The golden rule among nations

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®h t (Soliiett Mule
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By ANDREW C. McLAUGHLIN

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Chicago, September, 1923
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“GOOD-WILL”

LEAFLETS

Jesus and Good-will. Shailer Mathews,
The University of Chicago.

The Golden Rule Among Nations.

Andrew C. McLaughlin, The University of
Chicago.

The author of this pamphlet, Professor
Andreiv C. McLaughlin, is one of the leading
historians of the present day, the head of the
Department of History in the University of
Chicago since 1908, formerly Director of His¬
torical Research in the Carnegie Institute of
Washington, D. C., and the author of many
works in American History, and especially
upon the Constitution.

The Institute urges the cooperation of
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2

The Golden Rule Ai

Nations

By

; TT7f^

18 JUN1343

J

Andrew c. McLaughlin b ^

Nearly everyone, I suppose, accepts
v in a general and theoretical way the
principle of the golden rule. It is, how-

- ^ ever, very often put to one side

with the remark that it will not
^ “work.” The answer to this remark is
that it has never been given a proper

- opportunity to work, and indeed, on
»the other hand, to the extent that it is

embodied in ordinary personal ethics
v •• and in international affairs, to that
extent are personal ethics and inter¬
national affairs sane and wholesome.
One reason, as it seems to a layman,
O ^r the non-acceptance of certain fund¬
amental religious principles, one reason
/ 'why they are not more widely lived up
^^to, is that they are looked upon as
‘something extraneous, superimposed,
--Xhanded down from above, and that
thev therefore lack a certain degree of
'^reafity and of actuality. As a matter
. t)f fact, the apprehension of fundamen-
/ - tal religious principles is the story of
’’the development of civilization. A
(^principle develops and takes its hold

upon the thoughts and acts of men be¬
cause of its essential validity.

This assertion does not mean that
the precepts of moral conduct were not
begotten before men existed at all; it
does mean that in the course of time
those precepts have gained actual
working force and reality, as the pro¬
duct of human experience. Every one
of the principles of morality has for its
support the long history of mankind in
the conscious andunconscious endeavor
to learn the art of living. Codes of
morality, it is true, do vary from age
to age; but the fundamentals have be¬
hind them centuries of human trial and
effort. The essentials of morality have
been woven into the fabric of human
thought and conscience by the strug¬
gle of men upward from primitive life.
Vary these assertions or modify them
as you will, if you accept them even in
part they will invalidate a notion that
morality and religion are distinct from
ordinary living, and that precepts of
morality may be sound in theory but
quite inappropriate for the common
tasks of the every day world. They
can not be both theoretically or ab¬
stractly defensible, and practically un¬
workable. They have been worked
out; the very recognition of their ab¬
stract validity is a product of life’s his-

4

tory. That is just as true as to say
that the laws of physics or chemistry
were not created by man, but he has
by experiment discovered them and
he knows they are real because they
work, and because disregard of them
may bring disaster. The recognition
and application of moral principles form
the basis of civilization , much more tru¬
ly of course than the apprehension of
the laws of the physical universe.

In dealing with the golden rule,
therefore, we are not dealing with some
duty superimposed on men, tending to
interfere with ordinary wholesome pro¬
cesses of life, but with part of the system
of civilization , which has been begotten by
centuries of actual living. Science, it is
sometimes said and justly said, is in
danger of out-growing morality, put¬
ting in the hands of man tremendous
physical powers while he has not the
moral vigor to manage them rightly.
The past generations have given atten¬
tion to the nature of the physical uni¬
verse and have discovereditslaws; with¬
in thelast hundred years greater changes
have taken place, because of the ap¬
plication of science to industry, than
had occurred in the course of many
previous centuries. Under these con¬
ditions there has come a new and press¬
ing need for the study of man and of

human relationships; and first of all a
need of sweeping aside the kind of
thinking which would make a moral
principle nothing but an abstraction, a
denatured precept, true but unworka¬
ble—as if one should say that a law in
electrical science is true, though in
practice nature does not work that
way. If men are now thinking scien¬
tifically , they must learn to think also
?norally and historically. They must
realize that mankind has lived on this
planet some thousands upon thousands
of years, and that in the course of aeons
he has wrought out processes of spirit¬
ual living, and has come to know some¬
thing of his own place in nature and to
embody if only imperfectly, in his daily
life and social intercourse some of the
principles we call moral.

