April 23, 1898
Mr. Theodore Roosevelt appears to propose – in American Ideals and Other Essays Social and Political’ – to tighten the screws of national consciousness as they have never been tightened before. The national consciousness for Mr. Theodore Roosevelt is, moreover, at the best a very fierce affair. He may be said neither to wear it easily nor to enjoin any such wearing on any one else. Particularly interesting is the spirit of the plea at a time when the infatuated peoples in general, under the pressure of near and nearer neighborhood, shows a tendency to relinquish the mere theory of patriotism in favor of – as on the whole more convenient- the mere practice. It is not the practice but the theory that is violent, or that, at any rate, may easily carry that air in an age when so much ingenuity of the world goes to multiplying contact and communication, to reducing separation and distance, to promoting, in short, an inter-penetration that would have been the wonder of our fathers, as the comparative inefficiency of our devices will probably be the wonder of our sons. We may have been great fools to develop the post office, to invent the newspaper and the railway; but the harm is done –it will be our children who see it; we have created a Frankenstein monster at whom in our simplicity can only gape. Mr. Roosevelt leaves us gaping –deserts us as an advisor when we most need him. The best he can do for us is to turn us out, for our course, with a pair of smart, patent blinders.
It is ‘purely as an American,’ he constantly reminds us, that each of us must live and breathe. Breathing, indeed, is a trifle; it is purely as Americans that we must think, and all that is wanting to the author’s demonstration is that he shall give us a receipt for the process. He labors, however, on the whole question, under the drollest confusion of mind. To say that a man thinks as an American is to say that he expresses his thought, in whatever field, as one. That may be vividly- it may be superbly – to describe him after the fact; but to describe the way an American shall be expressed is surely a formidable feat, one that at any rate requires resources not brought by Mr. Roosevelt to the question. His American subject has only to happen to been encumbered with a mind to put him out altogether. Mr. Roosevelt, I surmise, deprecates the recognition of the encumbrance – would at least have the danger kept well under. He seems, that is, but just barely to allow for it, as when, for instance, mentioning that he would not deny, in the public sphere, the utility of criticism. ‘The politician who cheats or swindles, or the newspaper man who lies in any form, should be made to feel that he is the object of scorn for all honest men.” That is luminous; but, none the less, ‘an educated man must not go into politics as such, he must simply go as an American, . . .or he will be upset by some other American with no education at all . . .” A better way perhaps than to barbarize the upset – already, surely, sufficiently unfortunate – would be to civilize the upsetter.
Mr. Roosevelt makes very free with the ‘American’ name, but it is after all not a symbol revealed once for all in some book of Mormon dug up under a tree. Just as it is not criticism that makes critics, but critics who make criticism, so the national type is the result, not of what we take from it, but what we give to it, not of our impoverishment, but of our enrichment of it. We are all making it, in truth, as hard as we can, and few of us will subscribe to any invitation to forgo the privilege – in the exercise of which stupidity is really the great danger to avoid.
The author has a happier touch when he cease to deal with doctrine. Excellent are those chapters in his volume – the papers on ‘machine’ politics in New York, on the work of the Civil Service Reform Commission, on the reorganization of the New York Police force – that are in each case a record of experience and participation. These pages give an impression of high competence – of Mr. Roosevelt’s being a very useful force for example. But his value is impaired for intelligible precept by the puerility of his simplifications.
Mr. Theodore Roosevelt appears to propose – in American Ideals and Other Essays Social and Political’ – to tighten the screws of national consciousness as they have never been tightened before. The national consciousness for Mr. Theodore Roosevelt is, moreover, at the best a very fierce affair. He may be said neither to wear it easily nor to enjoin any such wearing on any one else. Particularly interesting is the spirit of the plea at a time when the infatuated peoples in general, under the pressure of near and nearer neighborhood, shows a tendency to relinquish the mere theory of patriotism in favor of – as on the whole more convenient- the mere practice. It is not the practice but the theory that is violent, or that, at any rate, may easily carry that air in an age when so much ingenuity of the world goes to multiplying contact and communication, to reducing separation and distance, to promoting, in short, an inter-penetration that would have been the wonder of our fathers, as the comparative inefficiency of our devices will probably be the wonder of our sons. We may have been great fools to develop the post office, to invent the newspaper and the railway; but the harm is done –it will be our children who see it; we have created a Frankenstein monster at whom in our simplicity can only gape. Mr. Roosevelt leaves us gaping –deserts us as an advisor when we most need him. The best he can do for us is to turn us out, for our course, with a pair of smart, patent blinders.
It is ‘purely as an American,’ he constantly reminds us, that each of us must live and breathe. Breathing, indeed, is a trifle; it is purely as Americans that we must think, and all that is wanting to the author’s demonstration is that he shall give us a receipt for the process. He labors, however, on the whole question, under the drollest confusion of mind. To say that a man thinks as an American is to say that he expresses his thought, in whatever field, as one. That may be vividly- it may be superbly – to describe him after the fact; but to describe the way an American shall be expressed is surely a formidable feat, one that at any rate requires resources not brought by Mr. Roosevelt to the question. His American subject has only to happen to been encumbered with a mind to put him out altogether. Mr. Roosevelt, I surmise, deprecates the recognition of the encumbrance – would at least have the danger kept well under. He seems, that is, but just barely to allow for it, as when, for instance, mentioning that he would not deny, in the public sphere, the utility of criticism. ‘The politician who cheats or swindles, or the newspaper man who lies in any form, should be made to feel that he is the object of scorn for all honest men.” That is luminous; but, none the less, ‘an educated man must not go into politics as such, he must simply go as an American, . . .or he will be upset by some other American with no education at all . . .” A better way perhaps than to barbarize the upset – already, surely, sufficiently unfortunate – would be to civilize the upsetter.
Mr. Roosevelt makes very free with the ‘American’ name, but it is after all not a symbol revealed once for all in some book of Mormon dug up under a tree. Just as it is not criticism that makes critics, but critics who make criticism, so the national type is the result, not of what we take from it, but what we give to it, not of our impoverishment, but of our enrichment of it. We are all making it, in truth, as hard as we can, and few of us will subscribe to any invitation to forgo the privilege – in the exercise of which stupidity is really the great danger to avoid.
The author has a happier touch when he cease to deal with doctrine. Excellent are those chapters in his volume – the papers on ‘machine’ politics in New York, on the work of the Civil Service Reform Commission, on the reorganization of the New York Police force – that are in each case a record of experience and participation. These pages give an impression of high competence – of Mr. Roosevelt’s being a very useful force for example. But his value is impaired for intelligible precept by the puerility of his simplifications.
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