New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1918-03-31
The Intellectualist

Intellectualism in time Of peace is an
attitude of fine and pleasing texture, an
art for the few, a luxury for the nom
acquisitive, a substitute for faith, re-
mote and snobbish futility.
Intellectualism in time of war is a liza
bility.
In all countries, even Germany, it is
morally and emotionally bankrupt 1t
tends also to be alien and Bolshevist. In
Germany it is often suspected of being
pro-AlIy In England, France and the
United States it is much suspected of
being pro-German. Everywhere it is
anti-capitalistic and an@mically revolu-
tionary
1t has nothing in common with it's be-
loved masses except an incurable dissat-
isfaction with everything in the world
that is. The sources of that emotion,
however, are not in both cases the same.
The children of unrestraint are openly
envious. They want more of life's tan
gible goods, including play time; and
they shall have more, as fast as they can
assimilate it. This no power on earth
can prevent.
But the intellectualist is contemptuous
Of life's goods, or pretends to be. He
demands them not for himself but for
these others, in order that the sum of
human happiness may be increased. Yet
he is not interested in happiness. He
would be almost as scornful of happiness
as Of wealth.
1t is probable that the dissatisfaction
of the intellectualist with the state of the
world has its root in sense of his own
emptiness, and that his solicitude for the
masses is owing more to his contempt for
the banalities of material success than to
any deep feeling of altruism.
You never know for sure, any more than
you know where the intellectualist really
stands on the irrational calamity of war,
or the commonplace virtue of patriotism.
We doubt if he is ever sure Of himself.
His mind with increasing intensity
vibrates between the two poles of
thought until at length it is by any work
ing test static.
We are moved to these reflections by
reading in "The New Republic an arti-
Gle entitled "iSeeing the War Through"
We read it first from the end to the
beginning, which is the way to read an
intellectual article, and then from be-
ginning to end, and we cannot be-
lieve "The New Republic" knows what
kind of. war it wants. A few weeks
ago it was for obtaining victory by
diplomacy. Since then there has been
the peace Of diplomacy at Brest-Litovsk,
and now on the West front there is only
taut thin line of bodies between "the
lntolerable German thing" and the pre-
cious, if imperfect, democracy we are
fighting for
We supposed from the caption that
"The New Republic" had come to the
idea of military victory as something
now inevitable. But we read that
The Americans who are insisting on
the mlitarizing of their country now by
the subordination of political to military
victory and by the adoption of the Euro
pean scale Of armament are the most
fragrant and dangerous cutters 1t is
they who. under the pretence Of fighting
70 the Di|tcI tHH are aDandOnlng the be-
| lief in the political objects and the hope
for beneficent political results which can
alone make prolonged fighting worth
while
Still it is for seeing the war through,
by force if need be, for in another place
1t says that to zee it through "means, Of
course, primarily Il volume and a rate Of
military preparation which, when it
comes to a head will make German
success hopeless"
Intellectuaism, impotent and static.