Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/229

 IDEALS OF SOCIAL REFORMERS 2 1 5

tion to international union among workingmen. This inclination has been planted and watered by the jingoism and commercial- ism of bourgeois politics. The national flags have so often had to serve as a cover for lust of conquest, in which the people fur- nished food for the cannon, that a hatred has grown up against nationality and its symbol, and the red flag of socialism has been substituted, not to denote bloodshed, as some think, but the common blood of humanity. In Germany national history and pride have been so much used to prop the monarchy and exist- ing institutions that socialists are now creating a new historical literature which reverses the old verdicts, calls the national heroes intriguers and butchers, and pours contempt on the great events of the nation's past. This is deplorable. Nationality is a good and holy fact. As the individual has a right to his individuality, so the nation has a right to its nationality. And as human life is infinitely enriched by the differences in indi- viduality, so the life of the race has been enriched by the dif- ferences of nationality, and this is destined to be far more the case as increasing inter-communication brings the nations face to face and introduces them.

The internationalism of the working classes is nobly right in protesting against a narrow and warlike patriotism, but we must never lose our loyalty to our own country, nor our reverence for her past, her heroes, and her flag. As the new social enthusiasm must contain in itself the old love of family, so the new love of humanity must contain the old love of the fatherland.

In the fourth place many social reformers more or less openly look forward to a revolutionary break of development by force. It is not unnatural that they do. Progress is so slow and resist- ance so stubborn and subtle ; it is so hard to get remedial legis- lation enacted and so much harder yet to get it enforced, that men naturally get impatient, especially if they are themselves the grist that is being ground. Especially nu-n whose onlv strength lies in their brawn are bewildered and enraged to find a just cause bound hand and foot by a smiling lawyer with a bit of red , and they feel that if they could only close in a death-