slavery. And that slavery will grow more and more abject and ignoble as the differential birth rate, the deliberate encouragement of mendicancy and the failure of popular education produce a larger and larger mass of prehensile half-wits, and so make the demagogues more and more secure.
The alternatives all look unpleasant enough, God knows. No rational man can fail to see that the totalitarianisms so far invented abroad, if translated here, would be even worse, in many important ways, than Rooseveltian democracy, swinish though it may be. Perhaps we’ll gradually work out something better than either. Or it may come by catastrophe. But, however it comes, come it must,for a series of Roosevelts stretching over fifty years, or even over twenty-five years, would plainly reduce the country to chaos, with the Chandala in the saddle and all decent people in the status of
ferae naturae
. Democracy may not be actually dying here, as it only too plainly is in Europe, but it is certainly very sick.
The Last Ditch
From the Baltimore
Evening Sun
, April 2, 1923
It seems to me that monarchy, even of the most absolute and intransigent kind, is appreciably superior to democracy here. A monarch elected and inaugurated by God, having no need to play the clown to the mob, can devote himself whole-heartedly to the business of his office, and no matter how stupid he may be he is at least in a better position to give effective service than a President who is likely to be quite as stupid as he is, and certain to be ten times as dishonest. It is not to the monarch’s self-interest to be dishonest; he is more comfortable, like any other man, when he does what he genuinely wants to do. Moreover, the subordinate officers of the state, working under him, share his advantages. They do not have to grimace and cavort before the mob in order to get and hold their offices; the only person they have to please is the monarch himself, who is, at all events, a relatively educated man, with some notion of family honor and tradition in him, and uncorrupted by the habit of abasement.
Liberalism
A hitherto unpublished note
A Liberal is one who is willing to believe anything twice.
III. WAR
The War Against War
From the Chicago
Tribune
, July 24, 1927
O F ALL the varieties of uplifters who now sob and moan through the land, the most idiotic, I begin to suspect, are the pacifists. Not even the sex hygienists, the movie censors, or the reconcilers of science and religion show a more romantic and fantoddish spirit. At least half the devices they propose for ending war appear to have been borrowed from the gaseous armamentarium of the New Thought, that pink and spongy nonsense. Worse, they seem to have an unpleasant capacity for corrupting the logic and scattering the wits of otherwise sensible men. Here, for example, is Ambassador Houghton, our eminent agent at London, arguing solemnly that the way to end war is to resort to the referendum—that is, to put it to a vote every time it threatens. What could be more nonsensical? Call the scheme a scheme to make war certain, and you have very accurately described it. For it must be plain that a referendum would take time, and it must be equally plain that during that time the warlocks would have everything their own way. Imagine their gaudy tales about the prospective enemy’s preparations. Imagine their pious, inflammatory talk about protecting the home from his hordes. And then try to imagine a referendum going for peace.
I am surely no admirer of politicians. Least of all do I admire the puerile, paltry shysters who constitute the majority of Congress. But I confess frankly that these shysters, whatever their defects, are at least appreciably superior to the mob. They are restrained in their excesses, if for no other reason, because they fear the sober second thought of the mob. But the mob itself is inno terror of its own second thought. Once it is on the loose, it slashes around like a wild animal. It
The alternatives all look unpleasant enough, God knows. No rational man can fail to see that the totalitarianisms so far invented abroad, if translated here, would be even worse, in many important ways, than Rooseveltian democracy, swinish though it may be. Perhaps we’ll gradually work out something better than either. Or it may come by catastrophe. But, however it comes, come it must,for a series of Roosevelts stretching over fifty years, or even over twenty-five years, would plainly reduce the country to chaos, with the Chandala in the saddle and all decent people in the status of
ferae naturae
. Democracy may not be actually dying here, as it only too plainly is in Europe, but it is certainly very sick.
The Last Ditch
From the Baltimore
Evening Sun
, April 2, 1923
It seems to me that monarchy, even of the most absolute and intransigent kind, is appreciably superior to democracy here. A monarch elected and inaugurated by God, having no need to play the clown to the mob, can devote himself whole-heartedly to the business of his office, and no matter how stupid he may be he is at least in a better position to give effective service than a President who is likely to be quite as stupid as he is, and certain to be ten times as dishonest. It is not to the monarch’s self-interest to be dishonest; he is more comfortable, like any other man, when he does what he genuinely wants to do. Moreover, the subordinate officers of the state, working under him, share his advantages. They do not have to grimace and cavort before the mob in order to get and hold their offices; the only person they have to please is the monarch himself, who is, at all events, a relatively educated man, with some notion of family honor and tradition in him, and uncorrupted by the habit of abasement.
Liberalism
A hitherto unpublished note
A Liberal is one who is willing to believe anything twice.
III. WAR
The War Against War
From the Chicago
Tribune
, July 24, 1927
O F ALL the varieties of uplifters who now sob and moan through the land, the most idiotic, I begin to suspect, are the pacifists. Not even the sex hygienists, the movie censors, or the reconcilers of science and religion show a more romantic and fantoddish spirit. At least half the devices they propose for ending war appear to have been borrowed from the gaseous armamentarium of the New Thought, that pink and spongy nonsense. Worse, they seem to have an unpleasant capacity for corrupting the logic and scattering the wits of otherwise sensible men. Here, for example, is Ambassador Houghton, our eminent agent at London, arguing solemnly that the way to end war is to resort to the referendum—that is, to put it to a vote every time it threatens. What could be more nonsensical? Call the scheme a scheme to make war certain, and you have very accurately described it. For it must be plain that a referendum would take time, and it must be equally plain that during that time the warlocks would have everything their own way. Imagine their gaudy tales about the prospective enemy’s preparations. Imagine their pious, inflammatory talk about protecting the home from his hordes. And then try to imagine a referendum going for peace.
I am surely no admirer of politicians. Least of all do I admire the puerile, paltry shysters who constitute the majority of Congress. But I confess frankly that these shysters, whatever their defects, are at least appreciably superior to the mob. They are restrained in their excesses, if for no other reason, because they fear the sober second thought of the mob. But the mob itself is inno terror of its own second thought. Once it is on the loose, it slashes around like a wild animal. It
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