(v) On "Clay Sparrows" and the Failure of Freedom

France and Germany are hazardously in agreement in regard to English and American liberal idealism. They think it moonshine and the League of Nations a failure, and that Freedom has been tried and found wanting.

We are at school with Christ and have made our clay sparrows. Wilson's birds fly—ours won't. France is an obstinate clay sparrow who sits perched on the wall. And what shall we say of the other clay sparrows? Do they look like flying? The peoples won't take the freedom and the light that is offered them. We sing to them and tempt them, but they do not respond.

Germany, however, does not believe in "free countries," and she is edified by the failure of freedom.

"Your gods fail you," said a Bavarian to us at dinner. "You'll have to try our gods after all."

"But it is not so. The little nations are all using their Freedom," some one rejoined.

"Abusing it," said the German.

"That is only their high spirits, the natural first excesses of people who have got free."

"Russia?" queried the Teuton. "Poland? Roumania?" and he smiled indulgently. "Human nature shows up badly when you give it a chance," said he. "You cannot trust individuals yet, and you cannot trust nations. For example: you are all lined up waiting to receive tickets for the theatre or a train. Some have a sense for order and keep their turn, but others edge past them and get to the ticket window first. And then the orderly individuals are forced to do the same or lose their temper. Now, to meet human nature we have invented a grill, and if you go to our State theatre in Munich you will see this iron control which allows a large crowd to assemble but makes it impossible to go out of your turn."

"An emblem of German civilization," I thought, "but it has its use."

"We are all going back to preventatives," said another. "After all it is the foundation of Mosaic law—the prevention of evil. America has adopted the idea. Prohibition is not freedom. It is taking the bottle away and not giving you a chance. It is the same with other human sins. The best way to reduce the numbers of murders is to reduce the number of weapons and exact a heavy gun licence. The best way to stop robbery is to use more steel locks. Make it difficult to commit crime and then crime won't be committed. But beware of Freedom."

The conversation was side-tracked on to the subject of the "dryness of America." But it provided an insight into the German point of view. Coming into line with the rest of Europe Germany accepted the idea of Freedom in November, 1918. She watched how it worked and then very quickly turned her back on it. In truth, Freedom is not congenial to Germans. Had Germany won she hoped to impose her type of civilization everywhere, and she saw little harm in the fact of imposition. Inferior nations ought to be raised to Germany's cultural level by force, and they ought to be prevented from running amuck internationally, also by force. The German mind viewed complacently the bondage of the small nations in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It did not think that Czechs or Poles lost anything by being governed from Vienna. Its only reservation was that it might be still better for them if they were governed from Berlin. Berlin still believes that Alsatians and Danes and Poles and Russians and Czechs are better in health under German discipline. Europe organized militarily was the German conception of the future—that some one should order and some one should obey everywhere.

Great Britain caught the idea through Carlyle, though it was more congenial to the Germanic type of Southern Scot than to English or Irish. We talked of "captains of industry," and the "aristocracy of talent," and "benevolent autocracy," though we could not realize them. But to modern Germany this idea was society's cement. It was preached from the Lutheran pulpit, it was taught by sergeants in the Army, it was unfolded and beflagged by politicians on election day. There were rebels against it but no national movement opposed it. It was even rooted in the home where husband ruled wife, and father ruled children with complete authority, and a man could point to his frau or his kind with his index finger, and say "To-morrow you will do that. Now you shall do this!"

The opposite note of liberty was at Moscow where the children not infrequently, even under Tsardom, went on strike against their teachers, where servants tell masters what they ought to do, where a Rasputin is asked advice on imperial policy, the land of the Slavs where obedience is at its lowest ebb, and all the parks and gardens and country-sides languish naturally in disorder. "Love to Russia is really love to the old mother-pig," said Suvorin. "But no matter, you get used to it." The German, however, never gets used to it. That is why in the old days the farms of the German colonist in Russia used to be neat patches of an entirely orderly pattern, looking like islands in the wild waste of Slav disorder. It might almost be said that Germany made war to make the Russian muzhik wash his face, and the Russians made war so that people could go about with dirty faces if they wanted to.

The question has not received a final answer. Greece is fighting for an empire over Turks. Ireland is fighting the British Empire to obtain the right to do what she wants in the world. The business penumbra of the United States has begun to cover Mexico. Five or six constituents of old Russian have cut free. But France has become imperial and would impose a superior will on several nations.

Our curious clay sparrows stand on the wall. Wilson's sparrows, it is reputed, fly; ours won't. As we made them, so they stand looking at us, waiting apparently. If some one does not sprinkle holy water on them soon they will either go to bits or have to be kneaded into the common lump once more.