We talk blithely, almost flippantly,
in these days about civilization; and
though the word is flung about with
unseemly ease, it is well we should
know that there is such a thing, and
should know that it is beset with spe¬
cial dangers and special responsibili¬
ties. When we contemplate the won¬
ders of science or stand perplexed be¬
fore the stupendous problems of mod¬
ern life, many of which have been be¬
gotten by science, it is well to remem¬
ber that civilization is not a synonym

6

for bodily ease or speedy transporta¬
tion. Civilization will thrive, under
these new helpful or perhaps burden¬
ing conditions, to the extent that it
succeeds in living up to the precepts of
morality and in begetting new and wider
application of age old principles. Mor¬
ality is integrating, up-building; im¬
morality is disintegrating, destructive.
The question is therefore how far shall
we be successful in applying to the
new world, to life and opportunities for
life created bv science, the fundamen-
tal principles of integrating and up¬
building morality.

We commonly find at least the out¬
ward acknowledgment of certain ele¬
mentary moral principles and of the
need of them in everyday life. But
that these moral principles should
openly and actively govern the rela¬
tions of nations, is not so often said;
probably it is not very widely accepted
as a principle. The difficulty seems to
be this: There is not as yet full appre¬
ciation of the extent to which nations
have been brought into contact by
modern communication and transpor¬
tation; that these contacts make possi¬
ble all kinds of misunderstandings;
that the world is near constituting an
industrial or economic unit, or, to put
it the other way, that the industrial

7

and economic system is of world-wide
dimensions; that no nation any more
than an individual man can live the
modern life in isolation. By this is
meant not only that it may be unwise
to try but also that it is a practical im¬
possibility to live the lives of a century
or so ago; that in many respects*
the nations, though still possessed of
political independence and separate¬
ness, are really intermingled with oth¬
ers; in short, that not only are there
ways in which one nation comes into
relationship or communication with
others, but in many particulars there
is an actual interlacing and a commun¬
ity of thought and interest and activi¬
ty. Such a system, with all its terrify¬
ing perplexity and all its possible catas-
trophies, must have—is it necessary to
say ?—simply must have a body of inter¬
national morality to sustain it, a code of
general political or state morality as
the hand-maiden of a developed and de¬
veloping commercial morality. With¬
out it there must be chaos.

These rapid developments forcing
upon our attention, the fact that
the world is in some respects a
unit, are similar to those that came
rather suddenly upon us in America
only a few decades ago when we dis¬
covered the integrity or wholeness of

8

cur national economic life and found
we were all members of an actual com¬
munity, each dependent on his fellow
for some of the necessities of life. We
demanded then, and we succeeded in
getting in considerable degree, a fuller
recognition of public duty and respon¬
sibility in the conduct of industry. A
well-known publicist in those days pub¬
lished an able article called “New Vari¬
eties of Sin”; but in fact the sin was of
the old variety, although the expan¬
sion of modern living made some vari¬
eties a thousand times more danger¬
ous. The need was for wider applica¬
tion of the old morality.

Among the principles entering into
the very heart of civilization is the
principle, or the fact, that physicalforce
is not the only force , and that the strong
are under obligations to care for and
protect the weak; there is a recogni¬
tion of duty to others. All of us at
least dimly recognize that a world of
pure personal selfishness would be a
world of savagery, an impossible place
to live in. But, accepting this truth in
ordinary daily intercourse between
man and man, we have as yet not seen
fit to adopt it frankly in international
affairs. And yet it seems to be perfect¬
ly plain that the same moral principles
must govern in national and interna-

9

tional life, the same principles that we
realize in personal relationships. They
lie, as we have said, at the very heart
of civilization. In a large degree,
though not universally, international
affairs have been based on unalloyed
selfishness, backed by force; or, if there
was any deviation from the plain and
narrow rule of self-protection and self-
aggrandizament, such deviation has
been looked upon askance, as evidence
of an unsound mind. Strangely, in as
much as nations are men, duty rather
than right has entered slightly or in¬
effectively the realm of international
laws and codes of diplomatic conduct.
If this be exaggeration, let it go as that.
No wonder then that some persons not
intending to pose as moralists, now de¬
clare that international law must be re¬
made on the basis of duty , the duty of
our nation to another. It is necessary,
they say to start with duty, not with
rights.

