THE France and America, Partners By JULES BOIS Author of "L'Eve nouvelle," "La Douler d'aimer," etc. HE great European War has already lasted long; it may still last long. Save for some unforeseen event, unhappily it can be brought to a closeand the fault is not ours-only through an increase of destruction. But the world does not come to an end: it is simply transformed. Death is only one aspect of eternal life; destruction is only the troubled sleep of resurrections. Let us turn our eyes for a moment from this wild crisis. We know that it will end in the triumph of right. Let us try from now on not to picture in mind a theoretical renascence of the dreams of visionaries, but to correct the balancesheet of our deficits, to face our difficulties like men, and, recognizing our mistakes and meditating on our faults, strive to escape their recurrence. Let us seek the remedies that exist for all ills. But how reconstruct? Reconstruct the body and the soul? It is not too early to consider all this, because it will demand much time and attention. We must deliberate, discuss, exercise our critical faculties, cultivate enthusiasm, coördinate our endeavors. During peace Germany had prepared for war; we must not await the end of war to prepare for peace. by the love of adventure or impatient at the restraint imposed on them by old laws or too constricted territory, have crossed the Atlantic to form themselves into a new nation, freer, more energetic, more idealistic, and at the same time more practical, settling there in an immense land the degenerate natives of which, in their ignorance of any way to turn it to the best account, had left barren of man's cultivation. Sometimes these hardy pioneers had sought unknown regions under the spur of persecution; sometimes they had gone through a longing for adventure, drawn to the New World by the great expectations it held out. They were not exiled; they uprooted themselves from their country's soil, impelled by that migratory impulse that in the past as well as to-day has always been the point of departure of new civilizations. Now, these men, after having won their independence through a foreign war, and cemented their different racial tendencies. and aspirations by civil war, have enjoyed and continue to enjoy a security and prosperity that their native lands no longer know. But although they are Americans and only Americans, they cannot forget, and ought not forget, that their ancestors WHEN the husbandman sees his fields laid were Europeans. Most certainly they waste by hail, storm, drought, or fire, if he have worked out their own destiny in the is wise he does not wring his hands, curse New World: they have cleared the land the heavens, or collapse in fruitless despair; and peopled the wilderness, with their but he turns to his granaries, where in own hands they have built opulent and years of abundance he has put aside a re- flourishing cities that rival the most faserve store of wheat and provender, and mous cities of ancient times; but this stuat once prepares for a new sowing and a pendous economical and moral developnew harvest. In just such a sense Europe ment they have accomplished well through has a granary-a granary that has made the European training and culture that itself. America is that granary. they carried with them, and which have For several centuries certain men, fired brought forth results wholly unexpected. Americans do not deny this debt to the Old World. Of their own free will many have devoted themselves and their wealth to Europe. Moreover, they have been able to separate the wheat from the chaff. They have given their sympathy and their coöperation to those nations that they recognized as being especially loyal to the cause of liberty, consecrated with justice and blood-to England and to France, and particularly to France, whose help in their own hour of danger and deliverance they have not forgotten. This has come about naturally through the keen vision of popular instinct, which outstrips the subtle interpretations of diplomacy and the explanations of governments. When Lafayette hurried to the assistance of America, young then and eager for self-government, it was the spirit of France that led him, not the will of a monarch or statesman. He was impelled by a principle, the right of the people, and by that true love of liberty that always leavens France, and to-day is leading her to sacrifice herself not alone for self, but for civilization. In the same way those Americans who are fighting in our ranks and are giving their lives to care for our wounded are moved by no selfish purpose; they desire to show their gratitude and serve the ideal of justice and liberty. I am sure that if there existed an instrument that could measure the quality of emotions, it would undoubtedly show a strong likeness between the splendid exaltation of your young aviators hovering above our lines and the big-hearted decision of Lafayette. One of our moralists has said, "The heart has reasons that reason itself cannot understand." However that may be, in this case I believe the heart is right. Even our enemies realize that America and France are linked together by a strong, though subtle and yet scarcely conscious, bond-a bond largely made up of sentiment. This war, in affirming it, strengthening it, proving it to be logical, now gives it historically a new brightness. One discovers one's friends in the hour of suffering. The traditional and spontane ous affection that America has for us is real, vital, and has no need of treaties and agreements. France to-day responds to it, and will respond more and more. But the realization of this friendship, now an established fact, must become clearer in order that we may cultivate it and make it more fruitful until it yields the two nations the rich harvest of its promise. The plan is too vast for us even to attempt to sketch. We must content ourselves with giving a little advice, making a few suggestions. The best way to bring the two peoples together is to show them their common characteristics, to define their common interests, and to enumerate the ideas and sentiments that they share. The rest will take care of itself. We ought not to force that which should come about in accordance with the rules of common sense and natural attractions. DESPITE certain very marked external differences, there are profound likenesses in the genius of the two nations that will work in harmony because they are fundamental and are based upon character and spirit. Though the constitutions of the two republics differ in certain respects and their customs have their individual