlp, and there are the powerful ethnic group* Which behave almo*t •* cultural colonic* In the New World, dinging tenaciously to language and historical tradition, though their heidi*hne** fa usually founded on cultural rather thin State aymbot*. There are ctrtafn vague

sectional groupings. All these small sects, political parties, classcs. levels, interests, may act as feci for herd-feelings. They interact and interweave, and the same person may be a member of several different groups lying at different planes. Different occasions will set off his hcrd-fcellng in one direction or another. In a religious crisis he will be intensely conscious of the necessity that his scct-or sub*herd~may prevaili in a political campaign, that his party shall triumph.

To the spread of herd-feeling, therefore, all these smaller herds offer resistance. To the spread of that herd-feeling which arises from the threat of war. and which would normally involve tho entire nation, the only groups which make serious resistance are those, of course, which continue to identify themselves with the other nation from which they or their parents have come. In times of peace they are for all practical purposes citizens of their new country. They keep alive their, ethnic traditions more as a luxury than anything. Indeed these traditions tend rapidly to die out except whsre they connect with some still unresolved nationalistic cause abroad, with some struggle ftr freedom, or some irredentism. If they are consciously opposed by a too invidious policy of Americanism, they tend to be strengthened. And in time of war, these ethnic elements which have any traditional connection with the enemy, even though most o£ the individuals may have little real sympathy with the enemy's cause, are naturally lukewarm to the herd-feeling of (He nation which goes back to State traditions In which they have no share. But to the natives imbued with State-feeling, any such resistance or apathy Is Intolerable. This herd-fce!lng."this newly awakened consciousness of the State, demands universality. The leaders of the significant classes, who feel most intensely this State-compulsion, demand • one hundred per cent Americanism, among one hundred per cent of the population. The State is a jealous God and will brook no rivals. Its sovereignty must pervade everyone and all feeling must be run into the stereotyped forms of romantic patrl* Otfc militarism which is the traditional expression of the Start herd-fceiing. >, '

^:: Thus arises conflict within the State. War becomes almost • sport between the hunters and the hunted. The pursuit 0/ enemies within outweighs In psychic attractiveness the assault

it

on the enemy without. The whole terrific force of the Stele is brought to bear against the heretics. The nation boils with a stow insistent fever. A white terrorism is carried on by the Government against pacifists. Socialists, enemy aliens, and a milder unofficial persecution against ali persons or movements that can be imagined as connected with the enemy. War, which should be the health of the State, unifies all the bourgeois elements and the common people, and outlaws the rest. The revolutionary proletariat shows mere resistance to this unification, Is, a* we Have seon. psychically out of the current. Its vanguard as the I.WAX'., is remorselessly pursued, in spite of the proof that it is a symptom, not a cause, and its prosecution increases the disaffection of tabor and intensifies the friction Instead of lessening It.

But the emotions that play around the defense of the State do not take Into consideration the pragmatic results. A nation at war, led by its significant classes, is engaged in liberating certain of its Impulses which have had all too little exercise in the past.* It is getting certain satisfactions and tha actual conduct of the war or the condition of the country are really Incidental to the enjoyment of new forms of virtue and power and aggressiveness. If it could be shown conclusively that the persecution of slightly disaffected elements actually increased enormously the difficulties of production and the organization of the war technique, it would be found that public policy would scarcely change. The significant classes must have their pleasure In hunting down and chastizing everything that they .fee! instinctively to be not imbued with the current State-enthusiasm, though the State itself be actually impeded In Its efforts to carry out those objects for which they are passionately contending. The best pfoof of this is that with a pursuit of plotters that has continued with ceaseless vigilance ever since the beginning of the war In Europe, the concrete crimes unearthed and punished have been fewer than those prosecutions for the mere crime of opinion or the expression of sentiments critical of the State or the national policy. The punishment for opinion has been far more ferocious and unintertnittcnt than the punishment of pragmatic crime. Unimpeachable Anglo>Saxon*Amert» cane who were freer of pacifist or socialist utterance than tlx State-obsessed ruling public opinion, received heavier penalties and even greater opprobrium. In many Instance*, than the definitely hostile German plotter A public opinion which, almost without protect, accepts as just, adequate, beautiful, deserved and in fitting harmony with ideals of liberty and freedom of speech, a sentence of twenty years in prison for mere utterances, no matter what they may be. shows itself to be suffering from a kind of social derangement of values, a sort of social neurosis, that deserves analysis and comprehension.

On our entrance Into the war there were many persons who predicted exactly this derangement of values, who feared lest democracy suffer more at home from an America at war than could be gained for democracy abroad. That fear has been amply Justified. The question whether the American nation would act like an enlightened democracy going to war for the sake of high ideals, or like a State-obsessed herd, has been decisively answered. The record Is written and cannot be erased. History will decide whether the * terrorization of opinion, and the regimentation of life was Justified under the most idealistic of democratic administrations. It will see that when the American nation had ostensibly a chance to conduct a gallant war, with scrupulous regard to the safety of democratic values at home, it' chose rather to adopt all the most obnoxious and coercive techniques of the enemy and .of the other countries at war, and to rival In intimidation and ferocity of punishment the worst governmental systems of the age. for Its former unconsciousness and disrespect of the State Ideal, the nation apparently paid the penalty In a violent swing to the other extreme. It acted so exactly like a herd In Its irrational coercion of minorities that there Is no artificiality In interpreting the progress of the war in terms of herd psychology. It unwittingly brought out into the strongest relief the true characteristics cf the State and its intimate alliance with war. It provided for the enemies of war and the critics of the State the most telling arguments possible. The new passion for the State ideal unwittingly set in motion and encouraged forces th$t threaten very materially to reform the State. It has shown those who are really determined to end war that the problem Is not the mere simple one of finishing a war that wffr end war. .v? ⁴

For war Is a complicated way In which a nation acts* and

It acts so out cf a spiritual compulsion which pushes it on perhaps against ail Its interests, ail its real desires, and ill its real tense of values. It is States that make wars and not nations, and' the very thought and almost necessity of war is bound up with Hie ideal of the State. Net for centuries have nations made war» In fact the only historical example of nations making war Is the great barbarian invasions into Southern Europe, invasions of Russia from the East, and perhaps the sweep of Islam through Northern Africa into Europe after Mohammed's death. And the motivations for such wars were either the restless expansion of migratory tribes or the flame of religious fanaticism. Perhaps these great movements could scarcely be called wars at all. for war implies an organized people drilled and ledi in fact, it necessitates the State. Ever since Europe has had any tueh organization, such huge conflicts between nations -nations, that is. as cultural groups-have been unthinkable. It Is preposterous to assume that for centurlcs b Europe there would h3vc been any possibility of a people en motse-with their own leaders, and not with the leaders of their duly constituted Stated-rising up and overflowing their borders in a war raid upon a neighboring people. The wars of the Revolutionary armies of France were dearly In defense of an imperiled freedom, and moreover, they were clearly directed not against other peopfes, but against the autocratic governments that where combining to crush the Revolution. There Is no Instance in history cf genuinely national war. There are Instances of national defenses, among primitive civilizations such as the Balkan peoples, against intolerable invasion by neighboring despots or oppression. But war, as such,^cannot occur except In a system of competing States, which have relations with each other through the channels of diplomacy.

War is a function of this system of Slates, and could not occur except In such a system. Nations organized for internal administration, nations organized as a federation* of free communities, nations organized in any way except that of a political centralization of a dynasty, dr the reformed descendant of a dynasty, could not possibly make war upon each other. They . would not only have no motive for conflict, but they would be unable to muster the concentrated force to make war effective There might be all sorts of amateur marauding, there might be

•

guerilla expeditions of group against group, but there could not be that terrible war e«i mom of the national State, that exploitation of the nation in the interests of the State, that abuse of the national life and resource in the frenzied mutual suicide, which it modern war.

