The Area of Patriotism

— Of the two most universal and most vital among all human associations, the family and the state, the family has remained essentially the same in every truly civilized race since the days of Socrates ; though his is, perhaps, hardly the ideal type of happy family life. But patriotism, the love of the state, has become for many modern men a singularly complex motive. Does an ardent “ annexationist ” in Brooklyn, New York, to-day owe his allegiance directly to his own city of a million souls ; or to an ideal metropolis of Manhattan ; or to the State of New York, which, through its legislature, is strong enough to efface the one and to create the other ; or, lastly, to that wide union of States for which, it may be, he has already risked his life on the tented field ? To all four, in varying degree, he might reply.

Yet even the smallest of these concentric units is vastly beyond the wildest dreams of the Hellenic statesman or sage. The broadest of Greek philosophers declared a state of a hundred thousand citizens to be inconceivable, because the leaders could not know personally all their supporters. Nay, Aristotle ridiculed the unwieldiness of a state containing five thousand voters.

The passionate devotion of an ancient hero, or even of a mediæval patriot, attached him chiefly, if not solely, to a single city, endeared by lifelong association, sacred as the homo of his living kindred and the burial-place of his dead. Usually it was a walled town inhabited by a few thousand citizens, all known to one another by face and name. When the millions of Persian invaders poured into Greece, the probable destruction of Hellenic liberty could draw together for mutual defense but a petty minority of the race from a mere handful of cities. Even among these, the fiercest jealousy and bitterness broke out the very night before Salamis. It was in truth the Athenians rather than the Greeks who on that great day fought for and won their liberty.

Such political conditions have passed away forever. A single city is no longer even the heart and centre of a state. All roads will never again lead to Rome ; still less will Nürnberg’s hand go through every land ; it is doubtful, even, if a Parisian populace could to-day overturn the government of France. Yet allegiance to a small state, though merged in a greater political unit, dies slowly. Not many years ago the question was often addressed to a casual acquaintance in Munich or Dresden, “ Are you a lover of the Fatherland or a ‘ Prussian ’ ? ” To this day, for many a brave German, Würtemberg or Brunswick (perhaps even Bremen or Lübeck) is “ Fatherland ; ” the ethnic union cemented by Sadowa and Sedan is still a hateful foreign yoke.

We have no quarrel with those wider and still widening ideals of patriotism that everywhere seem gaining ground. Germany is a far mightier name than Würtemberg, Italy than Tuscany. Through Panslavism, Panteutonism, Pananglicism, may yet arrive the day, foreseen by the most loyal and conservative poet of our age, when

What we are attempting, however, especially to point out is that modern life has largely divorced, often cleft into many parts, two impulses which in the best days of ancient civilization were almost inseparable, or even fused into a single passion,— the love of country and the love of home. Patriotism in the larger or national sense is doubtless sufficiently strong to-day, though by no means always a pure or generous passion. Men are quite ready enough to fight and to die for the supposed honor of their countries.

But the development of adequate local and civic pride as a motive for wise and generous devotion of wealth and genius, time and toil, to the highest public interests, seems, on the other hand, the most crying need of our American civilization ; and we have something to learn from older and smaller states. In equipping a trireme for war, ora chorus for the contest of dramatists in time of peace, wealthy Athenian citizens vied with each other in profuseness and splendor. True, less noble motives were skillfully and wisely enlisted in the service of patriotism ; for the dramatic poet who wrote text and music of an Agamemnon or an Antigone, trained the actors, drilled the chorus, and often played his own part in the theatre, had a very humble place in the deepgraven inscription cut to commemorate the victory of flic rich Athenian who paid the expenses of the day. Time, however, usually rights these things. The path to political ambition as well as to more lasting fame was perhaps oftenest opened by lavish expenditure for the public. It was largely through her children’s gifts, too, that Athens herself became a great museum of art. Her streets, the open squares, each temple close, above all the Acropolis, were crowded with statues, pillars, porticos, and yet loftier edifices, erected in large part by grateful victors, and dedicated to the people’s gods. This was indeed the only creditable use to which a trophy could be put. But we need not look across twenty-four centuries for an Athenian example which should bring the blood to our cheek. The antiquity of a few Attic monuments (including the stadion, wlncli was recently renewed by a generous Hellenic patriot for the revived Olympic games) should not conceal the truth that the present city of Athens is a creation of the last half century. It is, in fact, younger than Brooklyn or Chicago, and has probably not a tithe of either’s wealth. Yet this capital of a race scanty in numbers and by no means opulent is already richly adorned with museums, hospitals, schools, libraries, and memorials of every sort, the free gifts of loyal and generous private citizens. The new Greek man is like the old in this, at least : he is passionately ambitious ; be is eager that his own name shall be known and held in honor in his beloved city.