April 12, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
15 
the deeper signilkancc of the conflict. J<'or tlic purpose 
of classification he may, in fact, be set down as one of 
the Kaiser's assistants in American politics ; but he is 
also an effective caricature of that great mass of indifferent 
opinion traditionally suspicious of British maritime 
methods, traditionally prone to regard Europe as the 
prey of monarchs and other picturesque anachronisms 
with which the United States has luckily nothing to do, 
and utterly indifferent to what may happen to the 
Stars and Stripes on the high seas so long as its trade 
goes forward. 
It is more doubtful whether Senator I.a Follettc can 
be classed as pro-German. He resembles his colleague 
in nothing save narrowness of vision. He is a RepubHcan 
and a Radical ; Mr. Stone is a Democrat and would be 
even a Conservative if he could think things out. Pre- 
sumably of French descent, Mr. La Follette has only 
the defects of the Gallic virtues. He is volatile, .fickle, 
and sensational. He is small, pugnacious in appearance, 
and wears a pompadour of hair which makes him look 
like an angry bird. In politics he is a product of a 
peculiar brand of radicahsm called the " Wisconsin 
idea," for which the highly intelligent Faculty of the 
University of Wisconsin was primarily responsible and 
which, despite a taint of empiricism, has had a very real 
and useful influence on American political thought. 
But he soon cut loose from his better educated tutors 
just as, before espousing radicalism, he cut loose from 
his conservative Republican sponsors. It was before 
the Presidential election of i()i2 that he definitely ran 
amok, partly owing to disappointment that the Pro- 
gressive Republicans should have chosen Mr. Roosevelt 
instead of him as their leader. Since then he has flirted 
with the Democratic party, and though still commanding 
great popular support in his State, is without national 
influence. , His explanations of his vote was that he 
feared that any further steps against Germany would 
lead to war. As a representative of the pacific West 
he was afraid of putting too much power into the Presi- 
dent's hands. He is also just the sort of man who may 
have been fooled by the Prussian complaints that Ger- 
many is a misunderstood and regenerated nation, and 
that the English are just as overbearing as the Junkers. 
For he is of the type of Western Radical to whom dress 
clothes and walking-sticks are the badge of an obscene 
conservatism with which the true American can have 
nothing to do. He once, in a speech, described his 
country as the " United States and New England." 
New England being presumably socially too much like 
monarchical old England to form an integral part of the 
commonwealth. 
Scandinavian Pacifism 
But Senator La Follettc is a complex creature. 
Senator Norris, Senator Gronna, and Senator Cummins, 
other Middle Western companions in his disgrace, are 
better types of the spirit of that part of the country. 
Senator Gronna represents Scandinavian pacifism, the 
])roduct of the careless prosperity of congenial agri- 
culturists buried deep in the centre of a continent. 
.Senators Norris and Cummins are Anglo-Saxon Radicals. 
Their " opposite number " in the Democratic party is 
Mr. Bryan rather than Mr. Stone. Like the " Great 
Commoner," they are intensely provincial. They be- 
lieve that if the United States can get really representa- 
tive Government she can afford to let the rest of the 
universe "go hang." They were lc:der; in the pro- 
gressive revolt in the Republican pa ty which a few- 
years ago overthrew its plutocratic management in the 
interests of the " plain people, ' deposed old Speaker 
Cannon from his " Tsardom " of the House of Repre- 
sentatives, made miserable President Taft's life in the 
White House, and eventually by splitting the Republican 
Party between him and Mr. R"oose\-elt gave the country 
an opportunity of benefiting from Mr. Wilson's reforms 
instead of from theirs. They are, in fact, close equiva- 
lents of the British ante-bellum Radical. War to them 
is not only intolerable in principle, but is condemned 
because even preparation for it deflects nioney and 
energy from the social and political betterment of the 
nation. If war should come, they are prone to proclaim, 
the resourcefulness of the American will be equal to it. 