peculiarities, the two democracies nevertheless follow the same impulses and respond to the same principles. As Frenchmen and Americans, we have the same national and international ideals. There is also a more nearly indefinable likeness. While I am well-rooted in my French and Latin soil, I have traveled far through the world, and one may believe me when I say that I have found no city that more resembles Paris in its ways and the characteristics of its inhabitants than New York. Even London, admirable as it is, is more apart. This is not to say that New York is not profoundly original, but that between it and Paris there are parallel originalities. The gaiety of the streets; already certain aspects of picturesque antiquity; the atmosphere of welcoming; the vivacious spirit, cordial hospitality, and disinterested enthusiasm for talent, merit, or novelty; a certain quickness to adopt and to discard ideas, art movements, and people; a restlessness at times too feverish; a love of pleasure, elegance, and luxury; a tendency to respond instantly and as one man to any great and international event --all this is what makes of Paris and New York, each in its own particular way, with its little faults and grand qualities, the two most sympathetic, the most "electric" capitals of the civilized world. The manner in which France slowly formed herself through the centuries recalls the manner-and this has never been sufficiently remarked-in which the United States came into being and was developed. To so great an extent is this true that one might call France a solidly traditionalized America, and America a France that is magnificently improvising herself. The geographical position of France. and the attraction that she has always exercised have, by a peculiar process, slowly developed her from many crossed races into a homogeneous people. She is not wholly Latin, like Italy; or Celtic, like the country of the Gauls; or Norse, like Scandinavia or Scotland and a part of England. Far from being a peninsula like Spain, almost isolated from European influences, she is made up of a series of alluvial deposits: in the north, the Bretons, the Normans, the Angles, and the Flemish; in the middle and the east, the Franks, the Gauls, the Arvernians, the Burgundians, the Lorrainers, and the Alsatians; in the southeast and the south, the Latins, the Italians, and the Greeks; and in the southwest, the Basques and the Iberians, with not a little trace of English blood, especially in the region of Bordeaux. And yet a Frenchman is nothing more than a Frenchman, whatever the province. from which he comes, and despite certain differences of accent, manner, or appearance. Our soul is one. The same interests, the same ideal, and, though the horizons are varied, a like harmony that is at once both moderate and refined, have molded and remolded the people of that country the natural boundaries of which are the Rhine, the Pyrenees, and the Alps. Add to all this the constantly repulsed menace of barbarians-a menace that did not begin in 1914, and which has continually brought us together as a united force. Royalty, welding together its feudal. forces; the First Republic, with its humanitarian and national gospel; and Napoleon, with his centralized system of administration, so skilfully made of all these provinces a coherent economic and political organism that without any danger or any weakening of the inalterable identity of the united country the people of the several provinces may display their racial characteristics and varied origins. America will not lose sight of such an example not of uniformity, but of grouping, so blended together, so impossible to be made to crumble or to dissolve, that the world can find therein a reason for our growing victory. It has been said in the Holy Word that "if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand." The United States ought also to desire to become more and more united in purpose. They are already united; they can be, and ought to be, even more united. Nevertheless, we should be slow to deny an encountered peril, and one that may reappear the settling among us of hostile. and unassimilated foreigners. We, too, have our problem of "hyphens." To be exposed to the same risks is only another form of resemblance between the two countries. To-day France has become aware of her vitality and power; but she realizes that she has remained France only by not permitting herself to be weakened in times of peace as in times of war by malevolent aliens. A nation exhausts itself and is not enriched when it nourishes elements that cannot be assimilated, because they in their disloyalty are wont to attempt to alter its customs and national characteristics for their personal gain. Paris had become too incongruous, too cosmopolitan. Though a certain number of the select few congregated there, in far greater numbers the frothy elements of society came in floods: inimical spies, brewers of questionable affairs, idlers who sought to amuse themselves at any cost, taking advantage of our ready welcome to lead among us a sophisticated and unwholesome existence that they thereupon called "Parisian life." This setting was unhappy both for our home and foreign politics, which it disturbed, and for our art and culture. Our theaters of late years, for example, no longer reflected French manners, but the manners of adventurers, roués, and intriguers, who came from the ends of the earth and posed among us as masters of the house and arbiters of a taste that they made less pure. Especially is it true that our neighbors beyond the Rhine, attracted by our cities and our country, began secretly to colonize among us. All this we saw at the outbreak of the war, but unfortunately too late. The majority of these were spies, working for the advantage of their fatherland and preparing for an invasion that this time was to be armed. They strove, moreover, to blacken the fair name of France. Their noisy eccentricities, their brutal characteristics, and their hypocritical plots had the effect of giving to foreigners the impression that we were undergoing a moral relaxation. It was a false and regrettable impression, an appearance of frivolity that was mainly exotic. We had not taken sufficient pains to impress upon those whose naturalization we had too readily accepted the necessity of adaptability. This is always a danger that threatens those people among whom foreigners who are not of the best type delight to sojourn. Because of her mixture of races, her freedom, and her inheritance of certain European characteristics, the baneful vibrations of which have been