If we saw some of these things amid
the clash and clamor of the world war,
we seem to have forgotten them. We
need to recall to our minds the essence
of German political philosophy and its
bearings on international affairs. For
that philosophy taught the majesty of
force and calmly proclaimed that prin¬
ciples of unselfish morality had no

10 *

bearings on theState. The State was the
embodiment of force. The peril of the
late war lay in this doctrine of Macht-
politik; in the possibility of victory for
the philosophy of force. The little
state, in this code of international mor¬
ality, had scarcely a right to be at all;
for being weak it denied by its very
existence the first postulate of politics
that the State is strength. We made
war against that principle; and unless
the war and victory result in embody¬
ing the opposite principle in the politi¬
cal philosophy and political practice of
the civilized world, the war was large¬
ly a failure, because it did not register
a step forward in civilization; that step
forward, we had reason to hope, would
be to adopt in international affairs the
code of honor and morality, which
every decent citizen recognizes and
which lies 'at the basis of such civilized
and peaceful life as we have in our own
communities.

Until the principles of international
relationship are changed, until the
point of view is, at least in theory, that
of duty and obligation, not privilege
based on mere power, wars are likely to
come, and when they do come we must
of course do our part in defending our
homes and our firesides; for I am not
attempting to inculcate the doctrine of

11

extreme paificism or of non-resistance.
Neither do I maintain that the an¬
nouncement of fine phrases about peace
and duty will be perennially effective.
I only maintain, what would not seem
to need defense: that the world of the
present has moved on to such a stage
that it is imperatively necessary to
have a law and philosophy of civiliza¬
tion, and not try to get on with the law
and philosophy of the jungle; that the
next step forward in civilization is the
open and frank acknowledgment of duty
in the affairs of the world at large .

In some respects America is at a dis¬
advantage in any attempt to under¬
stand the world. Possibly we are pecul¬
iarly provincial; whether that be true
or not, we are or have been economi¬
cally nearly independent. At least,
with abundant resources, we have ap¬
proached that state of blessedness
known to the old fashioned economist
as the self-sufficing nation. We could
live if all the doors were closed. But
what nation wishes to have its doors
closed? Furthermore there is what I
may call the golden rule of economics;
trade is beneficial to purchaser and
seller; trade between nations is of mu¬
tual advantage, the laws of economics
and the practice of the modern world
cry out against seclusion; and this only

12

means that the economic life, based on
physical resources, has grown away from
the old notion that a nation can live
for itself alone. If war taught nothing
else than the golden rule of econo¬
mics that the prosperity of a nation is
beneficial to its neighbor, and the pov¬
erty of one nation is a misfortune to
the world— if the war taught only the
interdependence or unmistakable com¬
munity of interest among nations, it
taught a valuable lesson, The ques¬
tion that faces us is, will the lesson be
properly learned? Respect for the
prosperity of a neighbor is not vitiating
and impoverishing sentimentality, but
stimulating and upbuilding; it is based
on fact. The Golden Rule , call it a
selfish golden .rule if you like, will

<< 7 yy

work *

In the development of human ideas
and principles there comes a time when
it is necessary to give them institu¬
tional expression; to give them ob¬
jective form. That is why the church
came into existence, I imagine. So, if
we are at all prepared to admit the fact
of international interdependence and
the parallel fact that in this very inti¬
mate relationship there must be moral
principles to safeguard civilization,—
then, I think, we may also see that the
time has come to give some kind of insti¬
ll

tutional expression to this fact and this
belief.

Such words as these sound rather
foolishly abstract; but I shall be more
concrete in a moment. Just now I
wish to emphasize the thought that
ideas making for human good or ill in
the course of time, seek formulation
and find a certain permanent efficacy
in institutions; in this respect peace
and fellowship, although they are of
the spirit, need method of mechanical
expression. A hundred and forty years
ago our forefathers believed that men
could establish a government, and they
found means for doing so; they saw the
interdependence of the American
states, and they formed the American
union; they had faith in men’s ability
for self-government and they built con¬
stitutions in accord with this faith.
The time comes when faith must be
institutionalized.

