1.

" THE EVILS OF EXCESS PATRIOTISM. "

Patriotism is one of those good things of which it is an easy matter to have too much. This may sound flippant or paradoxical, but it is meant in no such sense. A man should have love and regard for his native land, but not in such a degree as to interfere with more important and more beneficial virtues.

Patriotism is a rather mercurial virtue; and when heated is prone to rise and slop over; that which slops over may be called Excess Patriotism. What are the chief uses of this Excess Patriotism? It is used constantly by politicians to stir up a campaign that will land them in office; and often by soldiers and statesmen to stir up a war that will place them in history. It is the strong suit of the man who is always assuring "the dear people" that he is their best and only friend.

Why should one boast of fierce pride in his own country, a pride excluding all other countries, especially when his own is in no appreciable degree any better than the others? This Red Hot Patriotism is the air in which was germinated and nourished the war code between nations, just as, once, the foolish, unreasonable pride of individuals kept alive the code duelo.

"But," it is claimed, "we must have patriotic citizens

2.

EXCESS PATRIOTISM.

to defend the country." When the Fatherland is threatened, and homes and wives and children are in danger it does not require patriotism to make men take up arms. Any race of men not born for slaves will then fly to arms, and fight to the last ditch. But when there is a war of policy, a war of conquest, a war to further some unrighteous cause, then it is that patriotism needs to be called into play; and the flame is fanned first gently, then violently, until the dear, deluded people spring to arms and march to the field of battle to fight, to bleed and to die; for what? They themselves don't know. If one reads history with this question in view he will see that this brand of patriotism has been the cause or the means of a very great part of all the misery and suffering of the human race.

Besides the red hot brand, there is another variety of Excess Patriotism. You have undoubtedly met the man who, when anything contained in the heavens above, the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth, manners, customs, laws, institutions, virtues, vices, sports, anything of which the human mind has knowledge, was mentioned, would maintain that it was better in his country than in any other; and who, if the particular things mentioned did not happen to exist at

3.

EXCESS PATRIOTISM.

all in his country, would set out to prove that they had
something equally as good or that his country was better
off without it. This is Offensive Patriotism. It is
patriotism which is not love of one's country, but brag-
gadocio about one's country. A man should love his
country as he does his home. He does not by that love
make his home a menace to the homes of others. And it
would be deemed worse than poor taste for him to go about
boasting that he had a more refined family, a better
house, more expensive furniture, more costly pictures,
finer carpets, and ate better food than any of his neigh-
bors; and the more truth there might be in such state-
ments, the more grievous would be his fault. Why are
not similar faults as serious in nations?

It is this blind, stubborn spirit which has a
tendency to keep a nation to the rear in the march of
progress. The spirit of Cosmopolitanism, the spirit
which is ready to see and acknowledge excellencies in
others, and as quick to imitate them, is what will keep
a nation to the fore.

But, a more serious and far-reaching consid-
eration; hot, high-tempered, foolish, bad-mannered pa-
triotism keeps farther away the day for which all lovers
of humanity pray; the day when men shall not hate each