Word: nationalism
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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From a spectator's point of view, it seems as if savage and nomad tribes must glean abundant fun from their belligerent frolics with civilized nations. It's very likely that they enjoy carnage more than their more straightened adversaries. Yet apart from sedistic impulses, there are other reasons which put the weight of the war upon the civilized nation. It must carry, often overseas, always into wilderness, food; ammunitions and other trappings of a specialized war machine, the usual items of the "white man's burden"; while the unspecialized natives wage their war on a rather homeless homeland...
However, one must, with the opposition, remember that laws and orders created to effect minor goods often effect major wrongs. And in a country where the balance between state and nation is so preeminently necessary to maintain one wonders just how far the president is justified in causing the existence of one more centralizing power. The question of states rights was fought over in the Civil War. It was not decided. Nor will it ever be. One can only hope that common sense and a respect for the status quo will keep the states from confusing the nation...
Those who talk of their "rights as a citizen" are never clear either about their rights or their citizenship. Most of their talk is far too compact of selfishness. But when the chief executive of such a government as that of the American nation leans too heavily toward either side of a situation which at best is a very difficult one can sanely be afraid lest that accurate balance between state and central government is truly one with "the consulship of Manlius...
...people on whom they depend are much less so. Political agitation, manoeuvering, and conviction depend largely upon impression. Sometimes in the higher reaches of legislative or executive activity, a particular politician acquires personal prestige enough to translate a careful program into law. But in such things as managing a national convention, one must look out for the careless prejudices of the nation at large...
...following article entitled "The Revolt Against Education," written by Glenn Frank, President of the University of Wisconsin, appears in the current issue of The Nation...