EDITOR'S TABLE. 



123 



try's welfare, and the service he ren- 

 ders to the cause of good govern- 

 ment, and the general amelioration 

 of the social and political life of the 

 nation. We think it will in general 

 be found that the citizen who is 

 earnestly engaged in useful social 

 work, and whose ordinary course of 

 life affords an example worthy of 

 imitation, will not be a patriot of 

 the malignant type. His voice will 

 not be cast for war on trivial occa- 

 sions, nor will he take a ferocious 

 delight in thinking of the disasters 

 and humiliations which his country- 

 could inflict on a foreign foe. The 

 man who truly loves his own coun- 

 try will find it impossible to hate 

 any other. The good father of a 

 family is a man who can be counted 

 on for friendly offices beyond the 

 limits of his family. He enters into 

 the feelings of other fathers, and con- 

 siders family life in general a sacred 

 thing. So with the man who has a 

 true feeling of devotion to his own 

 country : he learns through it to 

 love humanity at large. 



Who, then, is likely to be what 

 we have called the malignant pa- 

 triot ? The spoilsman makes a good 

 one. Living as he does on the cor- 

 ruption of politics, the least he can 

 do is to shout for the flag, and pour 

 contempt on foreigners on every 

 occasion, suitable or unsuitable. If 

 he did not thus protest his love for 

 his native land, people might think 

 he was a parasite or saprophyte 

 pure and simple ; but thus he makes 

 an effort, which we may take for 

 what it is worth, to redeem his char- 

 acter. And with the spoilsman we 

 find, vociferous for war and cynio- 

 ally indifferent to justice and hu- 

 manity, a large body of individuals 

 who, without being spoilsmen in the 

 full political sense, are spoilsmen 

 in a general everyday sense, in that 

 they live by arts more or less inim- 

 ical to the general welfare. These 



have no sense of organic union with 

 the community, and the expression 

 of hatred toward other nations 

 affords them an emotional outlet 

 which they could ill spare. Then 

 we have the considerable number 

 of those who, though they may, in 

 their way, be tolerably useful citi- 

 zens, are persons whose moral and 

 intellectual natures are but poorly 

 developed, and who perhaps sincere- 

 ly think that hatred of the foreigner 

 is at least a function of love of 

 one's own fellow-citizens. These con- 

 stitute a class of whom, perhaps, 

 better might be made, but who in 

 the meantime raise their voices 

 very vigorously and inconsiderately 

 for every aggressive foreign policy 

 which mischief-making demagogues 

 may suggest. 



If patriotism in the true sense 

 were more common throughout the 

 civilized world, wars would cease, 

 because patriotism would induce 

 those reasonable, humane, and pacific 

 feelings which are wholly opposed 

 to injustice and aggression, whether 

 practiced by individuals or by states. 

 Unfortunately, the type of feeling 

 which is most in evidence to-day is 

 not patriotism, but militarism, a very, 

 different thing. The true patriot 

 wishes his country to be in the right 

 and to do the right in all international 

 questions : the devotee of militarism 

 wishes his country to be strong, so 

 that, whether right or wrong, she 

 may be able to impose her will upon 

 others. It is not too much to say 

 that the military spirit is fundamen- 

 tally inconsistent with a love of justice 

 for its own sake. It is a very tame 

 business for enormous force to be al- 

 ways tied to exact rules of right ; the 

 temptation is almost overwhelming- 

 ly strong to blow right some fine day 

 from the mouth of an eight-inch 

 gun, and so set the war fiends danc- 

 ing. The nation that sets out to 

 have enormous armaments does not 



