Randolph Bourne

“ And they have no class distinction to give them glamour. In a republic the Government is obeyed grumblingly, because it has no bedazzlements or sanctities to gild it. If you are a good old-fashioned democrat, you rejoice at this fact, you glory in the plainness of a system where every citizen has become a king. If you are more sophisticated you bemoan the passing of dignity and honor from affairs of State. ”

“ Not for any religious impulse could the American nation have been expected to show such devotion en masse, such sacrifice and labor. Certainly not for any secular good, such as universal education or the subjugation of nature, would it have poured forth its treasure and its life, or would it have permitted such stern coercive measures to be taken against it, such as conscripting its money and its men. But for the sake of a war of offensive self-defense, undertaken to support a difficult cause to the slogan of democracy, it would reach the highest level ever known of collective effort. ”

“ In this wondrous city of Paris, where art is the occasion for continual intellectual warfare, and ideas cause debacles, one cannot read the journals or see the play, or even walk the streets, yellow with their flood of books, without seeming to touch everywhere the soul of France. Everything has its style, everything has its spirit characteristically French, and the nation, as a whole, is proudly conscious of it. ”

“ It seems a long way from my dainty music-bench to the iron range, or the stove-factory. One has to feel exploitation perhaps before one understands it. I console myself with the thought that power is itself mystic, and that my friend will have to get hit with some invisible threat of classforce, as some of his frightened friends are now getting hit, before he will analyze any deeper that industrial system of which he is so efficient and loyal an officer. ”

“ Sometimes she would put the tennis-net across the green lawn and play with a neighbor, darting so swiftly, like a long black bird, across the green, hitting the ball so straight and true, and blazing so fiercely with her black eyes when she missed, that Gilbert sat enthralled, motionless, until the set was over and they went in to supper. On those days he would help her mark the court, going to the little barn and watching her fill the marker with white powdery lime, and then helping her push it over the closely-mown grass. The long summer days were full of Aunt Nan. ”

“ Even the nation, especially in times of war—or at least, its significant classes—considers that it derives its authority and its purpose from the idea of the State. Nation and State are scarcely differentiated, and the concrete, practical, apparent facts are sunk in the symbol. We reverence not our country but the flag. We may criticize ever so severely our country, but we are disrespectful to the flag at our peril. It is the flag and the uniform that make men’s heart beat high and fill them with noble emotions, not the thought of and pious hopes for America as a free and enlightened nation. ”

“ Once a week, a black man would come from somewhere, and spend the whole day with Aunt Nan, mowing the lawn, digging the vegetable garden, and weeding the flowers. That was a glorious day for Gilbert and for Aunt Nan. How much there was to be done! They all seemed to be wrestling with the whole yard, to turn it up, to bring it to a bright, shiny newness. At the end of the day, Gilbert would walk about the garden on the gravelly paths, with Aunt Nan to survey their handiwork. ”

“ If the workers did not like his factory, would they send for their brothers and cousins from the old country across the sea? If these "hunkies" in stove-factory and iron mine were being "exploited," would they not drift speedily away to jobs where they were content? My friend cannot imagine a man being willingly exploited. There are, no doubt, heartless employers; workmen here and there are perhaps subject to oppression. But systematic, prevalent industrial exploitation—and he has worked in all parts of the country and at every level of skill—my stove-factory friend has never seen. ”

“ But, best of all, one finds in France a true jeunesse, a younger generation, into whose hands the precious fabric of the national culture is given for conservation and use. In France, unlike our Anglo-Saxondom, youth, like woman and democracy, seems to be taken seriously; it is the thinking youth who measure for the nation the direction and force of the spiritual currents of the day, and stamp upon the age its characteristic impress. ”