I shall not delve into the deep and
muddy waters of legal or historical con¬
troversy or discuss that much used
and much abused word “sovereignty”
about which we hear so much. But as
I read American history, the notion
that men can stand aloof and with¬
stand the currents of time appears pe¬
culiarly fallacious. And sometimes it
seems as if that aloofness and sense of

14

irresponsibility is what sovereignty
means, as the word is used today. But
this discussion leads too far afield, and
I will not pursue it. In the present
emergency there is no danger to the
sovereignty and independence of the
American nation.

No one can discuss the obligations of
accepting international duty without
being accused of the heinous offense of
internationalism: If he pleads for the
recognition of moral principles and for
institutionalizing them in internation¬
al law he is said to be guilty of this
worst of heresies. Now international¬
ism in the fullest sense of the word may
come; it may come in the centuries
before us so fully that nationalism dis¬
appears, and the world becomes a sin¬
gle state; and, if that time does come,
there will be no internationalism be¬
cause there will be but one political
structure. But of course what men
fear, or say they fear, is a want of na¬
tional patriotism. How anyone can
have looked out on the war just passed,
looked out through a glass however
darkly, and seen a failure in national
patriotism and devotion is beyond my
comprehension. Never before in the
world’s history did boys and men fight
more bravely, suffer more calmly, en¬
dure so patiently. The need of the day

15

is to know that national dignity is not
dimmed by consideration for one’s
neighbor, and that righteousness and
courtesy and helpfulness do not impugn
sovereignty or bedraggle a nation’s
honor. On the whole, as I read history,
nationalism, with all its sins,—I mean
that new spirit of nationalism, which
came in soon after the Reformation—
has been a means of progress. In its
wholesome forms it is not endangered
today, unless it be by those who fear
we shall in some manner lose our self-
respect if we do our duty. An indivi¬
dual, a family, a church, does not lose
individuality or strength by being
neighborly. No man is less a man be¬
cause he is a helpful thoughtful friend;
no nation is hurt in its dignity as a
nation by practicing neighborliness
among the nations of the world. How
unnecessary such statements as this
appear to be! But the timid and the
crafty and the bewildered throw dust
in our eyes by brazenly confusing duty
and ignominy, and speak as if inter¬
national courtesy and active helpful¬
ness detracted from the fullness of na¬
tional existence.

In all such discussions as this, we are
also met with the announcement of our
obligation to “stand up for America’’.
With that sentiment every reasonable

16

patriot is likely to agree. But what is
America? Surely we have not come to
the stage in our national life when
America is only a geographical expres¬
sion of a people whose chief pride is in
automobiles, steel mills, sky-scrapers,
and millions of bushels of corn. The
founders of America, whatever use is
made of their phrases by modern isola¬
tionists, never looked upon America as
mere land and water. America was to
them a bold experiment in idealism, a
great adventure in a new social and po¬
litical order. America was an idea , a
hope , a faith. We can stand up for the
real America only as we sustain and
strengthen its principles of life. Those
principles are essentially moral in their
nature, for democracy is more than a
form of government, more than ma¬
chinery, more than putting ballots in
boxes. It is a plan of human relation¬
ships, resting primarily on obligations;
it connotes freedom, but freedom de¬
mands responsibility. Democratic gov¬
ernment without the spirit of democracy
would be a sham and a failure , and
democracy does not mean the right of
everyone to do as he chooses, but rather
the duty of accommodating himself to
the needs of others. We cannot remind
ourselves of this too often; democracy
is not individual willfulness or caprice,

17

but a relationship or a series of relation¬
ships, and its basis is essentially moral.
Democracy is friendly companionship.
A man intellectually and spiritually iso¬
lated cannot be democratic-minded . Can
a nation, holding itself aloof from other
nations, priding itself on its superiority,
fearing the contamination of the vulgar
world, be a democratic nation? In
the democratic state, conclusions are
reached by discussion; someone indeed
has declared democracy to be “govern¬
ment by discussion”, but of course its
content is more than that. This dis¬
cussion involves tolerance, respect for
others, a recognition of community in¬
terests, that is to say a recognition of
wholeness or intregity of the political
and social body.