It cannot be too firmly realized that war Is a function of States and not of nations, indeed that it Is the chief function of State*. War is a very artificial thing. It i* not the naive spontaneou* outburst of herd pugnacity* U is no more primary than is formal religion. War cannot exist without a military establishment, and a military establishment cannot exist without a State organization. War has an Immemorial tradition' and heredity only because the State has a long tradition and her~ odlty, Out they are inseparably and functionally joined. We cannot crusade against war without crusading implicitly against the State. And we cannot expect, or take measures to ensure, that this war i*a war to end war. unles* at the *ame time we take measures to end the State in its traditional form. The State is not the nation, and the State can be modified and even abolished in it* present form, without harming the nation. On the contrary, with the passing of the dominance of the State, the genuine life-enhancing force* of,the nation will be liberated. If the State's chief function is war, then the State must suck out of the nation a large part of it* energy^ for its purely sterile purpo*e$ of defense and aggression. It devote* to waste or to actual destruction as much a* it can of the-vitality of the nation. No one will deny that war I* a vast complex of life-destroying and life-crippling force*. If the State'* chief function i* war. then it I* chiefly concerned with coordinating and developing the power* and technique* which make for de*tructlon. And thi* mean* not only the actual and potential de*tructlon of the enemy, but of the nation at home as well. For the very exi*t*hce of a State In a *y*tem of State* mean* that the nation lie* alway* under a H*k of war and inva*ion, and the calling away of energy Into military pur*uit* mean* a crippling of the productive and life-enhancing proce**e* of the national IKe.

All this organizing of death-tdealiitg energy and technique b not a natural but a very *ophi*ticated proce**. Particularly In modam nation*, but al*o all through the course of modern European hi*tory. it could never exi*t without the Suite. For it meat* the demand* of no other in*titution, it follow* the

desires of no religious. industrial, political group. If the demand for military organization and a military establishment seems to come not from the officers of the State but from the public, it Is only that it comcs from the State-obsessed portion of the public thoie groups which feel most keenly the State Ideal* And in this country we have had evidence all too indubitable liow powerless the pacifically minded officers of the State may be In the face of a State-obdesfion of the significant classes. If a powerful section of the significant classes feels more intensely the attitude* of the State, then they will most Infallibly mold the Government in time to their wishes, bring it back to act as the embodiment of the State which It pretends to be. In every country we have seen groups that were more loyal than the King-more patriotic than the Govemmcnt-the Ulsterltes In Great 8rltain, the Junkers In Prussia. VAction francalse In France, our patrioteers In America. These groups exist to ke*p the steering wheel of the State straight, and they prevent the natkn from ever veering very far from the State ideal. |

Militarism expresses the desires and satisfies the major impulse only of this class. The other classes, left to themselves. hav« too many necessities and interests and ambitions, to concern themselves with so expensive and destructive a game. But tht • State-obsessed group is cither able to get control of tht machln. try cf the State or to Intimidate those in control, so that It is able through use of the collcctlve force to regiment the other . grudging and reluctant classes into a military programme. State idealism percolates down through the strata ofsocJctyt capturing groups and Individuals just In proportion to the prestlgt of this dominant class. So that we have the herd actually strung along between two extremes, the militaristic patriots at one end, who art scarcely distinguishable In attitude and animus ttotn tht most reactionary Bourbons of an 5m pi re, and unskilled tabor groups* which entirely lack tht State sense. But the State acta as a whole, and the class that controls governmental machinery .. can siring tht effective action of the herd as a whole. Tht . herd t$ not actually t whole, emotionally. But by an Ingenious mixture of cajolery, agitation, intimidation, tht htrd Is Mtfcti Into shape Into an tffectivt mechanical unity. If not foaaapfew Ituat whole. Men art told simultaneously that tfctywtti enter the • military establishment ofthetr twit voJftfon, 9$ their sjritndkl. .

sacrifice for their country's welfare, and that If they do not enter they will be hunted down and punished with the moat horrid penalties and under a most indescribable confusion of democratic pride and personal fear 'they submit to the destruction of their livelihood if not their lives, in a way that would formerly have seemed to them so obnoxious as to be Incredible.

. In this great herd-machinery, dissent Is like sand in the bearings. The State Ideal Is primarily a sort of blind animal push towards military unity. Any Interference with that unity turns the whole vast impulse towards crushing it. Dissent is speedily outlawed, and the Government, backed by the significant classes and those who In every locality, however small, identify themselves with them, proceeds against the outlaws, regardless of their value to the other institutions of the nation, or to the effect their persecution may have on public opinion. The herd becomes divided Into the hunters and the hunted, and war-enter* prise becomes not only a technical game but a sport as well.

It must never be forgotten that nations do not declare war on each other, nor tn the strictest sense is It nations that fight each other. Much has been said to the effect that modern wars art wars of whole peoples and not of dynasties. Because the entire nation Is regimented and the whole resources of the country are levied on for war, this does not mean that It is the country, our country which Is fighting. It is the country organized as a State that is fighting, and only as a State would It possibly fight So, literally. It is States which make war on each other and not peoples. Governments are the agents of States, and It Is Governments which declare war on each other, acting truest to form In the Interests of the great State ideal they represent. There is no case known In modern times of the people being consulted In the initiation of a war. The present demand for democratic control of foreign policy Indicates how completely, even In the most democratic of modern nations, foreign policy has been the secret private possession of the executive branch of Government.

However representative of the people Parliaments and Congresses may be In ill that concerns the Internal administration of • country's political affairs. In international relations H hat never been possible to maintain that the popular body acted except aa a wholly mechanical ratlfltr of the Executive's

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will. The formality by which Parliaments and Congresses declare war is the merest technicality. Before such a declaration can take place, the country will have been brought to the very brink of war by the foreign policy of the Executive. A long series x>f steps on the downward path, each one more fatally committing the unsuspecting country to a warlike course of action wilt have been taken without either the people or its representatives being consulted or expressing its feeling. When the declaration of war is finally demanded by the Executive, the Parliament or Congress could not refuse it without reversing the course of history, without repudiating what has been representing, itself in the eyes of the ot!>or states as the symbol and Interpreter of the nation's will and animus. To repudiate an Executive at that time would be to publish to the entire world the evidence that the country had been grossly deceived by its own Government, that the country with an almost criminal carelessness had allowed its Government to commit it to gigantic national enterprises In which it had no heart. In such a crisis, even a Parliament which In the most democratic States represents the common man and not the significant classes who must strongly cherish the State ideal, will cheerfully sustain the foreign policy which It understands even less than It would care for If It understood, and will vote almost unanimously for an incalculable war. In which the nation .may be brought well nigh to ruin. That is why the referendum which was advocated by some people as a test of American sentiment In entering the war was considered even by thoughtful democrats to be something subtly improper. The die had been cast Popular whim could derange and bungle moiv etrously the majestic march of State policy in its new crusade for the peace of the world. The irresistible State Ideal got hold of the bowels of men. Whereas up to this time, it had been Irreproachable to be neutral in word and deed, for the foreign policy of the State had so decided it, henceforth it became the most arrant crime to remain neutral The Middle West, which had been soddenly paclflstlc In our days of neutrality, became kl a few ninths fust as soddenly bellicose, and In its Jteal for witch-burning and its scent for enemies within gave precedence to no section of the country. The herd-mind followed faithfully the State-mind and* the agitation for a referendum being soon forgotten, the country fell Into the Universal conclusion

that, since its Congress hid formally declared the war, the na* tlon itself had In the most solemn and universal way devised and brought on (ho entire affair. Oppression of minorities be-came Justified on tho pica that the tatter were perversely resisting the rationally constructed and solemnly declared will of a maicrHy of the nation. Tho herd-coalescence of opinion which boctcne inevitable the moment the State had set flowing the war* attitudes became Interpreted as a pre-war popular decision, and disinclination to bow to the herd was treated as a monstrously anti-social act. So feat the State* which had vigorously resisted tho Idea of a referendum and clung tenaciously and. of course, with entire success to Its autocratic and absolute control of for* etgn policy, had tho pleasure of soelng the country, within a few months, given over to tho retrospective Impression that a . genuine referendum had taken place. When once a country has lapped up these State attitudes. Its memory fades* it conceives Itself not as merely accepting, but of having itself willed tho whole policy and technique of war, Tho significant dasses with their trailing satellites. Identify themselves with the State, so that what the State, through tho agency of tho Government, has Drilled, this ma|orlty conceives Itself to have willed.

