New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-06-10

StrOyeu Dy III. II DeSaiilo " INV AN'e''
of race and it did something which,
whether wickedly or worthily, phllos-
ophy can only do when it has become
religion it went to war.
This is why the entrance of America
is the Qualification, one may even say the
idealization of the war. II shows us
fresh issue between many European
races combined by a creed of equality
and one European race combined by a
creed of superiority. This issue, 1t
should be noted, must not be narrowed
even to the criticism of that race and the
denial of that superiority. Not only is
it more than the question of absurdlty
Of German royalties, it is more even
than the question of the absurdity of
German professors of ethnology. 1t is, in
deed the most tiresome nonsense for any
one with an historic sense to maintain
that the Teuton has had this supreme
position in history; much of his history,
like that of most barbarans, has con-
sisted first of borrowing and then boast
ing. The title of his king and the eagle
on his flag come from Rome; the titles
6 l.; +,;n Of
his army come from France; and the
Teuton is not unique in doing these
things, but only, perhaps, in overriding
them. We should not believe that a
rather unpleasing negro had invented
the top-hat because he always wore it in
a drawing room or refused to take it off
in a church. And the North German is
not supreme even in militarism, but only
in being military where civilized people
find more pleasure in being civil. SINH
larly the more brutal biological plea is
unconvincing; the Blond Beast of Metz
sche. even considered as beast, is SUI
perior in little except beastliness; even
his blondness is often what Oliver Wen
dell Holmes called negative blondness,
colorlessness and not the color of gold.
Racially or historically, it would be much
easier to maintain that the Latin has
been the lord of all things; nevertheless
that is not what we ought to concern our
selves with maintaining. The resistance
to the heresy of race ought to be indie 2
pendent of the weaknesses of any par
ticuar race; even if that race has the
weakest of allweaknesses-superiority.
1t is against superiority itself that we
should set the opposite ideal of solidar-
ity itself. Nothing is more false in fact
than the cynicism which describes this
human brotherhood as a tleeting illusion
of youth On the contrary it is the
ariStOcracles that are the ileetlng lllu-
sions; the facile promises and tempo
rary PROJECTIONS of things that have not
vet had time to fail the gilded youth
hat is scornful because it is youthful;
the "ascendancy party that is arrogant
because it is still ascending; the racial
colonization that is confident because it
is crude; the scientific experiment that
is still successful because it has not yet
experimental once too often. Given
true tradition-that is, given long and
living superintendent always come
back to the fraternity of mankind if it be
only their fraternity in failure. Given
time, the gilded youth will always have
a headache, the man of the maSter-race
will always trip over doormat, the i'm
perial colonist will be seasick, the dis
tinguished professor will be seen rum
ming after his hat. The last and perhaps
the largest of these illusions (for it
could be found in England and America