Standing up for America then, can
only mean playing the role of the dem¬
ocrat in world affairs, strengthening
those hopes and that faith which have
meant America, and, by acting as a
democratic nation, advocating the ac¬
ceptance in the international relation¬
ships of those fundamental principles
without which democracy can be
nothing more than a complex, and
perhaps painfully inefficient system of
government. The call today is plain
enough: Democracy must be adopted in
spirit and practice in international af-

18

fairs; not that every man and woman
should vote in diplomatic controver¬
sies, but that nations in their relation
one with another should adopt the moral
code and moral spirit of democracy , and
this involves tolerance, friendliness, a
recognition of common interests, open
and frank discussion, the reaching of
conclusions by conference. For, how¬
ever much we have failed in America
to live up to and actualize the morality
of democracy, no one can question that
democracy in its perfection involves
moral qualities. To stand up for
America means immediate participa¬
tion in any and every movement which
puts conference in the place of war and
recognizes international duty above
physical force. That America, a dem¬
ocratic nation by profession, should
think it is democratic when it is not co¬
operating, is an amazing contradiction.
How can it be otherwise than that this
aloofness has damaged the cause of
democracy the world over?

One of the early Americans, in defin¬
ing what his country stood for, said it
stood primarily for “liberty and law”.
Liberty and law are not mutually con¬
tradictory; for in civil society liberty
can exist only where each person is
under obligation to respect the rights
of others; and liberty would exist in com-

19

pleteness , if each person should treat oth¬
ers as he would be treated himself. At
all events, liberty is decidedly and em¬
phatically a reciprocal affair. Law is
an effort to adjust and determine obli¬
gations; those obligations are never
really one-sided; they are reciprocating.
Law says in plain words that in this or
that respect you have no right to do to
another what he has no right to do to
you. Liberty and law are therefore
not in conflict. Of course in practice
law may by unwise and unjust, but in
theory law seeks to give expression to
social obligations without which there
can be no libert \

Now America is peculiarly the na¬
tion oi law. It has its full share of law¬
breakers; but its constitutional struc¬
ture is legal. The LInited States of
America, as a body politic, is founded
on a written document; and that docu¬
ment is interpreted and enforced in
courts as law. Individual states of the
union, as large as Germany or England,
come before the court at Washington
for adjudication of their differences.
We have covered an area as large as
the whole continent of Europe by a
system of law and set up courts for
continent wide jurisdiction. Why is it
that America can look askance at an
attempt to bring courts into operation

20

for settlement of international contro¬
versies, as if a court of justice were
some new and dangerous menace? Are
we in this respect also to deny our own
ideas in the face of a questioning
world? When the Constitution of the
United States was established, there
were then at least six disputes between
the American states similar to disputes
in Europe that have ended in blood¬
shed; the Constitution provided for
judicial determination of controversies
between states.

The purpose of this paper is to make
clear the conviction of the writer in the
following particulars:

Moral principles are not something
extraneous and purely artificial; civiliz¬
ation is based on them and its growth is
marked by the increasing apprehension
of their nature.

The modern world is made up of
nations intimately associated, so inti¬
mately that their interests are often
identical, for the world approaches
economic integrity.

The well-worn principles of morality
must be recognized in international
relations, and the old notions and
practices of suspicion and uncooper¬
ative selfishness must be abandoned.
It will not do to $ay that the prin¬
ciples “won’t w r ork” when w r e admit

21

that social order in a civilized commu¬
nity is dependent on them.

America is under especial obligation
to cooperate in any endeavor to con¬
serve world peace and prosperity by
conference and by application of prin¬
ciples of social morality, because dem¬
ocratic society rests upon those prin¬
ciples; real liberty and intelligent law
are not in conflict, but mutually self-
supporting; America has entered upon
the great task of ruling an imperial
domain by law, its whole political
structure is peculiarly legal and it
makes use of judicial tribunals for
settling disputes which in Europe are
subjects of political and diplomatic
controversy or even war. From these
things, it seems to follow that America
is under obligation to act the part of a
friendly and cooperating nation, eager
to settle difficulties by discussion and
by judicial decision. In such practical
ways, consonant with self-respect,
American can help in the stabilization
of civilization , which needs for its sup¬
port the moral principle that one nation
should treat another as it wishes to be
treated itself.

22

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