AH of which goes to show that tho Stato represents alt the autocratic, arbitrary, coercive, belligerent forces within a social group. It Is a sort of complexus of everything most distasteful to the modern free creative spirit, tho fooling for life, liberty and tho pursuit of happiness. War Is tho health of tho Stato. Only when tho Stato Is at war docs tho modern society ;. function with that unity of sentiment, simple imcrftkgl patriotic devotion, cooperation of services, which have always been tho Ideal of tho Stato lover. With the ravages of democratic . ideas, however, the. modem republic cannot go to war under . tho old conceptions of autocracy and death-dealing belligerency. If a successful animus for war requires a renaissance of Stato Ideals, they can only come back under democratic forms, under this retrospective conviction of democratic control of foreign policy, democratic doslra for war, and particularly of this Identification of tho democracy with the State. How unregenorate the artcknt State may be, however, Is Indicated by the taws against •edition, and by tho Government's unreformed attitude on for-efg* poHcy. One of tho dm demaads of tho more far-seeing

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democrats in the democracies of the Alliance was that secret diplomacy must go. The war was seen to Have been made possible by a v.cb of secret agreements between States, allien* ces that were made by governments without the shadow of popular support or even popular knowledge, and vague, half-un-derstood commitments that scarcely reached the stage of a treaty or agreement, but which proved binding In the event Certainly, said these democratic thinkers, war can scarcely be avoided unless this poisonous underground system of secret diplomacy is destroyed, this system by which a nation's power, wealth and manhood may be signed away like a blank check to an allied, nation to be cashed in at some future crisis. Agreements which arc to affect the lives of whole peoples must be made between peoples and not by governments, or at least by their represents tives in the full glare of publicity and criticism.

Such a demand for "democratic control of foreign policy" seemed axiomatic. Even If the country had been swung Into war by steps taken secretly and announced to the public only after they had been consummated, It was felt thai that attitude of the American Stale towards foreign policy was only a relic of the bad old days and must be superseded in the new order. The American President himself, the liberal hope of the world, had demanded, in the eyes of the world, open diplomacy, agreements freely and openly arrived at Did this mean a genuine transference of power In this most crucial of State functions from Government to People? Not at all. When the question recently came to a challenge in Congress, and the implications of open discussion were somewhat specifically discussed, and the desirabilities frankly commended, the President let his disapproval be known in no uncertain way. No one ever accused Mr. Wilson of not being a State idealist and whenever democratic aspirations swung Ideals top ffr out of the tote orbit, he could be counted on to react vigorously. Here was a clear case U conflict between democratic Idealism and the very crux of the concept of the State, However unthinkingly W might have been led on to entourage open diplomacy In hfs ftberalt ■■ King programme, whan its implication was made vivid to him, he betrajwl how mere a tool the idea had been In his mind to accentuate America's redeeming r«J* N*t in any sense as 1 serious pragmatic technique had he thought ff a gentMfuly

diplomacy. And how could he? For the la*t stronghold of State power t* foreign policy. It i* In foreign policy that the State acta moat concentratedly as the organized herd, acta with fullest tense of aggressive power, acts with freest arbitrariness. In foreign policy, the State Is most Itself. States, with reference to each other, may be said to be in a continual state of latent war. The "armed truce," a phrase so familiar before 1914, was an accurate description of the normal relation of States when they are not at war. Indeed, It (s not too much to say that the normal re* latlons of States Is war. Diplomacy is a disguised war. in which States seek to gain by. barter and intrigue, by the cleverness of wits, the objectives which they would have to gain more clumsily by means of war. Diplomacy is used while the States •re recuperating from conflicts In which they have exhausted themselves. It is the wheedling and the bargaining of the worn* out bullies as they rise from the ground and slowly restore their strength to begin fighting again. If diplomacy had been the moral equivalent for war. a higher stage in human progress, an inestimable means of making words prevail Instead of blows* militarism would have broken down and given place to it. 8ut since it is a mere temporary substitute, a mere appcarance of war's energy under another form, a surrogate effcct is almost cxactfy proportioned to the armed force behind it. When It falls, the recourse Is Immediate to the military technique whose thinly veiled arm It has been. A diplomacy that was the agency of popular democratic forces in their non-State manifestations would b« no diplomacy at aiUt would be no better than the Railway or Education Commissions that ar« sent from one country to anotherwith rational constructive purpose. The State, acting as a diplomatic-military ideal, la eternally at war. Just as It must act arbitrarily and autocratically in time of war, ft must act In time of peace In this particular roie where it acta as a unit. Unified control is necessarily autocratic control. Democratic control of foreign potty is therefore a contraction In terms* Open discussion destroys swiftness and certainty of action. The gtoint State fa pjptyf* M* Wilson retain* lit* to*! Ideal of the State at the ttm.&Mi that be dteta*. to efcmJnate war. Ha wfchta to make the world safe frr dcmoetacy ae w«H a* tife fer diplomacy. Wb* *lt»o UkaK

fca of the Slate, ttfi* him that It M tfrawaiver democrat*:

values that mutt be sacrificed. The world must primarily be made safe for diptomacy. The State must not be diminished.

What is the State essentially? The more closely we examine It, the more mystical and personal.it becomes. On the Nation we can put our hand as a definite social group, with attitude* and qualities exact enough to mean something. On the Government we can put our hand as a certain organization of ruling functions, the machinery of law-making and law-enforcing. The Administration Is a recognizable group of political functionaries, temporarily In charge of the Government But the State stands as en idea behind them all, eternal, sanctified, and from It Government and Administration conceive themselves to have the breath of tlfe. Even the nation, especially In times of war-er at least, its aignlficant classes-considers that It derives its authority and its purpose from the Idea of the State. Nation and State are scarcely differentiated, and the concrete, practical, apparent facts are sunk in the symbol. We reverence not our country but the flag. We may criticize ever so severely our country, but we are disrespectful to the flag at our peril, it is the flag and the uniform that make men's hearts beat high and fill them with noble emotions, not the thought of and pious hope* for America as a free and enlightened nation.

It cannot be said that the object of emotion is the same, because the flag I* the symbol of the nation, so that in rever-. encing the American flag we are reverencing the nation. For the flag Is not a symbol of the country as a cultural group, following certain ideals of life, but solely a *ymbol of the political State, Inseparable from its prestige and expansion. The flag I* most Intimately connected with military achievement, military memory. It represents the country not in It* Intensive life, but In it* far-flung challenge te the world. The flag h primarily the banner of war* it 1* allied with patriotic anthem and holldiy. it recall* eld martial memories.. A nation'* patriotic history is solely the history of It* wars, that I*, of the State lit its health and glorious functioning. So In responding te the appeal the flag, we are re-aponding te the tppai ef the *tate» te the eymM of the herd organized a* an offensive end defensive body, conscious prowes* and it* my«teat herd-strength.

Even these authorities In the present Admlfijltiflrt^tewhoei has htm •mated autocratic «#«tr»f ever

they art scarcely able to philosophize over, this distinction, it has been authoritatively declared that the horrid penalties against seditious opinion r.iust not be construed as inhibiting legitimate, that is, partisan criticism of tht Administration. A distinction Is made between the Administration and the Government. It Is quite accurately suggested by this attitude that the Administration Is' a temporary band of partisan politicians in charge of the machinery of Government, carrying out tht mystical policies of State. Tht manner In which they operate this machinery may be freely discusscd and objected to by their political opponents. The Governmental machinery may also bt legitimately altered, in case of necessity. What may not be discussed or criticized ts the mystical policy Itself or the motives of the State in inaugurating such a policy. The President It Is true, has made certain partisan distinctions between candidates for office on the ground of support or non-support of the Administration, but what ht meant was really support or non-support of the State policy as faithfully carried out by the Administration. Certain of the Administration measures were devised directly to increase the health of tltc State, such as tht Conscription- and the Espionage taws. Others were concerned merely with the machinery.. To oppose the first was to oppose tht State and was thtrtfore not tolerable. To oppose tht second was lo oppose fallible human Judgment and was thertfort, though to bt deprecated, not to bt wholly lnttrprtttd as political suicidt.

