New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-10-22
Fears and Scrubles
Continued from Page Screen

though | doubt it. For instance, know it is
only in so far as am willing to subject my own
life to the needs of others that | am a moral
creature, and really want to be moral ceat-
ure, at least when | stop to think about it. |
know that the effects of my conduct will be
limited to the small number may touch, and
that thew must all be Americans. | believe
that collective action alone will make the Norl
tolerable place to live in, and that the largest
groups in which the custom OF collective action
has vet obtained are nations. This hap.
oens to be my nation, and ought to be willing
to act along with it, But there are other ma.
tons had rather have been born into, because
| should have found tn n general ways more
easy to fall in with; could have digested my
patriotism more easily; should not have had
TO approach so nearly to the impossible gastric
intensity of Theodore Roosevelt and the python
That is one reason why have envied each so
much. and should probably always follow the
first. little though he might relish my adherence
if he knew my waterish composition
remember very well, for instance, the war
If 1898. which seemed to me wantonly pro-
yoked by the mere instinct of pugnacity.
felt. perhaps wrongly, though l have never
been convinced about it, that Spain would
have given US all we asked If we had only
recognized the difficulties of her rulers little
more sympathetically. They had to reconcile
a people with past of glorious domination
70 another loss of territory. We chose the
most humiliating way, in part, believed, be-
cause she was powerless before US. And it
seemed to me monstrous to ask me with my
own special precious little life so full Of aims,
which then seemed possible to realize, to risk
il because some DULLES were brutal and some
politicians were cowardly. 1t was not very
promising ground for patriotism, you see. If
we are to act collectively there must be de-
cision TO which the dissenters viii accord
willing support What | lacked, ] suppose,
was more sense of deep-seated kinship with
the people who made the decision. They ought
not TO have seemed DULLES or towards; | ought
to have been more able to feel as they. II |
had in other things been feeling with them
more usually should not have got so far of
in that instance.
OF course Mr.. Oswald Garrison Willard and
Mr.. Bertrand Russell would have commended
nv course. but the one is for peace anyway
and the other seems to have no sense OF ma
tionality about him. You ought not to be for
YOUR country right or wrong, but if you are a
good patriot you will so fully share the asplra-
tions of YOUR countrymen that the issue will
never arise. Generally it does not, to the IN
calculable horror of philosophers. real
patriot is a friend of mine, French patriot,
born and reared in this country, who p'rss'
tentlv asserts that if the Germans were all they
saw thew are, and the French all the Germans
saw. he would be as ardent to have the Chas-
seurs d'Alpins march down Inter den Linden
as he is to-day.
We are not all like that, however, and what
interests me is how far most men can stre'e1
out their selves so really to include the
selves of a whole nation in ways that are III
portant to them. l suspect that PATRIOTISM Is
an armor kept in a closed closet, when they
never look into in the ordinary business OF
life The war-gong sounds, and they quickly
step in. and are out in jiffy, standing con-
cluded. committed. in the full panoply OF PRINT
tive instinct. Is it to be lily-livered not tc act
so? Do not too eagerly jump at the negative
Men live not by reason, but by motor reactions
which reason too often clogs. We may thanA
God act better than we understand, ana 'he
step toward the extension Of the self may DC
through the primitive pugnacity Of Neander'
thai man. The same kind Of problem occurs
also in regard to the sense of honor lou
NAV think it coin of King Buster OF inc
Empire of Bullidoddenhem and so 1t is, Ou'
it has value none the less. If you are like me
YOU have a warm spot for many of the paIrlo's
and men of honor, like Theodore Roosevelt anu
perhaps the python, too, though ne seems
bit sluggish. Anyway, am nothing OF pa',
fist and favor big navy, supported so''
deal out of an income tax, which shows am
not wholly without patriotism, don't you tnlnA.
As for honor, doubt if even / should lei you
tweak my nose-not twice, anyhow, though Z"
really would not hurt much.