felt across the ocean during the course of this war, America has been brought face to face with the necessity of keeping close watch over those parasites who establish themselves in a country, live upon it, yet turn against it when they believe that their interests demand such a course. In France the remedy for this evil has been national unity, already very ancient, and which this recent virus had not yet weakened-a unity of those who agree to submit themselves to the most costly patriotic duties, even the complete sacrifice, if necessary, of the individual to the commonwealth, a firmness necessary for the elimination of the baneful and the useless. In short, safety lies first in oneself before one has recourse to laws, which, however, must not be overlooked. If a great and varied population is fermenting in the vast American vat, it holds an excellent dissolvent for uniting conflicting elements, provided they are healthy. The character and physical and moral vigor that you inherit from your forefathers, your idealism, which the egotistical pretensions of newcomers have not overwhelmed, make a mold where are cast nationalities and individualities seemingly irreconcilable. I am confident that you will suffer no break to appear in this marvelous crucible. Your firmness is never tyrannical. On the contrary, it wins every one by its tolerance. The descendants and followers of the great men who created America, its wealth, and its spirit have sufficient keenness and enterprise to impress upon latecomers, when brought into contact with them, these homogeneous qualities: selfcontrol, love of toil, respect for the point of view of others, honest ambition, generous aspirations, fidelity to the starry flag. Those who do not accept these duties, sources of vast good, are unworthy of you. You may calmly reject them. Thus will be averted treason to a country which opens its arms wide to all loyal good-will, and which is by a providential mission a redeemer. The country of Lincoln and Emerson is the country of mankind. In this America bears another resemblance to France, which has been called the second country of all men. ONE of our sociologists has declared that national likenesses and attractions are closely connected with destinies. The sympathy that exists between France and America certainly inclines them toward coöperation. Being an intellectual, I view this coöperation especially in its most profound and freest aspect-the aspect of organized friendship. So far you have remained faithful to that "splendid isolation" that England has abandoned. But one who lives wholly for himself and alone does not lead a full life. A friend completes us less by his personal contribution than by all that he calls forth in us that was already there. From the fact that intercourse between races is increasing to-day, whether through greater and more rapid means of travel or through the intellectual vibrations of minds, which also have their wireless telegraphy, the world is gradually forming for itself a single conscience. I feel indeed that this unified conscience is developing itself more particularly here. America therefore has national and humanitarian reasons for turning to Europe and thus singling out those nations more capable of working with her for the benefit of the whole world. If even before the war we practised a system of national agreements,- it was necessary in order to counterbalance the warlike Triple Alliance, -we French were too ignorant of other countries. France and England, though near neighbors, began to know each other and esteem each other's value only when they became brothers in arms. We French had become a little apathetic with the prosperity that came to us through a favorable climate, the wealth brought into the country by visitors, and the frugality of our racefrom one point of view a virtue, from another a fault; for economy, while heaping up capital, diminishes initiative and leads one to become satisfied with too little. To-day, awakened, with much of her soil under the heel of her foe, France must gather herself together for the rebound. For her life to-morrow will be hard and rough. When the cannon are at last stilled, we shall have to think of intellectual and economic wars. We shall have to furbish up the weapons of our inborn and acquired gifts, and especially those gifts that before our awakening were drugged by habit or made sterile by neglect. Our industrial life, our commerce, our literature must rise in a new flight if they are to escape decay. We ought to be more ambitious, less timid, have a greater love for risks, learn to allow our children to expatriate themselves in order to be better known to other lands and in turn to know them better. All this should be done for our own profit and for the benefit of all. In this America will aid us. It is therefore well for us to visit each other more; for it is in talk together, in living and working together, that the strongest ties are made. Before the war we did not spend time enough with you, and since its outbreak necessity has brought home a still larger number of French. I am sure that, aside from the patriotic duties that engaged them, they must have found pleasure and profit in your company. I hope that this state of affairs may last and even develop itself when peace again comes. Indeed, I was the instigator of commercial exchanges, in order that the young prizemen of our chambers of commerce and syndicate chambers might travel in America. Just as artists, sculptors, painters, and architects receive from our Government the means that permit them to study in the cities of the splendid past like Athens and Rome, so it would be to our interest for our young business men to visit New York or the more industrial cities of America in order to "study the future," gain a familiarity with the mechanism of great enterprises, stimulate their practical capabilities, and increase their initiative. Theoretical courses in universities are not so imperative for our young students as terms in the offices of your great financiers and your most important industrial centers. These students will later become the interpreters of the economic culture of the United States. Our writers and artists might also gain an advantage by contact with your people and institutions. I have been assured that at one time you feared that the commercial agreement between the Allies to resist our enemies after the war in their attempts to seize the markets of the world might prove disastrous to your interests. But authoritative voices, like that of your ambassador at Paris, quickly undeceived you. In our |