Tht distinction between Government and State, however, has not been so carefully observed, in time of war It Is natural that Government as the seat of authority should be contuttd with the State or tht mystic source of authority. You cannot very well Injure a mystical idea which h the State, but you can very well Interfere with tht processes of Government So that tht two btcome identified in the public mind, and any contempt for or opposition to tht working! of tht machinery of Government la considtrtd equivalent to contempt for tht sacred State. Tht Itsttt It is felt, Is being injured In its faithful surrogate, and pttbtic emotion rallles passionately to defend it It even makes criticism M tht forvto of Government a cftmfc

Tht IfttxtrfcaWe union of mrtHari*m and the State is beautl-ftitty shown by thott laws tAtob tmpfeste* touMm* with tht

matkally, a case of capitalistic sabotage, or a strike In war in* dustry would seem to be far more dangerous to the successful prosecution of the war than the isolated and ineffectual efforts of an individual to prevent recruiting, tut in the tradition of the State ideal, such industrial interference with national policy is not Identified as a crime against the State. It may be grum-bled againsh It may be seen quite rationally as an impediment of the utmost gravity* But it Is not felt in those obscure seats of the herd-mind which dictate the Identity of crime and fix their proportional punishments. Army and Navy, however, are th« very arms of the State* In them flows Its most precious life-blood. To paralyxe them is to touch the very State 4tself. And the majesty of the State is so sacred that even to attempt such a paralysis Is a crime equal to a successful stroke The will is deemed sufficient. Even though the individual In his effort to impede recruiting should utterly and lamentably faU. he shall be in no wise spared. Let the wrath of the State descend upon him for his Impiety! Even If he does not try any overt action, but merely utters sentiments that may incidentally In the most indirect way cause some one to refrain from enlisting, he is guilty. The guardians of the State do not ask whether any pragmatic effect flowed out of this evil will or desire. It . Is enough that the will Is present. Fifteen or twenty years in prison Is not deemed too much for such sacrilege.

Such attitudes and such laws, which affront every principle of human reason, are no accident, nor arc they the result of hysteria caused by the war. They are considered lust, proper, beautiful by all the classes which have the State Ideal, and they express only an extreme of health and vigor In the reaction of the State to its non-friends.

Such attitudes are Inevitable as arising from the devotees of the State. For the State Is a personal as well as a mystical symbol, and it can only be understood by tracing Its historical origin. The modern Slate Is net the national and Intcfflgent product of modern men desiring to live harmoniously together wKh security of life property and opinion. It Is not an organization j whKh has been devised as pragmatic means to a desired social end All the Idealism with which we have been Instructed to endow the S&teJa the fnirtt of our retrospective imaginations, What It dees for us In the *iy"of aesnfty and benefit of We, it daet in-uJvnUiily as a by-product and development of its original functions, and not because at any time men or classes in the fuif possession of their insight and intelligence have desired that it be so. It is very important that we should occasionally lift the > incorrigible veil of that ex pott facto idealism by which we throw a glamor of rationalization over what is. and pretend in the ecstasies of social conceit that wo have personalty invented and tet up for the glory of God and man the hoary institutions which we aee around us. Things are what they are, and ccme down to us with all their thick encrustation* of error and malevolence. Political philosophy can delight us with fantasy and convince us who need illusion to live that the actual is a fair and approximate copy-full of failings, of course, but approximately sound and sincerc'-of that Idea! society which we can Imagine ourseivea as creating, from -this it Is a step to the tacit assumption that we have somehow had a hand in its creation and are responsible for it* maintenance and sanctity.

Nothing Is more obvious, however, than that every one of ua comes into society as Into something in whose creation we had not the slightest hand. We have not even the advantage of consciousness before we rake up our careers on earth. 8y the time we find ourselves here we are caught in a network cf customs and attitudes, the major directions of our desires and interests have been stamped on our minds, and by the time we have emerged from tutelage and reached the years of discretion when we might conceivably throw our influence to the reshaping of social institutions, most of ut have been so molded into the aoclety and class we live in that we are scarcely aware of any distinction between ourselves as judging, desiring individual* arid our social environment. We have been kneaded so successfully that we approve of what our society approves, desire what our eociety desires, and add to the group our own personal inertia agalnat change, against the effort of reason, and the adventure of beauty.

Every one of ut* without exception, it born into a society ; that la given, |u*t as the fauna and flora of our environment M given. Society and Hi Institution* are. to the Individual who & aa modi naturalistic phenomena as is the weather Jtaetf, There ie therefore, no natural sanctity In llig Stateany more than there la in the weather, Wa mav bow down before

It just as our ancestors bowed before lite suit and moon, but it it only because something in us unrcgcncratc finds satisfaction in such an altitude, not because there is anything inherently reverential in the institution worshipped. Once the State has begun to function, and a large class finds Its Interest and its expression of power In maintaining the State, this ruling class may compel obedience from any uninterested minority. The State thus becomes an instrument by which the power of the whole herd Is wielded for the benefit of a class. The rulers soon learn to capitalize the reverence which the State produces In the majority, and turn it into a general resistance towards a lessening of their privileges. The sanctity of the State bccomcs identified with the sanctity of the ruling class and the latter are permitted to remain in power under the Impression that in obeying and serving them, we are obeying and serving society, the nation, the great collectivity of all of us. ' ^ ^

THE DmiOPMSNT CF THE AMERICAN STATE /

An analysis of the State would take us back .to the beginnings of society, to the complex of religious and personal orsl herd-Impulses which has found expression In so many forms. What we are interested in Is the American State as it behaves and as Americans behave towards It In this twentieth century, and to understand that we have to go no further back than the early English monarchy of which our American republic is the dircct descendant. How straight and true Is that Mnt of descent almost nobody realizes. Those persons who believe In the sharpest distinction between democracy and monarchy can scarcely appreciate how* a political Institution may go through so many transformations and yet remain the same. Ytt a swift glance must show us that In all the evolution of tht English monarchy, with all Its bfoadenings and Its revolutions, and even with its jump across the sea Into a colony which became an Independent nation and then a powerful State, the same State functions and attitudes have been preserved essentially unchanged, tht changes htve been changes M form and iwt of inner spirit and tht boasted extension of democracy has bttft not t ptctat by which *»* was tastntltUy t*e*d tt meet Hit sWftW # classes, the t*ttnt*w «f Jmewttftf, At of organ*-of the State easily absorbed the new and adjusted itself successfully to its exigencies. Never once has it been seriously shaken. Only once or twice lias it been seriously challenged, and each time it has speedily recovered its equilibrium and • proceeded with all its attitudes and faiths reenforced by the j disturbance '

The modern democratic State, in this light. Is therefore no bright ar.d rational creation of a new day, the political form ? under which great peoples arc to live healthfully and freely in a modern world, but the last decrepit scion of an ancient and hoary stock, which has become so exhausted that »t scarcely recognizes its own ancestor, does, in fact repudiate him while It clings tenaciously to the archaic and irrelevant spirit that made that ancestor powerful, and resists the new bottles for tlie new wine that its health as a modern society so desperately needs. So sweeping a conclusion might have been doubted concerning the American State had it not been lor the war, which has provided a long and beautiful series of examples of the tenacity of tlw State ideal and its hold cn the *»$itf*ant classes of the American nation. War is the health of the State and it is during war that one best understand* the nature of ti>at institution. If the American democracy during wartime has acted with an almost incredible truenes* to form, if It hes resurrected with an almost feyful fury the somnolent State, we can only concludc that the tradition from the past has been unbroken* and that the American republic is the direct descendant of the early English State.

