When people spoke to me of the sudden veering of popular sympathy from
France and Russia, and towards England, I could not help asking, now and
again, "When is the reaction coming?" "There is no reaction coming," I
was told with some confidence. For my part, I hope and believe that a
permanent advance has been made, and that any reaction that may set in
will be trifling and temporary. But to ensure this result there is still
the most urgent need for the exercise of wisdom and moderation on both
sides. The misunderstandings of more than a century are not to be wiped
out in two or three months of popular excitement. What we have arrived
at is not a complete mutual understanding, but merely the attitude of
mind which may, in course of time, render such an understanding
possible. That, to be sure, is half the battle; but the longer and more
tedious half is before us.
The Englishman who visits America for pleasure, and enjoys the
inexhaustible hospitality of New York, Boston, and Washington, must be
careful not to imagine that he gets really in touch with the sentiment
of the American nation. His circle of acquaintance is almost certain to
be composed mainly of people whom he, or friends of his, have met in
Europe, people of more or less clearly remembered British descent, who
know England well, have many English friends and possibly relatives, and
are conscious of a distant sentimental attachment to "the Old Country."
They are almost without exception people of culture, as well read as he
himself in the English classics, ancient and modern. They show their
Americanism not in that they love English literature less, but that very
probably they love French literature more, than he does. Further, they
are an exceedingly polite people, and, sensitive themselves on points of
national honour, they instinctively keep in the background all topics on
which a too free interchange of opinions might be apt to wound the
susceptibilities of their guest. Thus he loses entirely his sense of
being in a foreign country, because he moves among people most of whom
have an affection for England almost as deep as his own, while all are
courteous enough to respect his prejudices. This class is large in
actual numbers, no doubt, but in proportion to the whole American
people it is infinitesimal, and would be a mere featherweight in the
scale at any moment of crisis. Its voice is clearly audible in
literature and even in journalism, but at the polls it would be as a
whisper to the thunder of Niagara. The traveller who has "had a good
time" in literary, artistic, university circles in the Eastern cities,
has not felt the pulse of America, but has merely touched the fringe of
the fringe of her garment.
We deceive ourselves if we imagine that there is, or at any rate that
there was until recently, the slightest sentimental attachment to
England in the heart of the American people at large. Among the
"hyphenated Americans," as they are called--Irish-Americans,
German-Americans, and so forth--it would be folly to look for any such
feeling.[L] The conciliation of America will never be complete until we
have achieved the conciliation of Ireland. It is evident, indeed, from
many symptoms, that Irish-American hostility to England is declining, if
not in rancour, at any rate in influence. Still, a popular New York
paper, on St. Patrick's Day, thinks it worth while to propitiate "The
Powerful Race of Ireland" by a leader under that heading, and to this
effect:
"The Irish race is famous as producing the best fighters and poets
among men, and the most beautiful and most virtuous of women.
"Such a reputation should suffice for any nation.
"And note that Ireland still is and always will be a NATION. There
is no Anglomania in that fair land, no yearning for reciprocity for
the sake of a few dollars, no drinking of the Queen's health
first....
"Noble patriots like John Dillon and William O'Brien fight for them
in the House of Commons, and they are good fighters everywhere,
from the glass-covered room in Westminster Abbey (!) to the
prize-ring, where a Sullivan, of pure Irish blood, forbids any man
to stand three rounds before him.
"The English whipped the Irish at the battle of the Boyne--true.
But the English on that occasion had the good luck to be led by a
Dutchman, and the Irish--sorra the day--had an English King for a
leader. The English King was running fast while the Irish were
still fighting the Dutchman.
"Wellington, of Irish blood, beat Napoleon; Sheridan, of Irish
blood, fought here most delightfully.
"Here's to the Irish!"
This spirited performance no doubt represents fairly enough the
political philosophy of the thousands composing the league-long
procession which filed stolidly up Fifth Avenue on the day of its
appearance.
But even among unhyphenated Americans--Americans pure and simple--the
tendency to regard England as a hereditary foe, though sensibly weakened
by recent events, remains very strong. A good example of this frame of
mind and habit of speech is afforded by the following passage from an
address delivered by Judge Van Wyck at the Democratic Club's Jefferson
Dinner in New York on April 13 last. Referring to England, the speaker
said:--
"Let us be influenced by the natural as well as the fixed policy of
that nation toward us for a century and a half, rather than by
their profuse expressions of friendship during the Spanish War.