According to Mr. Bryan, Mr. Henry Ford is not only a 
great pacifist, because lie promotes peace pilgrimages ; 
he is also a great patriot because he manufactures a 
motor which all farmers can buy, and in which they can 
flock in their millions to pitchfork the invader into the 
sea. Good roads for the prompt collection of his agri- 
cultural cohorts at the threatened point are, Mr. Bryan 
lias stated, the true preparation for national defence, 
and not armies and navies. 
A Roll of Dishonour 
. Three more examples from the Senatorial roll of 
dishonour about complete a rough cross section of those 
layers of opinion which apart from the regular German 
propaganda are usually labelled as pacifist or pro- 
German. Two of those examples are easily disposed of. 
If Senator Stone represents deliberately selfish paro- 
chialism, and Senator La Follette the parochialism of 
narrow ideals. Senator Vardaman, of Mississippi, and 
Senator Works of Cahfornia, represent the parochialism 
of sheer stupidity. Both have been repudiated by their 
more intelligent constituents. Neither has had nor 
can have any influence in national affairs, but both 
represent quite an element in the population. Senator 
Works is a faddist of the type that is always on the 
wrong side and knows nothing about anything. He is, 
among other things, a'Christian scientist, and may think 
that the methods of Mrs. Eddy should be applied to the 
regeneration of the Prussian barbarians. Senator 
Vardaman represents the Democratic " backwoodsmen " 
of the South. His appearance matches the uncouth 
conservatism of his ideas. Portly and clean-shaven, 
he wears his hair long to the base of his neck and trimmed 
like that of a choir boy. in a mediaeval picture. He 
sports a black frock coat in winter and a white coat of 
nearly as dignified a cut in summer. His sombrero 
is black in winter and white or grey in summer. His 
overcoat is a flowing mantle of the Byronian type. In 
politics he is of the class that believes that " niggers " 
ought not to vote, that protectionists are thieves, and 
that all will be well with the world if cotton fetches a 
good price and his friends and relations get a good share 
of the party spoils. Hence he is not excited about 
Prussian atrocities on .the high seas and will not be 
imless cotton exports are pinched by a diminishing 
tonnage. It was to influence such as him as well as the 
grain growers of the ^^'est that the President allowed 
American shipping to be tied up by the German blockade. 
The object-lesson failed, because the number of American 
ships flying across the Atlantic is so small. 
Senator O'Gorman is a very different politician. 
Instead of being too provincially American, he is too 
foreign. Senator (since March 4th luckily ex-Senator) 
from New York, he is one of those Irish-Americans who 
persist in viewing the world through Fenian spectacles. 
His course in the Senate was always anti-British rather 
than pro-American. Though sitting on the Democratic 
side, he opposed Mr. Wilson's successful and altogether 
admirable effort to undo the damage that Mr. Taft and 
the Republican had done to the reputation of the United 
States by legislating a^-ay the obligations of the Hay- 
Pauncefote treaty and discriminating in favour of 
American shipping in the Panama Canal. During the 
war his prejudice made him a useful Senatorial assistant 
to the German propaganda. He represents, in fact, 
that mass of Irish-American opinion which, especially 
since the Dublin revolt, has been and will be, till the 
Home Rule difficulty is settled, one of the gravest 
impediments in the way of a satisfactory Anglo-American 
relationship. 
But enough has perhaps been said to justify the asser- 
tion upon which this article is based. O'Gorman, Stone, 
La Follette, Vardaman, and the rest of the twelve, 
negligible as their influence may be individually, un- 
doubtedly represent an incongruous, conflicting but 
nevertheless converging set of factors which it would 
be foolish to ignore. They represent forces of tradition 
and complexities of race and prejudice, of interests and 
aspirations Mhich, had it not been for the gratuitously 
brutal law-breaking of Berlin, would undoubtedly have 
stultified the influence of Anglo-Saxon and sophisticated 
America, the America represented by Mr. Roosevelt, 
Mr. Root, and less emphatically by Mr. Wilson, and 
have kept the United States neutral until the end. 
