Europe — Why Has Freedom Failed?
Miguel Primo de Rivera became dictator of Spain in 1923, Benito Mussolini became dictator of Italy in 1922, and Adolf Hitler's first mention in the New York Times was also in 1922. The New York Times Magazine asked: "Europe — Why Has Freedom Failed?"
Author and journalist P.W. Wilson's article speculated that the primary reason lay with the tribal and fragmented nature of European society and politics relative to the United States:
What is the inner explanation of this failure to put into practice the methods of political freedom? Behind the Europe of today there lies the Europe of many yesterdays. Like the continents of America, the continent of Europe was peopled by immigrants. These tribes trekked westward just as the pioneers, in their covered wagon, trekked toward the Rockies.
In Europe, as in America, the immigrants included numerous races, speaking numerous languages. And Europe, like America, thus became what pessimists call a caldron [sic] and optimists a melting pot. But whereas America, by her schools and colleges, her laws and her churches, is seeking to evolve one citizenship, Europe — without those schools, without those colleges, without those laws and without those churches — has remained tribal.
Wilson suggested that this lack of assimilation provoked a domineering passion in the majority demographic.
Instead of all her territories welcoming all her peoples, each territory has welcomed only one people. The instinct has been not for aggregation but for segregation. There is not a country in Europe, therefore, that does not fear for its frontier. There is not a country that does not seek, as the tribe seeks, to be led by and to obey a chieftain. It is the instinct of self-preservation. It is the subsconsciousness of danger. It is the age-long anticipation of future and inevitable conflict.
Some of those same passions exist in Europe today. Just last week, France enacted a more restrictive immigration law for migrants, particularly aimed at those fleeing wartorn areas of the Middle East. (Although nobody would claim France is a dictatorship.)
Europe — Why Has Freedom Failed?
Published: Sunday, December 30, 1923