Wilson's Legacy

A League of Nations has emerged from the world's war. At its constitutive meeting, it must reach conclusions without the participation of America, Germany and Russia. These conclusions should be decisive for the fate of the world.

Contrast with this how this fate has been shaped. America, Germany and Russia have the greatest part in this shaping. Russia and Germany are no longer what they were before the war. And one can imagine what would have become of the war if America had not intervened at the decisive moment.

The juxtaposition of these two facts throws the brightest light on the present world situation. For it shows the abyss between the possibilities of war and peace in the world.

Wilson's ideal was the League of Nations. It was on the basis of this ideal that he intervened decisively in the war. Because of this ideal, he was considered for years to be the prophet of a new era. He went to the peace negotiations in Europe with this ideal. He could not achieve what he strove for. He was disowned by his own people. He had to be, because his way of thinking proved to be hopeless. This way of thinking has become ineffective with its carrier.

Wilson's ideal was one that could be talked about as long as the war was waged by completely different interests than those embraced by this ideal; it is not one with which one can act for peace. And yet it was able to find the approval of many for years.

We should not obscure our clear view of such facts because they are uncomfortable. We should fully realize how we can become obsessed with an idea that is not rooted in reality. The forces that prevail in the souls of the people of different nations will decide the fate of the world. Wilson's idea was a dream about how these forces can operate in harmony. One should awaken from this dream. And one would see that its content is only a product of the mind, without any substance. Only then would one be able to see the full gravity of the present world situation.

But the realization of the seriousness of the situation is only the beginning of the recovery process. For he who sees it will see in Wilson's failure not the misfortune of a single man, but that of an entire school of thought. And one that has led to the misfortunes of the world.

Through his particular intelligence, Wilson has brought the way of thinking into particularly clear formulas, from which public life in the most recent times has been shaped. In his thinking, political and legal ideas were completely interspersed with economic guidelines. He knew nothing of how economics and politics must interfere with each other when a way of thinking encounters institutions in which the two are inseparably intertwined. In the same way, this man's way of thinking knew nothing of the relationship between the spiritual interests of humanity and those of the state. In his great work on the state, one can read: “Education in elementary school is necessary to maintain the conditions of political and social freedom that are required for free individual development, and secondly, this education is the most universal means of power and authority of the government.” This is the way of thinking in which political and legal conceptions fail to recognize the conditions for the independence of the human spirit. The sentence is so abstract and unrealistic that the reactionary, the liberal, and the communist can all support it with the same wording.

Wilson is typical of all those people in whose minds the three parts of the social organism play into each other in an unorganized way, and who in modern times have brought about all the institutions of the world, demonstrating in reality the impossibility of their interacting. These people will also have a certain objection when it comes to the necessity of shaping the spiritual, legal-political and economic elements according to their own living conditions. They say: in reality, the spiritual, the legal-political and the economic activities cannot be separated at all; therefore, it must be wrong to speak of an organization. But in this way, those who think like Wilson prove that they have an unrealistic way of thinking. The interaction of the three elements of the social organism will best take place when each can develop independently in its own special way. Unity will be most perfect when each individual can achieve this unity out of his own nature. It will be most imperfect when each individual is weakened by the imposition of the other's individuality.

It cannot be objected that Wilson was not a rigid advocate of the abstract unification of the spiritual, legal-political and economic links of the social organism. Certainly, his way of thinking tended, like that of many statesmen, towards compromise. And it can be said that he did, after all, also express the following: “A doctrine must be found that allows the individual wide scope for his own development...”, which “minimizes the contrast between the self-development of the individual and social development...” But just as it is true that Wilson had such thoughts when he looked at reality, it is also true that in his work as a statesman he was completely dominated by the unclear interweaving of intellectual life, economics, law and politics. And in his famous fourteen points, nothing but this came into its own.

Wilson is a type of the modern statesman. What others have done, he has only wanted to introduce into the life of the whole world in the most abstract, most theoretical way. Before the war, this way of thinking prevailed in the conduct of public affairs. The nations have emerged from the war in such a way that this way of thinking has shown itself to be powerless. Today, this fact needs to be recognized. Without this recognition, all “good will” will come to nothing. Wilson could work during the war; but his ideas were dashed to pieces in the work of peace. It is not enough that his thoughts no longer work through him; not only must others think in his place, but thought must come from a different spirit. He is more a victim of a current of the times than anything else. But humanity should not be the victim of this current for long. The only thing that will help against it is to see through its nature without reservation.