ay 23, 1919.

[34] on July 18, 1919. Cf. _Matin, Echo de Paris, Figaro_, July 10,
1919.

[35] Cf. _L'Humanite_ (French Syndicalist organ), July 11, 1919.

II

SIGNS OF THEIR TIMES

Society during the transitional stage through which it has for some
years been passing underwent an unprecedented change the extent and
intensity of which are as yet but imperfectly realized. Its more
striking characteristics were determined by the gradual decomposition of
empires and kingdoms, the twilight of their gods, the drying up of their
sources of spiritual energy, and the psychic derangement of communities
and individuals by a long and fearful war. Political principles, respect
for authority and tradition, esteem for high moral worth, to say nothing
of altruism and public spirit, either vanished or shrank to shadowy
simulacra. In contemporary history currents and cross-currents, eddies
and whirlpools, became so numerous and bewildering that it is not easy
to determine the direction of the main stream. Unsocial tendencies
coexisted with collectivity of effort, both being used as weapons
against the larger community and each being set down as a manifestation
of democracy. Against every kind of authority the world, or some of its
influential sections, was up in revolt, and the emergence of the
passions and aims of classes and individuals had freer play than ever
before.

To this consummation conservative governments, and later on their chiefs
at the Peace Conference, systematically contributed with excellent
intentions and efficacious measures. They implicitly denied, and acted
on the denial, that a nation or a race, like an individual, has
something distinctive, inherent, and enduring that may aptly be termed
soul or character. They ignored the fact that all nations and races are
not of the same age nor endowed with like faculties, some being young
and helpless, others robust and virile, and a third category senescent
and decrepit, and that there are some races which Nature has wholly and
permanently unfitted for service among the pioneers of progress. In
consequence of these views, which I venture to think erroneous, they
applied the same treatment to all states. Just as President Wilson, by
striving to impose his pinched conception of democracy and his lofty
ideas of political morality on Mexico, had thrown that country into
anarchy, the two Anglo-Saxon governments by enforcing their theories
about the protection of m