19133 The Failure of Force 



I further maintained that the force of arms does not make for 

 national strength; the test is freedom from the need of force. 

 Imagine, if you can, a catastrophe which might remove from 

 the United States every representative of coercive power, every 

 official of whatever rank from the President to the last notary 

 public, every representative of army, navy, school, church, 

 police. Such a loss might create widespread bewilderment or 

 profound sorrow, but it would not result in anarchy. Except 

 among certain unassimilated foreign populations in large cities 

 it would lead to no violence or riots. All the functions of national 

 life would go on unchanged. One by one, communities would 

 come together and proceed to the election of officers. The 

 stability of society or that of the nation itself would be in no 

 wise affected. 



In the France of Napoleon III we were assured that a Society 

 without force would not endure for a quarter of an hour. What, 

 I asked, would be the result in their great regimented neighbor 

 if the incident I have imagined should suddenly take place? 

 The German is endlessly patient 1 even under useless burdens. 

 What would he do if all burdens were suddenly thrown off, if 

 "Strengstens Ferboten" the motto of Prussian discipline, were 

 found to have nothing behind it? And I ventured to prophesy 

 that a people suddenly released from stiff outside direction would 

 be like sheep in a storm or wild horses in a conflagration. 



But I hardly looked for a speedy verification of my Collapse 

 forecast. Nevertheless, when the Armistice left lJ d bl r d n > 

 Germany without an autocrat, the "Fatherland" 

 without a father, the bulk of the people remained 

 sunk in sheep-like apathy, while a few untamed 

 extremists were as purposeless in their activity as 

 masterless beasts in a prairie fire. 



" Ce que I'Amerique pent enseigner a I' Europe" was 

 used by Rossignol as a basis for lectures on democracy 

 until the onrush of the German army closed the 

 Belgian schools. 



1 Before the war, says a German-American, " kings, princes, titles, compulsory 

 military service, and class distinctions seemed as meet, proper, and natural to 

 us as long ears on a donkey." 



C 495 n 



