But is that prosperity a good thing for the American people just now? Aside from the speculation excited by the superabundance of gold in our banks, there is the envy of hungry Europe to be reckoned with a few months or years hence, after the close of the great war, an envy that might readily be translated into predatory action under certain circumstances, as some thoughtful Americans are beginning to perceive. Eastern America, where the war money has largely settled, is already fearful, desires to arm the nation to protect its prosperity. And there is the more subtle, the more profound danger that this undigested war bloat of ours will dull the American vision still further to the real issue at stake--the kind of world we are willing, the kind of soul we wish, to possess. Can we safely digest the prosperity that the happy accident of our temporary isolation and the prudent policies of our Government have given us? Are we not feeding a cancer that will take another war to cut from our vitals?
Most of us on board were Americans going about our businesses on a belligerent nation's ship in defiance of Mr. Bryan's advice. The man next to me was building a new munitions plant for France, and beyond him was the European manager for a large American corporation whose factories have been taken over by the German Government. He was returning to America to enter the munitions business in Pittsburg or Connecticut. To these commercial travelers of war the European struggle meant, naturally, first of all money, the opportunity of a lifetime to make money quickly; it meant also less vividly helping the Allies, who needed everything they could get from us and were willing to pay almost any price for it. Sometimes they talked of the long list of "accidents" that were happening daily in American factories and genially cursed the hyphenated Germans. As for the other sort of Germans they felt vaguely that some day America must reckon with them, too. Evidently they put small faith in the "three thousand miles of cool sea-water" as a nonconductor of warfare! So here was another aspect of the war--the possible dangers to us, without a friend in the world, as every one agreed. And we talked "preparedness" in the usual desultory way. The munitions men seemed to think that they were patriotically working for their own country in getting "the plant" of war into being. "Some day we shall need guns and shells too!" Afterwards I found in America that this vague fear of probable enemies had seized hold of the country quite generally, and that the very Government which had done nothing toward settling the present war rightly was planning for "defense" with a prodigal hand. Peaceful America was getting alarmed--of what?