. And what was the nature of this early English Stan? It was first of all a medieval absolute monarchy, arising out of the feudal chaos, which had represented the first effort at order after the turbulent assimilation of the invading barbarians by the Clirlstianltlng Roman ctviiltation. Tlie feudal lord evolved out of the Invading warrior who had eel red or been granted land and held it. souls and usufruct thereof, as fief to some higher lord whom he aided in war. His own serfs and vassele wens exchanging faithful service fee the protection which the warrior with Ms organized band could give them.. Where one invading chieftain retained hi* power over his leaser lieutenants, a petty kingdom would arise, as in England, and • restless and indrfrtfttfi klne mieitt extend his power ovar his nefefiboes and

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consolidate the petty kingdoms only to fall before the armed power of an Invader like William the Conqueror, who would bring the whole realm under his heel. The modern State begins when a prince secures almost undisputed sway over fairly homogeneous territory and people and* strives to fortify his power and maintain the order that will conduce to the safety and Influence of his heirs. The State in its Inception Is pure and undiluted monarchyi it is armed power,, culminating In a single bead, bent on one jrrimary object, the reducing to subjection, ^unconditional and unqualified loyalty of all the people .of a certain territory. This Is the primary striving of J he State* and It la a striving that the State never loses, through aU Its myriad transformations.

When this subfugation was once acquired, the modem State had begun. In the King, the subjects found their protection i and their sense of unity, from his side, lie was a redout able, ambitious, and stiff-necked warrior, getting the supreme mastery which hC craved. But from theirs, he was a symbol of the herd, the vis.He emblem of that security which they needed and for whicft they drew gregariously together. Serfs and villains, whose safety uodjr their petty lords had been rudely shattered in the constant conflicts fbr supremacy, now drew a new breath under ,the supremacy, that wiped out all this local anarchy. King and people agreed In the thirst for order, and order became the first healing function of the State. Rut in the maintenance of order* the King needed officers of justicci the old crude group-rules fer dispensing (ustke had to be codified, a system of formal law worked out The King needed ministers, who would carry out his will, extensions of his own power, as a machine extends the power of a man's hand. So the State grew as a gradual differentiation of the King's absolute power, founded on the devotion of his subjects and his control of a military band, •wlft and sure to smite. Gratitude for protection and fear of the strong arm sufficed to produce tfie loyalty of the country to the State

► - The_#hlstory of tha State, then. Is the effort to maintain these personal prerogatives of power, tha effort to convert more god more Into stable law the rules of order* the conditions of public vengeance *h# distinction between classes*- the possession of privilege k was an effort to convert what was utim

arbitrary usurpation, a perfectly apparent use of unjustified force, into the taken for granted and the divinely established. The State moves inevitably along the line from military dictatorship to the divine right of Kings. What had to be at first rawly imposed becomes through social habit to seem the necessary, the Inevitable. The mcdern unqtesiknlng acceptance of the State comes out of long and turbulent centuries when the State was challanged and had to fight Its way to prevail. The King's establishment of personal power-whlch was the early State-had to contend with the Impudence of hostile barons, who saw too clearly the adventitious origin of the monarchy am| feit no reason why they should not themselves reign, feuds between the King and his relatives, quarrels over inheritance, quarrels over the devolution of property, threatened constantly the existence of the new monarchical State. The King's will to power necessitated for its absolute satisfaction universality of political control in his dominions, |ust as the Roman Church claimed universality of spiritual controt over the whole world. And just as rival popes were the Inevitable product of such a pretention of sovereignty, rival kings and princes contended lor that dazzling jewel of undisputed power.

Not until the Tudor regime was there in England an irresponsible absolute penonal monarchy on the lines of the early State ideal, governing a fairly well-organized and prosperous nation. The Stuarts were not only too weak-minded to Inherit this fruition of William the Conqueror's labors, but they made the fatal mistake of bringing out to public view and philosophy the Idea of Divine Right Implicit in the State, and this at a time when a new class' of country gentry and burghers were attaining wealth and self-consciousness backed by the seal of a theocratic and Individualistic religion. Cromwell might certainly, if he had continued in power, revised the Ideal of the State, perhaps utterly transformed it destroying the concepts of personal power, and universal sovereignty, and substituting i sort of Government of Presbyterian Soviets under the tutelage el a celestial Czar. But the Restoration brought back the old ft*te under • peculiarly frivolous form. The Revolution was ; the merest change of monarchs at the behest of a Protestant Majority which insisted on guarantees against religious relapse. - The intrinsic nature of the monarchy as the symbol of the State

was net in the least altered. In piece o? the inept monarch who could not lead the State In person or conccntrate In himself the royal prerogatives, a coterie of courtiers managed the State. But their direction wes consistently in the interest of the monarch and of the traditional ideal, so that the current of the English State was not broken.

The boasted English Parliament of Lords and commoners possessed at no time any vitality which weakened or threatened to weaken the State Ideal. Its original purpose was merely to facilitate the raising of the King's revenues. The nobles responded better when they seemed to be giving their consent. Their share in actual government was subjective, but the existence of Par* Jijmcnt served to appease any restiveness at the autocracy of the King. The significant classes could scarcely rebel when they had the privilege of giving centert to the king's measures. There was always outlet for the rebellious spirit 4f a powerful lord in private revolt against the King. The only Parliament that seriously tried to govern outside of and against the King's will precipitated a civil war that ended with the effectual tub* mission of Parliament in a more careless and corrupt autocracy than had yet been known. By the time of George III Parliament was moribund, utterly- unrepresentative cither of the new bourgeois classes or of peasants and laborers, a mere frivolous p*ro4y of a legislature, despised both by King and people. The King was most effectively the State and his ministers the Government, which was run In terms of Ms personal whim, by men whose only Interest was personal Intrigue. Government had been for long what it has never ceased to be~a series of berths and emoluments In Army, Navy and the different departments of State, for the representatives of the privileged classes.

The State of George III was an example of the most archaic ideal of the fcglish State, the pure, personal monarchy. The great mass of the people had fallen Into the age-long tradition of loyalty to the crown. The classes that might have been restive for political power were placated by a show of representative government and the lucrative supply of offices. Discontent showed Itself only In those few enlightened elements which could not refrain from irony at the sheer Irrationality of a State < managed on the old heroic lines for so grotesque a sovereign and by so grotesque a succession of courtier.ministers, fuch

Such discontent could by. no means muster sufficient force for a revolution, but the Revolution which was due came In America where even the very obviously shadowy pigment of Parliamentary representation was denied the colonists. All that was vital In the political thought of England supported the American colonist* in their resistance to the obnoxious government of George til.'

The American Revolution began with certain latent hopes that it might turn into ^ genuine break with the State Ideal The Declaration of independence announced doctrines that Wert utterly incompatible not only with the century-old conception of the Divine Right of Kings, but sJso with the Divine Right of the Stale. If all governments derive their authority from the consent of the governed, and if a people Is entitled, at any time that it become* opprestlve. to overthrow it and institute one more nearly conformable to their interests and ideals, the old Idea of the sovereignty of the State Is destroyed* The State Is reduced to the homely work of an instrument for carrying out popular policies. If revolution is justifiable a State may even be criminal sometimes in resisting its own ex* • tinction. The sovereignty of the people is no mere _sphrase. It is a direct challenge to the historic tradition of the State. For it Implies that the ultimate sanctity resides not In the -State at all or in Its agent, the government, but In the nation, that Is, In the country viewed as a cultural group and not specifically as a king-dominated herd. The State then becomes a mere Instrument, the servant of this popular will, or of tht constructive needs of the cultural groupr The fetvolutioh^: had In It. therefore, the makings of a very daring modmrn experlment-the founding of a free nation which should us0 tht State to effect its vast purposes of subduing a continent )ust as tht colonists' armies had used arms to detach their society from the Irresponsible rule of an overseas Wng and hit frivolous ministers. The history of the State might havt ended In 1776 as far as tht Amtrlcan colonies were concerned, and tht modern nation which it still striving to materially Itstlf havt been born. < •

