The program of neutrality was, however, itself being destroyed by events. There ap peared on the field interested military propa ganda organizations, like the National Security League, the Navy League and the American Defense Society. German naval policy came smack against international law and American interests. To continue keeping America out of war it became necessary to get speedy peace — from the ."peace without victory" to all the other varieties. When war finally was de clared, it was declared on two grounds, to avenge the wrongs suffered by the United States at the hands of Germany and "to keep the world safe for democracy." The Council of National Defense, the Espionage Law, the Draft Law, the War Industries Board, the War Labor Policies Board, the Food Administra tion, the Fuel Administration, the Bureau of Public Information, came into rapid existence. Loyalty leagues and other spy-hunting organi zations appeared all over the country, headed usually by "business" men. The interest of all America had at last been fused with the partic ular interest of one group of the belligerents and one social class.
This identification does not appear to have been the result of the active will of the great mass of American citizens. The malfeasance of the Germans appears to have had less influ ence in creating it than the effective will of two organized and interested minorities, busi ness men and intellectuals. The mass required to be argued, sung and whipped into enthusi asm. Instruments of propaganda for this pur pose were both official and voluntary, and they used all the methods known to the ad% agent and a good many new ones. They played upon fear, vanity, the blood-lust, greed and hatred, certainly not less than on the nobler emotions. But the new waves of feeling thus aroused and integrated acquired a reliable base only with the application of the draft laws, the operations of the food and fuel regulations and the reports of the casualties. With these a de.fi-, nite change in the American mood was to be observed—an intensity of sentiment in which all the emotional elements mentioned. above were active. This sentiment was still m cres cendo when the ,armistice came. For over a year feeling was far from normal. It was, however, without the object on which, under a state of war, it would have spent itself. Its nianifestations, consequently, are taking the form of what is called lunrestx) for one group, and ((law and order)) for another.
((War psychology)) began to develop with the appearance of tAmericanismi) as an issue. Up to that time, social life in the United States had been determined by the usual motives of the peace-time routine. Its overruling psycho logical factors are the instincts involved in the hidividual's activities of self-preservation and self-expression. These instincts operate the functions of food-getting, mating, self-asser turn, play, and so on. Their inhibition and re pression involve unpleasantness, pain, anger, fear, and the other emotions of repression and disintegration. The milieu in which they work is a Society or herd whose solidarity is ex pressed in, a like-mindedness established and maintained upon, either or both of two condi tions—the internal one of a COM111011 specific heredity and carnation social organization and tradition from infancy, and the external one of a natural and num-made envircinment im posing conunon vocational, religious, political, military or other purpose& This lace-minded ness has been attributed in recent literature to an ((instinct of the hercLa It establishes and defines the badqground and linsitations against which and witlun which the competitive indi vidualities of the members of the group oper ate. Its force varies inversely with its extent
and it is most overruling in the family and the tribe. It is a distinguishing mark of primitive societies in which the individual's struggle for survival and expression is limited .to any one type of association under the conditions of con ffict which are normal to such groups; his vir tue or his wickedness becomes that of the group, and his responsibility the group's re sponsibility: blood-guilt and blood-vengeance are die social inheritances passed on by the generations. The state of war between one group and another compels and reinforces the state of harmony and solidarity within each group. When the pressure of such a state re laxes, the individualities within each group ex pand In times of peace, no matter what the society, individualism is maximaL The maximum, nevertheless, is not an ab solute one. Individuality is required to con form to the ((herd-dogma)) which is the overt expression of like-mindedness, and keeps the irreducible rivalries of individuals within the group in a state of perpetual compronaise and repression—sex, prestige and power .conflicts never get quite fought out to .a decision. An indefinite number of impulses, instincts and ap petites may be added to these three, to fill out the psychological picture of a normal peace time society. Such a society was the United States in 1914. The groupings in which indi viduals formed themselves were primarily eth nic and economic, and these to a. large extent reinforced each other. The prestige and posi tion of the British strain wa.s opposed and threatened by the growing importance and self assertion of other strains, and reinforced again bv the law of imitation whereby ulower* social types get assimilated to the standard of the °higher') ones. The war in Europe served to release the emotional and ideational systems in volved in the situation. Groups that could not figin each other as Americans, might as pro English and pro-German. The war of words that was carried on betwee.n 1914 and 1917 in tensified the oppugnances of each group. and accelerated the emotional fission within the land. As feeling grew, two processes became apparent On the one hand, each opposing group belittled the other; on the other, it con verted the enemy into an all-powerful mon ster of evil. The chief subjects of the proc esses were the Germans and the English: the other peoples in the war being mere back ground, of significance only in their relation to the protagonists, who again symbolized the chief division in America. There was no evil too improbable or impossible for either to be lieve of the other. Since the country's official neutrality functioned as an inhibition upon the release of the emotional tensions involved in this condition, the government, particularly the President, became the object of ill-feeling. This feeling was, among the pro-English, however, not primarily a response to the nation's neu trality; it was a resentment against the liberal domestic policies which the President had spcm sored and a wish to continue and to increase the gains which the war had brought Not be ing expressible directly, it found its release in directly through a denunciation of neutrality.