Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/32

 At the moment we have stopped all housecleaning to listen to advocates of internationalism in one form or another. We are to meet in amity and sleep under the same roof—but only once a year at Geneva! In the interval there is a new scrutiny of passports, a cashing-in of mandates and a general slamming of doors. It would be amusing if it were not tragic. We have been disastrously diverted from our necessary task of house cleaning at a very critical time.

The internationalist, of course, is correct: his dream will come true and would compel our quick sympathy if he did not persist in talking about it before breakfast; but the dream of international amity is not new and was never copyright. It has not been realized because most of us, while willing to cleanse our garments, are not yet ready to cleanse our hearts—an obvious barrier to enduring peace. If this difficulty could be overcome there is still another: It is not yet safe politically or economically for democracy to take “pot-luck” with autocracy.

It should not be necessary to offend or alienate the internationalist; but we must not commence our day at the call of chanticleer under the false spell of the moon. The dreamer is ultimately correct; but it is not because of his dreaming that dawn slowly approaches.

It is probable that what we call civilization is the progressive modification by man of his environment—his slow attainment of bodily and mental freedom. No international mandate is going to civilize him, for under the most unselfish and competent of trustees, what is likely to be done for a backward race is to relieve it of the necessity of modifying environment and probably by this very act postpone its maturity. To realize this, it is only necessary to contemplate the American Indian and the Hawaiian, or other immature peoples of the earth, particularly those who fell under the arresting domination of ecclesiastical power with political or politico-economic motives, as in South America.

Now if what we call civilization is the gradual mastery of environment, then various national codes are as unlike as their country of origin. National traits differing from our own should not, therefore, be regarded as gratuitous insults: neither