for awhilt it Htmtd almost as if tht Slatt was dead. But men who art freed rartfy know what to do with their llbtrty. In oath colony that fatal seed of the Stato had biw WWfll If could not disappear. Rival prestiges and Interests began to

make themselves felt. Fear of foreign States, economic distress, discord between cia«*e*. the inevitable physical exhaustion and pro*tratlon of ideali*m *hich follow* a protracted war-all combined to put the responsible classc* of the new State* into the mood fcr a regression to the State ideal. Ostensibly there I Is no reason why the mere lack of a centralized State should have destroyed the possibility of progress in the new liberated America, provided the inter-state Jealousy and rivalry could have been destroyed. But there were no leaders for this anti-State nationalism, the sentiments of the Declaration remained mere Sentiment*. No constructive political scheme was built on them* The State ideal, on the other hand, had ambitious leaders of the financial classc*. who sjw in the excessive decentralization of the Confederation too much opportunity for the control of society by the democratic lower-class elements. They were menaced by imperialistic powers without and by democracy within. lh»oufch their fear .of the former they tended to exaggerate the* impossibility of the latter. There was no inclination to make the State a school where democratic experiments could be worked out as they should be. They were unwilling to give reconstruction the term that might have been neccssary .to build up this truly democratic nationalism. Six short years Is a short time to reconstruct an agricultural country devastated by a s»x years' war. The popular elements In the new State* had only to show their turbulencci they *crc giwn no time to grow. The ambitious leaders ot the financial classes got a convention called to discuss the controversies and maladjust* ments of the States, which were making them clamor for a revision of. the Articles of Confederation, and then, by one Of the most successful coups d'etat in history, turned their assembly into the manufacture of a new government on the strongtat lines of the old State ideal.

This new constitution, manufactured in secrct session by . the leaders of the propertied and ruling classes, was then submitted, to an approval of the electors which only ty the most expert manipulation was obtained, but which was sufficient to override the Indignant undercurrent of protest from thoat popular elements who saw the fruits of the Revolution flipping •way from them. Universal suffrage would have kHicd tt forever. Had the liberated colonies had the advantage of the Frtnch

experience be/ore them, the promulgation of the Constitution would undoubtedly have been followed by a new revolution, at very nearly happened later against Washington and the Federalists. But the Ironical ineptitude of Fate put the machinery of the new Federalist constitutional government in operation just at the moment that the French Revolution began, and by the time those great waves of Jacobin feeling reached North America, the new Federalist State was firmly enough on Its course to weather the gale and the turmoil.

The new State was therefore not the happy political symbol of a united people, who in order to form a more perfect union, etc, but the imposition of a State on a loose and growing nationalism, which was in a condition of unstable equilibrium and needed perhaps only to be fertilized from abroad to develop a genuine political experiment In democracy. The preamble to the Constitution, as was soon shown In the hostile popular vote and later in the revolt against the Federalists, was a pious hope rather than actuality, a blessedness to be realized when by the force of government pressure, the creation of idealism, and mere social habit, the population should be welded and knezded into a State. That this Is what has actually happened. Is seen in the fact that the somewhat shockingly undemocratic origins of the American State have been almost completely glossed over and the unveiling is bitterly resented, by none so bitterly as the significant classes who have been most industrious in cultivating patriotic myth and legend. American history, as far as It has entered into the general popular emotion, runs along this lino* TKe Colonics are freed by the Revolution from a tyrannous King and become free and indedendent Statesi there follow six years of Impotent peace, during which the Colonies quarrel among themselves and reveal the hopeless weakness of the principle under which they are working together* In desperation the people then create a new instrument and launch a free and democratic republic, which was and remalns-especlally since it wlthsttcd the shock of civil war-the most perfect form of democratic government known to man, perfectly adequate to be promui* gated as an example In the twentieth century to all people, and to bt spread by propaganda, and. If necessary, the sword, Hi- all unregeneratety Imperial regions. Modern historians reveal the avowedly undemocratic personnel and opinions of the

Convention. They show that the members not only had an unconscious economic Interest but a frank political Interest In founding a State which should protect the propertied classes against the hostility of the people. They show how. from one point of view, the new government became almost a mechanism for overcoming the repudiation of debts, for putting back into their place a farmer and small trader class whom the unsettled times of reconstruction had threatened to liberate, for reestablish* Ing on the securest basis of the sanctity of property and the State, their class-supremacy menaced by a democracy that had drunk too deeply at the fount of Revolution. But all this makes little impression on the other legend of the popular mind, because it disturbs the sense of the sanctity of the State and It is this rock to which the herd-wish must cling.

Every little school boy is trained to recite the weaknesses and inefficiencies of the Articles of Confederation. It is taken as axiomatic that under them the new nation was falling into anarchy and was only saved by the wisdom ancf energy of the Convention. These hapless Articles have had to bear the infamy cast upon the untried by the radiantly successful. The tutlon had to be strong to repel invasion, strong to pay to the last loved copper penny the debts of the propettied and the provident ones, strong to keep the unpropcrtied and improvident Irem ever using the government to ensure their own prosperity at the expense of moneyed capital.. Under the Articles the new States were obviously trying to reconstruct themselves In an alarming teagerness for the ccmmon man impoverished by tlie war. No one suggests that the anxiety of the leaders of the heretofore unquestioned ruling classes desired the revision ol the Articles and labored so weightily over a new Instrument not because ■ the nation was failing under the Articles but because it was succeeding only too welt Without intervention from the leaders, reconstruction threatened In time 10 turn the new nation Into an agrarian and proletarian democracy, h Is Impossible to predict what would have been worked out In time, whether the democratic Idealism Implicit In the Declaration of Independence would have materlallied Into a form of society very much modified from the ancient State. All we know le that *14 titnt when the current of political progress was in the diftctftft of.-? agrarian and proletarian democracy, a tori* hostile toit gripped

the nation and imposed upon it a powerful form against which it was never to succeed in doing more than blindly struggle. The liberating virus of the Revolution was definitely expunged, and henceforth if it worked at all it had to work against the State, in opposition to the armed and respectable power of the nation.

The propertied classes, seated firmly in the saddle by their Constitutional coup d'etat, have, of course, never lost their ascend-ancy. The particular group of Federalists who had engineered the new machinery and enjoyed the privilege of setting it in motion, were turned out In a dozen years by the 'Jcffcrconian democracy whom their manner had so deeply offended. But the Jcffersonian democracy never meant In practice any more than the substitution of the rule of the country gentlemen for the rule of town capitalist. The true hostility between their interests was small as compared with the hostility of both towards the common man. When both were swept away by the Irruption of the Western democracy under Andrew Jackson and the rule of the common man appeared for a while In its least desirable forms, it was comparatively easy for the two propertied classes to form a tacit coalition against them. The new West achieved an extension of suffrage and a jovial sense of having come politically Into its own, but rhe rule of the ancient classes was not serioualy challenged. Their squabbles over a tariff were family affairs, for the tariff could not materially affect the common man of either East or West. The Eastern and Northern capitalists soon saw the advantage of supporting Southern country gentleman slave-power as against the free-soil pioneer. Bad generalship on the part of this coalition allowed a Western free-soli minority President to slip Into office and brought on _: the Civil Wat, which smashed the slave power and left Northern capital In undisputed possession of a field against which the pioneer could make only sporadic and ineffective revolts.

from the Civil War to the death of Mark Hanna, the propertied capitalist Industrial classes rah a triumphal career jn possession of the State. At various times, as in IS06, the country had to be saved for them from disillusioned, rebellious hordes of small farmers and traders and democratic idealists, who had In the overflow of prosperity been squeezed down Into the small end of the horn. But except for these occasional menaces, business, that is to cay, aggressive expansionist capitalism, had nearly forty years In which to direct the American republic as a private preserve, or laboratory, experimenting, developing. wasting, subjugating, to Its heart's content. In the midst of a vast somnolence of complaccncy such as has never been seen and contrasts strangely with the spiritual dissent and • constructive revolutionary thought which went on at the same time in England and the Continent.

