AMERICA AND THE WAR.
[To THE EDITOR OF THEI "SPECTATOR.") Sin,—Through the courtesy of an English friend, Mr. A. Percy Eccles, of Liverpool, I am regularly in receipt of the Spectator. Allow me to toll you of the enjoyment I find in it. In the last issue that has come to my attention I read your kindly allusion to the "John Bull" issue of Life. I may be mistaken, but from what you said I somehow get the impression that you regard Life as an exception amongst the American newspapers in the sympathy for the cause of the Allies which it expresses. In this respect I think you are mistaken. Amongst educated Americans, excepting only those of Teutonic birth or parentage, there is a very general recognition of the essential identity of the United States and England in respect of race, polities, and civilization, and most of us are eager to find some way of recognizing the debt we owe to Anglo-Saxon institutions. I am writing this letter because I am very anxious that our "kin across the sea" should understand the facts. They are cogently stated in an article entitled "Our Divided Country" written by Henry J. Fletcher and published in the Atlantic Monthly for February. I enclose you a copy of it torn from that magazine. I wish you could find room for it in the Spectator by way of informing the English people of the difficulties with which our President has to deal. I am also sending you under separate cover most of the New York papers of March 3rd. I presume you get them, but you may have overlooked the voluminous reports in them with regard to the debate now in progress at Washington and the line of cleavage between Congress and the
President. —I am, Sir, &c., Tam H. Plum 15 Wall Street, New York, March 41.h.
[We by no means regard Life as the only friendly American paper. If our generous correspondent could look back over a file of the Spectator, he would find plenty of American newspapers quoted. For example, to name only one, we have repeatedly mentioned the admirable leading articles of the Philadelphia Ledger.—En. Spectator.]
Previous page
