America To-day, Observations and Reflections

ion 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 reactio

have arrived at is not a complete mutual understanding, but merely the attitude of mind which may, in course of time, ren

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 Englan

icans, 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-America

best fighters and poets among men, and th

on should suffic

s no Anglomania in that fair land, no yearning for reciprocity for t

they are good fighters everywhere, from the glass-covered room in Westminster Abbey (!) to the pr

n had the good luck to be led by a Dutchman, and the Irish-sorra the day-had an English King fo

Napoleon; Sheridan, of Irish blo

to the

tical philosophy of the thousands composing the league-long processi

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 addr

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;

nificant. 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

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 e

king 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 c

TNO

L

st of the Germans of the second, and all the Germans of the third, generation, who practically all, during 1898, felt toward Germany and England just exactly as other Americans did.... Twice recently I have addressed huge meetings of eight or ten thousand people, each drawn, as regards the enormous majority, from exactly that class which you pointed out as standing between the two ex