That era ended In 1004 like the crack of doom, which woke a whole people into a modern day which they had overslept. and for which they had no guiding principles or philosophy to conduct them about. They suddenly bccamc acutely and painfully aware of the evils of the society in which they had slumbered and they snatehed at one after the other idea, programme. movement. Ideal, to uplift them out of the slough in which th«y had slept. The ^tory of those shining figurcs-captains of industry-went out in a sulphuric glccm. The head of the State, who made up in dogmatism what he lacked in philosophy, increased the confusion by reviving the Ten Commandments for political purposes, and belaboring the wicked with Ihem. The American world^xto*sed in a state of doubt, of reawakened social conscience. of pragmatic effort for the salvation of soeicty. Hie ruling classes-annoyed, bewildered, harrassed-pretended with much bemoaning that they were losing their grip on the State. Their Inspired prophets uttered solemn warning* against political novelty and the abandonment of the tried and tested fruits of experience.

These classes actually had tittle to fear. A political system which had been founded in the interests of property by their own spiritual and economic ancestors, which had become In* grained In the country's life through a function of 06 years, which was buttressed by a legal system which went b#ck without a break to the early English monarchy .wis not likely to crumble before the «M»gcr of a few mudk-rakcrs. the disillusionment of a few radical sociologists, or the assaults of proletariiin minorities. Those who bided their time through the Taft inter, rtgmim, •which merely continued the Presidency iintir there could be found a statesman to fill Jt, we* rewarded 'ty foe appearance of the exigency of the, war. m which burth** or. ganitatkm was imperatively needed They w«r* thtt afric

makea neat and almost noiseless coalition with the Government The mast of the worried mlddle-classcs, riddled by the campaign against American fallings, which at times extended almost to a skepticism of the American State itself, were only too glad to sink back td a glorification of the State Ideal, to feel about them In war, the old protecting arms, to return to the old primitive robust sense of the omnipotence of the State, its matchless virtue, honor and beauty, driving away all the foul old doubts and dismays.

That the same class which imposed its constitution on tho nascent proletarian and agrarian democracy has maintained itself to this day Indicates how slight was the real effect of the Revolution. When that political change was consolidated In. the new government, it was found that, there had been a mere transfer of ruling«cless power across the seas, or rather that a ruling commercial class in the colonies had been able to remove through a war fought largely by the masses a vexatious over-: lordship of the Irresponsible coterie of ministers that surround* ed George III. The colonies merely exchanged a system run in the interest of the overseas trade of English wealth for a system run In the interest of New England and Philadelphia merchant* hood, and later of Southern slavocracy. The daring innovation of getting rid of a king and setting up a kingless State did not apparently impreos the hard headed farmers and smali traders with as much force as it has their patriotic defenders. The animus of the Convention was so obviously monarchical that any executive they devised could be only a very thinly disguised king. The compromise by which the presidency was created proved but to be the means by *hlch very nearly the whole mass of traditional royal prerogatives was brought over and lodged In tho new State.

The President Is an elected king, but the fact that he (a elected *h*s proved to be of far less significance In the course of political evolution than the fact that he is pragmatically a king. It was tht Intention of the founders of tht Constitution that ht bt elected by o small body of notables, representing tht ruling propertied classes, who could check him up tvtry four years In-o now tlectlon. This was no innovation. Kings havt often beta selected in tills .way In European history, and tho, Roman Emperor was regularly chostn by taction. Thai

the American President'* term was limited mereiy shows the confidence which the founder* felt in the buttre**lng force of their in*trument. Hi* election would never pa** out of the hand* of the notable*, and so the.^fficc would be guaranteed to be held by a faithful representative of upper-class demands* What he was most obviously to represent was the interest* of that body which elected him, and not tl>e mass of the people who were sitll disfranchised. . for the new State started with no Ouixotic belief in universal suffrage. The property qualifi-cations which were in effect In every colony were continued. Government was frankly a function of those who held a concrete ./interest in the public weal, in the shape of visible property. The responsibility for the security of property right* could safely lie only with those who had something to secure. The "stake" In the commonwealth which tho*e who held office mu*t pose** was obviously larger.

THE PARTY SYST£M

One of the larger errors of political insight which the sage founders of the Constitution commited was to assume that the enfranchised watchdogs of property and the public order would remain a homogeneous dats. Washington, acting strictly a* the mouthpiece of the unified State ideal, deprecated the growth of partle* and faction* which horridly keep the State in turbulence or threaten to render it asunder. 8ut the monarchical and repressive policies of Washington's own friends promptly generated an opposition democratic party representing the landed interests of the ruling classes, and the party system was fastened on the country* By the time the electorate had succeeded in reducing the electoral college to a mere recorder of the popular vote, or in other words, had broadened the das* of. notables td the whole property-holding electorate, the parties were firmly established to carry on the selective and refining and securing work of the electoral college. The party leader-skip then became, and has remained aver since, tha nucleus of notables who detennine the presidency. The electorate having won an appararcntiy democratic victory in tha destruction of the notable*, finds itself reduced to the role of mere ratification or selection between two or three candidates, in whote chofc* they have only a nominal share. Tha electoral college which

stood between even the propertied electorate and the executive with the prerogatives of a king, gave place to a body which was just as genuinely a bar to democratic expression, and far less responsible for its acts. The nucleus of party councils which became, after the reduction of the Electoral College, the real choosers of the Presidents, were unofficial, quasi-anonymous, utterly unchecked by the populace whose rulers they chose. More or less self-chosen, or chosen by focal groups whom they dominated, they provided a far more secure guarantee that the State should remain in the hands of the ruling classes than the old electoral college. The party councils could be loosely organized entirely outside of the governmental organization, without oversight by the State or check from the electorate. They could be composed of the leaders ol the propertied classes themselves or their lieutenants, who could retain their power indefinitely, or at least until they were unseated by rivals within the same charmed domain. They were at least entirely safe from attack . by the officially constituted electorate, vsho, as the party system became more and more firmly established, found they could vote only on the slates set up for them by unknown councils behind an imposing and all-powerful "Party".

As soon as this system was organized into a hierarchy extending from national down to state and county politics. It became perfectly safe to broaden the electorate. The clamors of the unpropcrtled or the less propertied to share In the se- . lection of their democratic republican government could ba graciously acceded to without endangering in the least the supremacy of these clasaes which the founders had meant to be supreme. The minority were now even more effectually protected from the majority than under the old system, however indirect the election might be. The electorate was now reduced to a rati fie r of slates, both of which were pledged to upper-class domination, .the electorate could have the freest, most universal suffrage, for any mass-desire for political change, any determined will to shift the class-balance, would be obliged to register itself through the party machinery. It could make no frontal attack on tht Government And tht party machinery .was directly devised to absorb and neutrbilit ,thls popular shock, handing out to tht disgruntled electorate* disguised stoht when It taked for political breed, and effectually smashing any third

party which ever avariciously tried to reach government except through the regular two-party system.

The party system succeeded, of course, beyond the wildest dreams of its creators. It relegated the founders of the Con-stitutlon to the role of doctrinaire theorists, political amateurs. Just because it grew up slowly to meet the needs of ambitious politicians and was not imposed by ruling-class fiat, as was the Constitution, did it have a chance to become assimilated, work* ed into the political intelligence and Instinct of the people, and be adopted gladly and universally as a genuine political form, expressive both of popular need and ruling-class demand. It satisfied the popular demand for democracy. The enormous sense of victory which followed the sweeping away of property qualifications of suffrage, the tangible evidence that now every citizen was participating in public affairs, and that the entire manhood democracy was now self-governing, created a mood of political complacency that lasted uninterruptedly into the twcntlr eth century. The party system was thus the means of removing . political grievance from the greater part of the populace, and of giving to the ruling classes the hidden but genuine permanence of control which the Constitution had tried openly to give'them. It supplemented and repaired the ineptitudes of the Constitution. It became the unofficial but real government, the instrument which used the Constitution as its instrument.