England's policy has been one of sharp rivalry and competition
with America; it impelled the Revolution of 1776, fought for
business as well as political independence; brought on the war of
1812, waged against the insolent claim of England for the right to
search our ships of commerce while riding the highways of the
ocean; caused her to contest every inch of our northern boundary
line from ocean to ocean; made her encourage our family troubles
from 1860 to 1865, for which she was compelled to pay us millions
and admit her wrong; and actuated her, in violation of the Monroe
doctrine, to attempt an unwarrantable encroachment on the territory
of Venezuela, until ordered by the American Government to halt."
Apart from the obvious begging of the question with reference to
Venezuela, there is nothing in this invective that has not some
historical foundation. It is the studiously hostile turn of the
phraseology that renders the speech significant. Everything--even the
honourable amends made for the _Alabama_ blunder--is twisted to
England's reproach. She is "compelled" to do this, and "ordered" to do
that. There is here no hint of good feeling, no trace of international
amenity, but sheer undisguised hatred and desire to make the worst of
things. And this address, be it noted, was the speech of the evening at
a huge and representative gathering of the dominant party in New York
municipal politics.
I need scarcely adduce further evidence of the fact that Anglophobia is
still a power in the land, if not the power it once was. But active and
aggressive Anglophobia is, I think, a less important factor in the
situation than the sheer indifference to England, with a latent bias
towards hostility, which is so widespread in America. To the English
observer, this indifference is far more disconcerting than hatred. The
average Briton, one may say with confidence, is not indifferent towards
America. He may be very ignorant about it, very much prejudiced against
certain American habits and institutions, very thoughtless and tactless
in expressing his prejudices; but the United States is not, to him, a
foreign country like any other, on the same plane with France, Germany,
or Russia. But that is precisely what England is to millions of
Americans--a foreign country like any other. We see this even in many
travelling Americans; much more is it to be noted in multitudes who stay
at home. Many Americans seem curiously indifferent even to the comfort
of being able to speak their own language in England; probably because
they have less false shame than the average Englishman in adventuring
among the pitfalls of a foreign tongue. They--this particular class of
travellers, I mean--land in England without emotion, visit its shrines
without sentiment, and pass on to France and Italy with no other feeling
than one of relief in escaping from the London fog. These travellers,
however, are but single spies sent forth by vast battalions who never
cross the ocean. To them England is a mere name, and the name, moreover,
of their fathers' one enemy in war, their own chief rival in trade. They
have no points of contact with England, such as almost every Englishman
has with America. We make use every day of American inventions and
American "notions": English inventions and "notions," if they make their
way to America at all, are not recognised as English. There are few
Britishers, high or low, that have not friends or relatives settled in
America, or have not formed pleasant acquaintanceships with Americans on
this side. But there are innumerable families in America who, even if
they be of British descent, have lost all vital recollection of the
fact; who (as the tide of emigration has not yet turned eastwards) have
no friends or relatives settled in England; and who, in their American
homes, are far more apt to come in contact with men of almost every
other nationality than with Englishmen. "But surely English
literature," it may be said, "brings England home even to people of this
class, and differentiates her from France or Germany." In a measure,
doubtless; but I think it will be found that the lower strata of the
reading public (not in America alone, of course) are strangely
insensitive to local colour. To people of culture, the bond of
literature is a very strong one; but the class of which I am speaking is
not composed of people of culture. They read, it is true, and often
greedily; but generally, I think, without knowing or greatly caring
whether a book is English or American, and at all events with no such
clear perception of the distinctive qualities of English work as could
beget in them any imaginative realisation of, or affection for, England.
Let us make no mistake--in the broad mass of the American people no such
affection exists. They are simply indifferent to England, with, as I
have said, a latent bias towards hostility.
Thus the scale of American feeling towards England, while its gradations
are of course infinite, may be divided into three main sections. At one
end of the scale we have the cultured and travelled classes, especially
in the Eastern States, conscious for the most part of British descent,
alive to the historical relationship between the two countries, valuing
highly their birthright in the treasures of English literature, knowing,
and (not uncritically) understanding England and her people, and
clinging to a kinship of which, taking one thing with another, they have
no reason to be ashamed. This class is intellectually influential, but
its direct weight in politics is small. It is, with shining exceptions,
a "mugwump" class. At the other end of the scale we have the hyphenated
Americans, who have imported or inherited European rancours against
England, and those unhyphenated Americans whose hatred of England is
partly a mere plank in a political platform, designed to accommodate her
hyphenated foe-men, partly a result of instinctive and traditional
chauvinism, reinforced by a (in every sense) partial view of
Anglo-American history. Finally, between these two extremes, we have the
great mass of the American people, who neither love nor hate England,
any more than they love or hate (say) Italy or Japan, but whose
indifference would, until recently, have been much more easily deflected
on the side of hatred than of love. The effect of the Spanish War has
been in some measure to alter this bias, and to differentiate England,
to her advantage, from the other nations of Europe.