1810 



"Nationalism," wrote Herbert Hoover and Hugh Gibson in 1942, 

 "has developed from the deepest of primitive instincts and emotional 

 forces in mankind." They continued: 



It gathers from a thousand springs of common race with its common language, 

 religion, folklore, traditions, literature, art, music, beliefs, habits, modes of expres- 

 sion, hates, fears, ideals, and tribal loyalties. . . . 



From all these racial instincts and mores rises the eternal yearning for inde- 

 pendence from foreign subjection or domination. . . . Nations are eternally 

 striving for independence. . . . 



Who can even recite the repeated wars for independence of the Greeks, the 

 Germans, the Spanish, the French, the Romans, and their successors, the 

 Italians? . . . 



Nationalism can readily expand into dangerous forms . . . [but] will continue 

 as long as man inhabits the earth and will have to be embraced in any plan to 

 preserve the peace."* 



The words seem prophetic. Writing early in World War II when the 

 hope was widespread that victory would bring an end to nationalist 

 excesses everywhere, the authors were referring to a world of only 60 

 separate nations. Now there are more than 160. The behavior of many 

 nations today tends — despite the emergence of new internationalist 

 forms and vocabulary — to reinforce the skeptical view of human 

 nature and its selfish motivations which Hoover and Gibson shared 

 with the Founding Fathers and which is reflected in the system of 

 checks and balances built into the Government of the United States. 



Independence has been a constructive force in the development and 

 growth of the United States and many other countries. It has not 

 generally been achieved and maintained by following Marquess of 

 Queensberry rules. The tactics of nations which are challenging the 

 Western industrial democracies on both political and economic fronts 

 today, however distasteful to those challenged, may sometimes effec- 

 tively advance the independence-related interests of the challengers. 

 On the other hand, some of the tactics — blindly, or at least not 

 farsightedly, pursued — may be contrary to those interests in the 

 long term, and perhaps even in the short term. They may collide with 

 national interests which would be better served by a posture of inter- 

 dependence, or by a more carefully adjusted balance between inde- 

 pendence and interdependence. 



No nation in history has been better nourished in its independence 

 than the United States — nourished by a vast natural endowment of 

 land and other resources, by the insulation of great oceans and weak 

 neighbors, and by the imaginative development and application of new 

 technologies. Understanding the potential of this endowment and 

 sharing with Washington a keen distrust of foreign entanglements, 

 Hamilton and Jefferson sought autarky: i.e., economic, as well as 

 political, independence from the rest of the world. The Jeffersonian 

 concept was one of self-sufficiency with an agricultural base; the 

 Hamiltonian, self-sufficiency on a foundation of industry. But not, 

 for Hamilton, total self-sufficiency: industry, more than agriculture, 

 implied trade, and Hamilton favored trade. And trade implied the 

 development of varying degrees of economic interdependence. With 

 the growth of the Republic and its industry, trade relations also grew, 

 and the United States moved by gradual stages from a unique position 



"< Herbert Hoover and Tlueh Gibson, "The Problems of Lasting Peace," in Prefaces to Peace: A Sympo- 

 »mm, cooperatively published by Simon and Schuster, Doubleday, Reynal and Hitchcock, and Columbia 

 University Press. New York, 1943. pp. 160-161. 



