New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-07-15
The American in Europe

When the American citizen soldier ar
rives in France he may not carry in his
knapsack an anodyne for Europe's doubts
and troubles. But he will bring her social
democracy-a very helpful balm she has
never known in quite such healing In
tensity.
The American is a product of environ
ment-spiritual as well as material. Eu-
rope has had glimpses of him and has
heard good deal. She has seen the New
England horse trader turned journalist
and the Middle West business man taking
toll of art She has judged the Ameri-
cans mental topography from the foggy
scholasticism of Professor Mtinsterberg,
his spiritual geography from the subtle
psychology of Henry James, his infant
wilfulness, extravaganza and chicane from
scores of writers. But she does not know
him. and now he is to sojourn in her
household.
Europe will learn and before long that
the American thinks he has certain equlva-
Tents for much that she holds great
equivalents for the spirit and appetite for
dominance bequeathed to the British by
Give and Wellington and Marlborough
equivalents for the French tradition OF
glory that remembers the road to Berlin
and the long, long way to Moscow and for
gets not how it made playthings Of kings.
And Europe will learn also that he has the
great differentiating capacity that makes
him AmericarHnd young.
These two European peoples are, as 1t
were, the senior partners in the present
adventure toward democracy. Our men
from prairie and farm, from shop and
new-built city, are of that great company
who came adventuring Westward when
half the world was young" in another
great European social episode. And ad-
venture has not died within them; 1t has
matured and grown a social conscence-lt
has fiourished in democracy which TO them
is not political only, but even more social
creed. By this social religion the Amert-
can may save his soul as well as his state.
And the European will do well not to ex-
pect that his brother returning will
stand abashed and reverent before the
feudal mansion that rose out of the ruins
Of the Wars Of the Roses, or before the
dismantled machinery Of ecclesiasticism
on the Continent.
His business is not with these. His
business is with homes, not with man.
sons; with the countryside, not with the
castle; with people, not with personages.
His culture is human and deals with the
human relations. He lives on his capital
of facts and spins little at the web of
sophistry. Europe perhaps will be aston
ished to learn that this American who is
to live with her people for the time and to
fight her battles against autocracy does
not hate autocracy, but instead regards 1t
with large, plying amusement-and that
he is likely in the long run to pity it
to death.
II is true that he has little personal
knowledge of autocracy, that he has heard
rather than known of its growth and
dimnution. 1t is true also that he has
wisely felt as if it were matter Of faith
rather than understood, the march of the
myriad feet of social evolution. Never
theless he has caught the step and marches
buoyantly-neither impeded nor acceler-
ated by fear or by favor of fate. So, at
least, we believe.
Europe will soon learn that the Ameri-
cans business has been democracy. He
has been diigent in his business. He will
stand before kings-and laughter that
is American.