Only in two cases did the party system seem to lose its grip, was It thrown off its base by the inception of a new. party from without-ln the elections of Jackson and of Lincoln* Jackson came In as the representative of a new democratic West which had no tradition of suffrage qualifications, and Lincoln as a minority candidate In a time of factional and sectional strife. Bet the discomforture of the party politicians was short, {he party system proved perfectly capable of as* slmilathig both ol these new movements. Jackson's insurrection was soon captured by the old machinery and fed the slevecracy, end Lincoln's party became the property of the new bonanza capitalism. Neither Jackson or Lincoln made the slightest deflection In the triumphal march of the party^system. In practically no other contests has the electorate had for all practical purposes • choice except between two candidates, identical as far as their political role. would be as representatives of the significant

classes in the State. Campaigns such as Bryan's, where one of the parties is captured by an clement which seeks a real transference of power from the significant to the less significant classes, split the party, and sporadic third party attacks merely throw the scale one way or the other between the big parties, or. if threatening enough, produce a virtual coalition against them.

To most of the Americans of the classes which consider themselves significant the war brought a sense of the sanctity of the State, which, if they had had time to think about it, would have seemed a sudden and surprising alteration in their habits of thought. In times of peace, we usually ignore the State In favor of partisan political controversies, or personal struggles for office, or the pursuit of party policies. It Is the Government rather than the State with which the politically minded are concerned. The State Is reduced to a shadowy emblem which comes to consciousness only on occasions of patriotic holiday.

Government is obviously composed of common and un-sanctified men. and is thus a legitimate object of criticism and even contempt. If your own party is in power, things may be assumed to be moving safely enoughi but If the opposition is in. then clearly all safely and honor have fled the State. Yet you do not put it to yourself In quite that way. What you think is only that, there are rascals to be turned out of a very practical machinery of offices and functions which you take for granted. When we say that Americans arc lawless, we usually mean that they are less conscious than other peoples of the august majesty of the institution of the State as it stands behind the objective government of men and laws which we see. In a republic the men who hold office are distinguishable from the mass. -Very few of them possess the slightest personal dignity with which they could endow their political rolei even if they ever thought of such a thing. And they have no class distinction to give them glamour. In a republic the Government Is obeyed grumblingly. because it has no bedaxzlements or sanctities to gild it. If you are a good old-fashioned democrat, you rejoice at this fact, you glory In the plainness of a system where every citizen has become a king. If you are more sophisticated you bemoan the passing of dignity and honor from affairs of State. But In practice, the democrat does not In the

least treat his elected citizen with the rcspcct due to a king, nor docs the sophisticated citizen pay tribute to the dignity even when he finds it. The republican state has almost no trappings to appeal to the common man's emotions. What It has are of military origin, and in an unmllltary era such as we have passed through since the Civil War, even military trappings have been scarcely seen, in such an era the sense of the State almost fades out of the consciousness of men.

With the shock of war, however, the State comes into its own again. The Government, with no mandate from the pcopfe. without consultation of the people, conducts all the negotiations, the backing and filling, the menaces and explanations, which slowly bring It into collision with some other Government, and gently and Irresistably slides the country Into war. For the benefit of proud and haughty citizens, It is fortified with a list of the intolerable insults which have been hurled towards us by the other nations» for the benefit of the liberal and the beneficent. It has a convincing set of moral purposes which cur going to war will achieve) for the ambitious and aggressive classes, it can gently *)itsper of a bigger role in the destiny of the world. The result is that, even in those countries where the business of declaring war is theoretically in the hands of representatives of the people, no legislature has ever been known to decline the request of an Executive, which has conducted all foreign affairs in utter privacy and irresponsibility, that it order the nation Into battle. Good democrats are wont to feel the crucial difference between a State in which the popular Parliament or Congress declares war, and the State in which an absolute monarch or ruling class declares war. But, put to the iitn pragmatic test, the difference is not striking. In the freest of republics as well as in the most tyrannical of Empires, all foreign policy, the diplomatic negotiations which produce or forestall war, are equally the private property of the Executive part of the Government, and are equally exposed to no check whatever from popular* bodies, or the people voting as a mass themselves.

The moment war Is declared, however, the mass of the people, through some spiritual alchemy, become convinced that they have willed and executed the deed themselves. They then with the exception of a few malcontents,' proceed to allow themselves to be regimented, coerced, deranged in all the en-vironmenu of their lives, and turned into a solid manufactory of destruction toward whatever other people may have, In the appointed scheme of things, come within the range of the Govern* ment's disapprobation. The citizen throws off his contempt and Indifference to Government, identifies himself with Irs purposes, revives all his military memories and symbols, and the State once more walks, an august presence, through the imaginations of men. patriotism becomes the dominant feeling, and produces Immediately thit intense and hopeless confusion between the relations which the individual bears and should bear towards the society of which he is a part.

The patriot loses atl sense of the distinction between State, nation and government. In our quieter moments, the Nation or Country forms the basic idea of society. We think vaguely of a loose population spreading over a certain geographical portion of the earth's surlace. speaking a common language, and living In a homogeneous civilisation. Our idea of Country concerns itself with the non*poiitica! aspects of a people. Its ways of living. , its personal traits, its literature and art. its characteristic attitudes toward life. \X'e are Americans becau** we live in a certain bounded territory, because our ance«tors have carried on a great enterprise of pioneering and colonization, because we live in certain kinds of communities which have a certain look,and express their aspirations In certain ways. We can see that our civilization is different from contiguous civilizations like the Indian and Mexican. The institutions of our country form a certain network which affects us vitally and intrigues our thoughts in a way that these other civilizations do not. We have arrived in it through the operation of physiological laws, and not In any way through our own choice. By tho time wo have reached what are called years of discretion. Its influence* have moulded our habits, our values, our waye of thinking, so that however aware we may become, wo never really lost tho stamp of our civilization, or could bo mistaken for the child of any other country. Our feeling tor our follow-countrymen Is ona of similarity or of mere acquaintance. Wo may bo Intensely proud of and congenial to our particular network of civilization, or wo may detest most of its qualities and rage at Its defects. This does not alter tho fact that wo are inextricably bound up In It Tho Country, a* an ftnoacapaMo group into which we are born, and which makes us its particular kind of a citizen of the world, seems to be a fundamental fact of our consciousness, an Irreducible minimum of social feeling.

Now this feeling for country is essentially non-competitivci we think of our own people merely as living on the earth's surface along with other groups, pleasant or objectionable as they may be. but fundamentally as sharing the earth with them. In our simple conception of country there Is no more fccfing of rivalry with other peoples than there Is in our feeling for our family. Our Interest turns within rather than without, is intensive and not belligerent. We grow up and our imaginations gradually stake out th* world we live in, they need no greater conscious satisfaction for their gregarious impulses than this sense of a great mass of people to whom w are more or less attuned, and in whose institutions we are functioning. The feeling for country would be an unlnlfataWe maximum were It not for the idea of State and Government which are associated with it. Country ts a concept of peace, of tolerance, of living and letting live. But State is essentially a concept of power, of com' petition it signifies a group in its aggressive aspects. And we have the misfortune of being born not only into a 'country but into a State, and as we grow up we learn to mingle the two feelings into a hopeless confusion.

The State Is the country acting as a political unit, it is the group acting as a reposltary of force, determiner of law. arbiter of justice. International politics is a "power politics" because It is a relation of States and that is what States infallibly and calamatously are, huge aggregations of human and Industrial force that may be hurled against each other In war. When a country acts as a whole in relation to another country, or In imposing law on its own inhabitants, or in coercing or punishing individuals or minorities, it is acting as a State. The history of Amerca as a country is quite different from that of America as a State. In one case It is the drama of the pioneering conquest of the land, of the growth of wealth and the ways in which it was used, of the enterprise of education, and the carrying out of spiritual ideals, of the struggle of economic classes. But as a State, its history is that of playing a pm In the world, making war, obstructing international trade, preventing Itself from being split into pieces, punishing those citizens whom society agrees are offensive, and collecting money to pay for all....

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