25. PSYCHOLOGY OF THB WAR. (iy American.— The war psychosis of all countries is declared by authorities to fall into a pattern typical of group behavior any where under stress or during crisis. This pat tern has been clearest in the United States of America. for the reasons that it was physically remote from the scene of the conflict and that its component • gs are both mere specific and more flui than those of countries with greater ethnic homogeneity and snore stable economic and social caste& In August 1914, the United States of America was a country nearing the end of the first half of a liberal po litical administration. Events and legislation had both exhibited tendencies toward liberalism in industry and interaccommodation in society. On the surface America ethnically was held to be a "melting pot," politically and economically a land of equal opportunities. Immigrants and newcomers were declared automatically to "Americanize" and to find their status in the economic system according to their talents. The tradition and foreign policy of the land had been republican and pacific. Life had on the whole been secure from famine within and assault from without. Individuals and groups, consequently, were preoccupied with the fate of their own precarious cultural, vocational, politi cal and religious organizations. They were patriotic when they thought of it, but nothing bad arisen to make them think of it often. Labor unions, financial and industrial corpora tions, ethnic and religious societies, political parties and such, absorbed their attention, held their active allegiance and involved them in reciprocal conflicts. Beneath the unity imposed by the "herd-dogmas" of "melting pot" and "democracy" there was the strain of uncon scious ethnic antipathies and conscious eco nomic rivalries, pressing for free expression and inhibited by the "herd-dogma." The war supplied the liberating opportunities. During its first period in Europe the inhabitants of the United States were in the position of spectators. They took sides according to their European affiliations, their intellectual and moral inter ests, their economic or political advantage.
Thus, New England and the Atlantic Coast line generally sympathized with Old England and her allies; the Middle West sympathized with Central Europe; so did groups of intel lectuals, college professors and such, who had studied in Germany; Socialists again denounced both sides, regardless of extraction; and Re publicans and Democrats took attitudes deter mined entirely by their relations to the policy of the administration. The administration, on the other hand, demanded neutrality even "in deed and thought." Responsible for the whole country, it could ask for nothing less, and for nothing more impossible. It was subjected, therefore, to accusations of the partisan groups of both sides — "pro-Gertnan," according to one; upro-English" to another, and "capitalist') to a third.
These accusations accompanied activities which turned 4Americanismx•— i.e., the interest of the totality of the inhabitants of the coun try— into a social and political issue. The President made his famous speech on the ((hy phenated American.) At the same time Ameri can financiers who had been making extensive loans to the Entente grew somewhat disquieted by the character of the campaign, and the ef fects of the enormous profits made by American manufacturers and others on the gabs of war materials to the Entente showed themselves in a strong desire to maintain the source of sup ply arid in a corresponding antagonism to any thing that might hurt it. Wages rose, more over, iind the demand for labor grew. And all the while German agents were plotting against the property of American citizens and the neu trality of the American government. These events together served to alter the pattern. of the American group-arrangernent. They brought into being a new and forceful align ment deriving from the attitude of groups to ward the parties at war. The change became quite manifest in 1916 when Mr. Wilson was re-elected on the slogan "he kept us out of war') on a vote contrary to all the precedents of American presidential elections, the result remaining in doubt until the very last returns were in.