Goose-Step Day

H.L. Mencken

Baltimore Evening Sun/September 8, 1924

I.

Of the good intentions of the amiable gentlemen, clerical and lay, who prepare to protest publicly against the ceremonies of Goose-Step Day there can be no doubt, but it must be equally plain that their virtuous horror will get them nowhere. Their scheme, indeed, belongs to the New Thought, not to realism; they are trying to put out a fire by mental magnetism. What they assume, however they may sophisticate the fact, is that the way to prevent war is to make it easy for the other fellow. The truth is that the way to prevent it is to make it unprofitable for the other fellow. Two means to that end instantly suggest themselves. One is the device of getting such armaments in readiness that the other fellow is sure to suffer a dreadful beating, even if he wins. This scheme was invented by the Germans, and they put it into practice with such effect that it is now advocated unanimously by the military men of all nations, which is to say, by all the men who are most competent, technically, to estimate it. The other device may be described roughly as that of the generous friend. Its essence is the doctrine that fairness and decency pay—that the other fellow will not be tempted to take anything by force so long as he can get all he can reasonably want by peaceful means. This second device is very familiar to the private relations of man and man, and even shows itself, at times, in business. The men I like in this world, and get on with amicably, are men who give me something that I want—amusement, instruction, flattery, protection, and so on. Why do I treat them politely, even when they may chance to annoy me, and never think of having at them in a hostile manner? Simply because I know that my dealings with them will be more satisfactory—that I will get more out of them—if I am friendly to them than if I am hostile to them. They are in the same boat exactly. My goodwill is more valuable to them than anything they could get out of me by making war upon me. Thus we are what is called friends, and their attitude to me, like mine to them, is tolerant, generous, decent and fair.

II.

There have always been men in the world who dreamed of setting up relations of the same sort between nations, but they have always seen their dreams fail of realization, for nations, for some reason that I do not know, are a great deal less intelligent than individual men, and hence a great deal less decent. Consider, for example, the case of the Unite States. As nations go in this world, it is surely not the worst; in fact, one might plausibly argue that, morally at least, it is one of the best. Nevertheless, it is essentially a liar, a coward and a blackguard, and every other nation in the world is well aware of the fact. Everywhere on earth it is distrusted, and with sound reason. Nowhere has it any honest and disinterested friends. If it came to disaster tomorrow the whole world would rejoice. The facts upon which this universal distrust are based are not imaginary; they are very real. The United States, for a generation past, has been hard at work converting friends into enemies. During the first part of the late war it lost the friendship of one side by selling it out to the other side for cash in hand, and the friendship of the other side by demanding a usurious price. And during the second half it aggravated the former injury by waging war in an ungallant and hysterical manner and the latter by carrying on fresh and worse extortions in the name of altruism. These protestations of altruism do not deceive Europe. The English and their allies do not remember the American troops that saved them; they have begun, indeed, to deny that American troops saved them, and to remember only the three years of going it alone, with Uncle Sam taking their money, and the staggering demand for more money when it was all over. For one Englishman who has heard of Chateau Thierry or Admiral Creel’s battle with the U-boats there are a hundred who have heard of the flow of British gold to America. And the Germans with their friends do not remember Dr. Wilson’s mellow eloquence at Versailles or the lofty protestation that the United States wanted no profit out of the war; they remember only the bogus neutrality of 1914-17, the armistice swindle, and the doings of the Alien Property Custodian.

III.

Let it be assumed that these enmities are ungrounded, or, at all events, exaggerated. They remain facts none the less. I know of no way to get rid of them. Even if all the war loot were returned, half to one side and half to the other, the old soreness would remain. General Pershing, I believe, advocates some such scheme, at least with respect to the allies; he wants to remit all the remaining war debts. But even General Pershing is plainly aware that that would not convert hatred into friendship, for in the same breath he advocates colossal preparations for the next war. That war, it seems to me, is bound to come as soon as the distrusts which now divide Europe begin to abate, and concerted action is once more possible. The nations over there are now all at loggerheads. Every one of them was badly used in the war, and everyone puts the blame on the others. But on one thing, at least, they are all agreed, and that is upon the doctrine that the United States somehow swindled the whole gang—that it made off with the plum-pudding while they were fighting for it. This feeling of having been done in is precisely what makes wars. Nations do not go to war, at least in theory, to grab something that is not theirs; they go to war to recover what has been taken from them. Americans who read only American papers get but the vaguest echoes of this hatred. Even when the French mobbed the American participants in the Olympic games the facts were glossed over. It is constantly represented that the United States is about to “save” Europe, and that Europe is pathetically grateful. Europe is actually nothing of the sort. It sees in every act of “salvation” only one more effort to squeeze it out of money. What did the London Conference accomplish? It left the French sore, the Germans raging, and the English full of new suspicion.

IV.

All the while the Japs sharpen their two-handed swords in the Far East and Latin America flames with indignation against the Yankee bully and thief. Is this a good time to disarm? Then it is a good time to let the insurance lapse after the cellar has been filled with gasoline. There has never been a time in American history when the country faced more bitter enemies or more formidable foes. In case war came tomorrow it would find us without a single dependable ally. Even England could not go safely beyond neutrality—and we taught the whole world, England included, how neutrality can be made profitable in 1914-17. It is thus nonsense, at this time, to talk of putting up the musket. The real danger lies in the probability that Goose-Step Day will turn out to be a fiasco—that the rest of the world will hear only that it has been muddled and that pacifist attack muddled it. What news could be more grateful to the intelligent Japs? It is obvious that they would fall upon us tomorrow if they thought it safe. Well, every time they hear of a pacifist meeting they will put it down as that much safer. But if Goose-Step Day shows a vast swarming of the booboisie and a magnificent rattling of swords they will be disposed to go slowly. Here I attempt no denunciation of the fundamental pacifist position. Let it be granted that war is evil and ought to be put down. But let us not try to put it down by making it easy for the other fellow: his temptation is already almost more than he can bear. The way to dissuade him is by reducing that temptation, either by arming to the teeth or by going out of the swindling business. The latter, I take it, is too much to hope for. Even the pacifists seem to abandon the effort to halt the robberies going on in Haiti, Santo Domingo, Nicaragua and elsewhere; as for the noble enterprise of “saving” Europe at seven per cent., they appear actually to favor it. So long as these things go on there will be blood upon the moon. And so long as there is blood upon the moon the judicious thing to do will be to keep the boobs goose-stepping.