“She has done us many an ill turn gratuitously and not a single good turn that was not dictated by selfish policy or jealousy of others. She has shown herself, up till yesterday at least, grasping and unscrupulous. She is no worse than the others probably—possibly even better—but it would be doing our country an ill turn to persuade its citizens that England was anything less than an active, dangerous, competitor, especially in the infancy of our foreign trade. When a business rival gives you the glad hand and asks fondly after the children, beware lest the ensuing emotions cost you money.
“No: our distrust for England has not its life and being in pernicious textbooks. To really believe that would be an insult to our intelligence—
even grudges cannot live without real food. Should England become helpless tomorrow, our animosity and distrust would die tomorrow, because we would know that she had it no longer in her power to injure us. Therein lies the feeling—the textbooks merely echo it….
“In my opinion, a navy somewhat larger than England’s would practically eliminate from America that ‘Ancient Grudge’ you deplore. It is England’s navy—her boasted and actual control of the seas—which threatens and irritates every nation on the face of the globe that has maritime aspirations. She may use it with discretion, as she has for years. It may even be at times a source of protection to others, as it has—but so long as it exists as a supreme power it is a constant source of danger and food for grudges.
“We will never be a free nation until our navy surpasses England’s. The world will never be a free world until the seas and trade routes are free to all, at all times, and without any menace, however benevolent.
“In conclusion … allow me to again state that I write as one American citizen to another with not the slightest desire to say anything that may be personally obnoxious. My own ancestors were from England. My personal relations with the Englishmen I have met have been very pleasant. I can readily believe that there are no better people living, but I feel so strongly on the subject, nationally—so bitterly opposed to a continuance of England’s sea control—so fearful that our people may be lulled into a feeling of false security, that I cannot help trying to combat, with every small means in my power, anything that seems to propagate a dangerous friendship.”
I received no dissenting letter superior to this. To the writer of it I replied that I agreed with much that he said, but that even so it did not in my opinion outweigh the reasons I had given (and shall now give more abundantly) in favor of dropping our hostile feeling toward England.
My correspondent says that we differ as a race from the English as much as a celluloid comb from a stick of dynamite. Did our soldiers find the difference as great as that? I doubt if our difference from anybody is quite as great as that. Again, my correspondent says that we are bound up in our own success only, and England is bound up in hers only. I agree.
But suppose the two successes succeed better through friendship than through enmity? We are as friendly, my correspondent says, as two rival corporations. Again I agree. Has it not been proved this long while that competing corporations prosper through friendship? Did not the Northern Pacific and the Great Northern form a combination called the Northern Securities, for the sake of mutual benefit? Under the Sherman Act the Northern Securities was dissolved; but no Sherman act forbids a Liberty Securities. Liberty, defined and assured by Law, is England’s gift to the modern world. Liberty, defined and assured by Law, is the central purpose of our Constitution. Just as identically as the Northern Pacific and Great Northern run from St. Paul to Seattle do England and the United States aim at Liberty, defined and assured by Law. As friends, the two nations can swing the world towards world stability. My correspondent would hardly have instanced the Boers in his reference to England’s misdeeds, had he reflected upon the part the Boers have played in England’s struggle with Germany.
I will point out no more of the latent weaknesses that underlie various passages in this letter, but proceed to the remaining letters that I have selected. I gave one from an enlisted man and one from a sailor; this is from a commissioned officer, in France.
“I cannot refrain from sending you a line of appreciation and thanks for giving the people at home a few facts that I am sure some do not know and throwing a light upon a much discussed topic, which I am sure will help to remove from some of their minds a foolish bigoted antipathy.”
Upon the single point of our school histories of the Revolution, some of which I had named as being guilty of distorting the facts, a correspondent writes from Nebraska:
“Some months ago… the question came to me, what about our Montgomery’s History now…. I find that everywhere it is the King who is represented as taking these measures against the American people. On page 134 is the heading, American Commerce; the new King George III; how he interfered with trade; page 135, The King proposes to tax the Colonies; page 136, ‘The best men in Parliament—such men as William Pitt and Edmund Burke—
took the side of the colonies.’ On page 138, ‘William Pitt said in Parliament, “in my opinion, this kingdom has no right to lay a tax on the colonies… I rejoice that America has resisted”’; page 150, ‘The English people would not volunteer to fight the Americans and the King had to hire nearly 30,000 Hessians to help do the work…. The Americans had not sought separation; the King—not the English people—had forced it on them….’
“I am writing this… because, as I was glad to see, you did not mince words in naming several of the worse offenders.” (He means certain school histories that I mentioned and shall mention later again.) An official from Pittsburgh wrote thus: “In common with many other people, I have had the same idea that England was not doing all she could in the war, that while her colonies were in the thick of it, she, herself, seemed to be sparing herself, but after reading this article… I will frankly and candidly confess to you that it has changed my opinion, made me a strong supporter of England, and above all made me a better American “
>From Massachusetts:
“It is well to remind your readers of the errors—or worse—in American school text books and to recount Britain’s achievements in the present war. But of what practical avail are these things when a man so highly placed as the present Secretary of the Navy asks a Boston audience (Tremont Temple, October 30, 1918) to believe that it was the American navy which made possible the transportation of over 2,000,000 Americans to France without the loss of a single transport on the way over? Did he not know that the greater part of those troops were not only transported, but convoyed, by British vessels, largely withdrawn for that purpose from such vital service as the supply of food to Britain’s civil population?”
The omission on the part of our Secretary of the Navy was later quietly rectified by an official publication of the British Government, wherein it appeared that some sixty per cent of our troops were transported in British ships. Our Secretary’s regrettable slight to our British allies was immediately set right by Admiral Sims, who forthwith, both in public and in private, paid full and appreciative tribute to what had been done.
It is, nevertheless, very likely that some Americans will learn here for the first time that more than half of our troops were not transported by ourselves, and could not have been transported at all but for British assistance. There are many persons who still believe what our politicians and newspapers tell them. No incident that I shall relate further on serves better to point the chief international moral at which I am driving throughout these pages, and at which I have already hinted: Never to generalize the character of a whole nation by the acts of individual members of it. That is what everybody does, ourselves, the English, the French, everybody. You can form no valid opinion of any nation’s characteristics, not even your own, until you have met hundreds of its people, men and women, and had ample opportunity to observe and know them beneath the surface. Here on the one hand we had our Secretary of the Navy. He gave our Navy the whole credit for getting our soldiers overseas.